Welcome to our new AMAA Honorary Professor, Leo Stopfer

“The Painter of the Ballet Stars”

Leo Stopfer’s passion for ballet began later as he met the ballerina Mitra Nayeri, who inspired him to create his first pastels paintings and ballet drawings in the year of 1989.

An important chapter in Leo Stopfer’s artistic career began in 2011. On the 9th of January 2011, the painter was inspired in the Vienna State Opera by the performance of two ballerinas — Ketevan Papava and  Marie-Claire D’Lyse in the ballet ‚Bella Figura‘.

The dancing bodies fascinated him, initiating a new creative union. Two weeks later, the painter was working on the new masterpiece in his atelier, accompanied by four ballerinas. The result of this work is the series of paintings ‘Bella Figura’. Later, other stars of the Vienna State Ballet became the heroes of Leo Stopfer’s paintings.

Leo Stopfer made the ballet one of the main themes of his art. Cooperating with many outstanding dancers for many years he created plenty of paintings depicting the greatest ballerinas of the 20-21 centuries. Among them are such grandees of the world ballet scene as Diana Vishneva (the Mariinsky Theatre), Olga Smirnova and Evgenia Obraztsova (Bolshoi Theatre), Vladimir Malakhov (State Ballet of Berlin), Maria Abashova (Ballet Theatre of Boris Eifman), Maria Yakovleva (Vienna State Ballet), Isabelle Ciaravola and Ludmila Pagliero (Opera de Paris) and Julie Kent and Alessandra Ferri (ABT New York).

Exhibitions in Vienna State Opera and KLIMT VILLA

Almost 10 years later, Leo Stopfer had a big honor to expose his artworks created in collaboration with the ballet dancers of the Vienna State Opera in the Opera House. The Leo Stopfer’s personal exhibition „Förderpreisträger und Ehrenmitglieder des Ballettclubs, Stars des Wiener Staatsballetts“ (in English: Award winners and honorary members of the ballet club, stars of the Vienna State Ballet) took place at the Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper) since November 2019 till February 2020.

Since his first exhibition in 1982, Stopfer’s work has been exhibited all around Europe, including London, Vienna, Berlin, Moscow, Luxembourg, Côte d’Azur.

It is also noteworthy that Leo Stopfer was the first artist to receive the honor of being invited by the KLIMT VILLA in 2017 to work in the original studio where the great master Klimt lived and worked. The result of this work was dozens of drawings and a large number of women’s portraits united under the title “meine Musen / my muses”. This series of works was presented at the personal exhibition of Leo Stopfer in the KLIMT VILLA Vienna in May 2018.

If you would like to learn more about Lep Stopfer and his artworks, please visit www.leostopfer.com.