Leo Leonhard

1939-2011

Leo Leonhard was born in Leipzig, Germany. He studied German language and literature in Marburg and afterwards painting and graphic arts at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. For many years he taught s as a professor of drawing and illustration in Mainz.

He became internationally famous for his numerous book illustrations, which – such as his highly acclaimed "Faust Cycle" – went far beyond providing a graphic accompaniment to the narrative plot. Leonhard drew and commented, his illustrations liking the great classics to the present. This was also the case with the works in his homage cycles, which were created in recent years (oil paintings, but also drawings and etchings).

Leonhard paid homage to the greats of art history with humour. For example, there is an artwork where Joseph Beuys observing a daliesque hare striding along on large stilts ("Beuys and the Hare") or a homage à Piero della Francesca in which his work is threatened to be covered over by a craftsman with a large roll of paint ("Rollover Piero"). And there is the "pavement painter", under whose skilful hands Caravaggio's "Vocation of St. Matthew" of 1599 was created.

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