Dean Tavoularis
Sans titre, 2010, acrylique sur toile, 81 x 100 cm
Sans titre, 2010, acrylique sur toile, 81 x 100 cm

Born in 1932 in the United States, Dean Tavoularis began studying Architecture and Art. It was the perfect education for an artistic director in cinema. Then he attempted the “Cathedral of Art”, Walt Disney Studios. To his surprise, he was hired. It was the 1950s. After a year Walt Disney wisely offered to transfer him to the art department for films and actors. During the 7 years that “he worked, he was free to paint.” Later, when Dean Tavoularis left Disney to be a decorator it became impossible to paint. “I worked for different studios, I traveled for years, always torn between two conflicting desires: my painting and my exciting new job in film.”

“My first film as an artistic director was Bonnie and Clyde, shot in Texas by Arthur Penn, with whom I would also shoot Little Big Man. Then I flew to San Francisco, where I was going to design Zabriskie Point to meet the great Michelangelo Antonioni. It was wonderful. Then I met Francis Coppola. It was the beginning of a long collaboration with The Godfather 1, 2 and 3, then The Conversation, and after Apocalypse Now, One From The Heart, The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, Peggy Sue Got Married, Gardens of Stone, Tucker, New York Stories, and Jack.

…Not forgetting Roman Polanski, Philippe Kaufman, Nancy Meyers, Charles Shyer, Phil Joanou, William Friedkin, Dick Richards, Wim Wenders, Warren Beatty… Painting and cinema are for him different but comparable means of creating an illusory world.

Dominique Païni wrote: “I like to think that painting is for him only a continuity of his decorative virtuosity, an extension which would ennoble the efficiency of the decorator. They are in fact the two opposite and united sides of the same undertaking, a founding opposition, as if this plastic temperament were only realized by struggling dramaturgy against abstraction, characters against objects, tragic collage against cheerful caricature, painting versus cinema. Against, therefore… with.”

Video

WORKS
Exhibitions

Solo show

2024
Dean Tavoularis, Galerie Louis Gendre, Chamalières Communiqué de presse Catalogue
Dean Tavoularis, Galerie De Buci, Paris
Dean Tavoularis, Galerie Louis Gendre Paris et Yoyo Maeght 2022 Press releaseCatalogue
2023
Galerie Louis Gendre, Chamalières Catalogue
Luxembourg Art Week, Galerie Louis Gendre
2021
Topsy Turvy, Galerie Olivier Castaing / Team School Gallery, Paris
Art Paris Art Fair, Grand Palais Éphémère, Galerie Olivier Castaing / Team School Gallery, Paris
2011
Painting in Cinema, Galerie Catherine Houard, Paris
Art Paris Art fair, Grand Palais, Galerie Catherine Houard, Paris
2007
Festival Radio France
Pavillon du Musée Fabre, Montpellier
2005
Musée d’Art Contemporain de Thessalonique, Grèce

Filmography

2011
God of Carnage, Roman Polanski
2000
Angel Eyes, Luis Mandoki
C.Q, Roman Coppola
1999
The Ninth Gate, Roman Polanski
1998
Tucker : The Man and His Dream, FF Coppola
Bullworth, Warren Beatty
The Parent Trap, Nancy Meyers
1996
Jack, FF Coppola
1994
I Love Trouble, Charles Shyer
1993
Rising Sun, Philip Kaufman
1992
Final Analysis, Phil Joanou
1990
The Godfather Part III, FF Coppola
1989
New York Stories (Life without Zoé), FF Coppola
1988
Tucker, FF Coppola
1987
Gardens of Stone, FF Coppola
A Man in Love, Diane Kurys
1986
Peggy Sue Got Married, FF Coppola
1983
The Outsiders, FF Coppola
Bulworth, Warren Beatty
1982
The Escape Artist, Caleb Deschanel
One From The Heart, FF Coppola
Hammett, Wim Wenders
1979
Apocalyspe Now, FF Coppola
1978
The Brink’s Job, William Friedkin
1975
Farewell my Lovely, Dick Richards

The Godfather II
1974
The Godfather Part II, FF Coppola
The Conversation, FF Coppola
1972
The Godfather, FF Coppola
1970
Little Big Man, Arthur Penn
1970
Zabriskie Point, Michelangelo Antonioni
1968
Candy, Christian Marquand
1967
Bonnie and Clyde, Arthur Penn