Dionysis D. Fotopoulos

The internationally renowned Greek set designer Dionysis Fotopoulos, brother of painter and set designer Vassilis Fotopoulos, was born in 1943 in Kalamata. He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts under the guidance of Yiannis Tsarouchis and formed friendships with Moralis, Engonopoulos, Chatzikyriakos-Gikas, E. Labeti, M. Mercouri, and O. Elytis. With over 250 set designs to his credit, he has collaborated with nearly all the significant Greek theater directors at the Art Theater, the National Theater, the State Theater of Northern Greece, the Epidaurus Festival, the Athens Concert Hall, among others, as well as with leading international theater and opera directors (Peter Hall, Peter Stein - "Julius Caesar," "Caesar and Cleopatra," "Hamlet," "Penthesilea," etc.). A distinctive figure in the arts, Fotopoulos is a captivating personality, a multi-talented and busy artist, solitary yet sociable in his own way, a lover of beauty and the "handmade," as he often says. He is a devoted fan of Epidaurus, both as a resident and as a spectator depending on the performance, as well as of the Athenian center (his home-studio is located in Lycabettus). In 2002, a major retrospective exhibition of his theatrical set designs was presented at the Spoleto Festival, which subsequently toured London, Berlin, Prague, and Florence. The same exhibition was later hosted from December 2005 to March 2006 at the new wing of the Benaki Museum on Pireos Street, as part of a larger tribute - a retrospective of his entire body of work.