Vasilis Fotopoulos - Director / Painter

ΤΗΕ OSCAR - WINNING ARTIST

Vasilis Fotopoulos was a painter, director, set designer and artistic director. Born in Kalamata in 1934, he studied painting with Kalamatian painter Vangelis Drakos at a young age. His first "exhibition", in fact, was his sketches in "Hunting News" magazine. After his father's death during the Civil War he moved to Athens with his mother and his brother Dionysius. His first contact with the theater was the work he did while he was painting the stage for the Acropol theater group and at the Bournellis Theater. He first appeared as a set designer in the play "Maid", and also worked at the "National Hellenic Theater", the "Free Theater" and the "State Theater of Northern Greece".

In 1958, Kostis Bastias, (then director of the Opera), assigned the stage and costumes design for an opera to him. In 1960, he left the Opera and traveled to Europe following the artistic developments in painting, theater and cinema. In 1962, he collaborated with Mikis Theodorakis, Michalis Kakogiannis and Bost on "Beautiful City". In 1963, he was chosen by Elias Kazan for the artistic direction of the film "America-America". He did all 75 sets in this film, but the director omitted his name in the titles. When Fotopoulos complained to Kazan, the answer was, "But who would have thought that these scenes were created by a Greek ...". That’s the reason why the Oscar for best set design was given to Kallahan but a year later, in 1964, vindication came for Fotopoulos. Then, he won the Oscar for Artistic Director for Michalis Kakogiannis's film "Zorbas the Greek"! In 1966, he collaborated with American director Francis Ford Coppola in the movie "You are a Big Boy Now".

Since 1967, and throughout the dictatorship, he stayed in the US working as a stage designer and artistic director. In 1973 he returned to Greece where he made his first directing effort for the movie "Orestis", in which his brother Dionysus made the sets and costumes. From 1980 until his death he had been dedicated to painting and presented his works in many solo exhibitions. He died in Athens on January 14th, 2007, at the age of 73.