Leo Stopfer (born 15 May, 1964) is an Austrian artist who is widely acclaimed as the "Painter of the Ballet-Stars."
dancers
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire ...
of world fame.
Biography
Early life and art techniques
* 1979 – first drawings;
* 1981 – inspired by Picasso's works, he starts painting with oil-color;
* 1982 – first personal exhibition;acrylic
Acrylic may refer to:
Chemicals and materials
* Acrylic acid, the simplest acrylic compound
* Acrylate polymer, a group of polymers (plastics) noted for transparency and elasticity
* Acrylic resin, a group of related thermoplastic or thermosett ...
- or oil-colors creating a relief on canvas)[ is the main part of his work until 2009.
]
Ballerina Paintings
In 1989, Leo Stopfer created his first pastel
A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those use ...
paintings and drawings of the ballerina Mitra Nayeri.
Later, Stopfer made ballet one of the main themes of his art. Cooperating with many dancers for many years; he created many paintings depicting the ballerinas of the 20th and 21st centuries. Among them are such grandees of the world ballet scene such as Diana Vishneva (the Mariinsky Theatre), Olga Smirnova Olga Smirnova may refer to:
*Olga Smirnova (dancer) (born 1991), Russian ballet dancer
*Olga Smirnova (wrestler)
Olga Vladimirovna Smirnova (russian: Ольга Владимировна Смирнова; born May 11, 1979, in Novocheboksarsk, S ...
and Evgenia Obraztsova (Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre ( rus, Большо́й теа́тр, r=Bol'shoy teatr, literally "Big Theater", p=bɐlʲˈʂoj tʲɪˈatər) is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, originally designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds ballet and ope ...
), Vladimir Malakhov ( Berlin State Ballet), Maria Abashova
Maria Yurievna Abashova (russian: Мария Юрьевна Абашова) is a Russian ballerina who is principal dancer at the Eifman Ballet, St. Petersburg. She studied at St. Pölten Ballet Conservatory, Austria.
Abashova excelled and becam ...
(Ballet Theatre of Boris Eifman
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...
), Maria Yakovleva
Maria may refer to:
People
* Mary, mother of Jesus
* Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages
Place names Extraterrestrial
*170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877
*Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, da ...
( Vienna State Ballet) and Isabelle Ciaravola
Isabelle Ciaravola (born March 12, 1972) is a French ballet dancer. From 1990, she danced with the Paris Opera Ballet where she rose to the top rank of étoile in 2009. Since retiring from the stage in February 2014, she has devoted most of her tim ...
and Ludmila Pagliero
Ludmila Pagliero (born 15 October 1983) is an Argentinian ballet dancer. Since 2003, she dances with the Paris Opera Ballet, where she is a '' danseuse étoile'' (the highest rank of the Paris Opera Ballet) since 2012.
Early life
Pagliero was b ...
(Opera de Paris
The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be ...
).[
]
Exhibitions
Since his first exhibition in 1982, Stopfer's work has been exhibited all around Europe, including London,[ Vienna,][ Moscow, and Luxembourg.
Leo Stopfer was the first artist to be invited by the ]Klimt Villa
Klimt Villa (i.e. Villa Werner) is a building located in the Hietzing Districts of Vienna, district of Vienna built in the early 1920s upon the last Viennese studio of the painter Gustav Klimt.
The association of the term ''villa'' with the name ...
in Vienna in 2017 to work in the original studio where the master Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's prim ...
lived and worked. This work resulted in dozens of drawings and a large number of women's portraits united under the title "my muses" (german: link=no, meine Musen). This series of works was presented at the personal exhibition of Leo Stopfer in the Klimt Villa in May 2018.
Stopfer had a current solo exhibition that took place at the Vienna State Opera.[
]
Style
Stopfer's earlier paintings are landscapes in an organic- abstract style, using a mixed impasto technique. He combined earth, sand, and stones with acrylic paint to develop a relief-like texture.[
The artist likes to work with acrylic combined with pencil. He also sometimes works with mixed media, using gouache when the ballerinas dance on his canvas to make prints with their feet.][
In his works, the artist tries to express a portion of the dancer's energy. The models depicted by Leo Stopfer are always characterized by heightened sensuality and frankness.
]
References
Bibliography
*
*
External links
Leo Stopfer's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stopfer, Leo
1964 births
Austrian painters
20th-century painters
21st-century painters
Living people