Discussions

Vassilis Fotopoulos was born in 1934 in Kalamata. During the Civil War his father was murdered and he, his mother and his brother Dionysis moved to Athens, where he was introduced to painting by E. Drakos. He fled to the monastery of Voulkanos and there he came into contact with Byzantine hagiography, which led him to study painting in Athens. He came into contact with the theatre in 1958, painting the sets of the "Akropol" and "Burnellis" theatres and since then he started working as a set designer and costume designer. From the early 1960s to 1967 he lived between Greece and America designing costumes and sets for major productions: America, America (1963), Zorba (1964). For Zorba he even won an Oscar for his set design work. He remained in America throughout the junta and returned in 1973, where he worked on many theatre and film productions. In the 1980s he immersed himself in painting, creating a personal style that was strongly influenced by both set design and iconography. The human figure predominates, which is very often depicted through chromatic and morphological distortions influenced by particular emotional states. He exhibited his paintings in the 1990s and 2000s in Athens and Thessaloniki, while many tributes to him and his brother, Dionysis Fotopoulos, also a set designer, were held. He died in 2007 in Athens.