This article will introduce you to the work of a famous artist in a fantasy style, whose style is distinguished by a special image of the beauty of the human body. The name of the author is Boris Valeggio. The paintings created by him are popular in many countries of the world.
About the artist
According to the rules of the Spanish language, his last name (Vallejo) is pronounced “Vallejo”, however, in English and Russian you can find pronunciations of “Valeggio” and “Valeggio”.
By origin, the artist is Peruvian. He was born in 1941 in Lima. He started drawing at the age of thirteen, and achieved such results that by the age of sixteen he got his first job in this field. Then, for five years, he successfully studied at the National Academy of Arts of Peru, graduating with a medal.
When he was 23 years old, he moved to the USA. Working in publishing houses, he gradually developed his own style. Now the artist is a citizen of the United States and lives in Pennsylvania. Boris Valeggio has four children, and all are more or less connected with art: painting, illustration or photographing. The artist was married twice. The current wife, Julia Bell, is also a fantasy artist, and she often acts as a model for his paintings. The couple have a joint website with a gallery of their work, available both for viewing and for purchase via the Internet.
What draws Boris Valeggio
The paintings of this author are easily recognizable, and not only by the characteristic signature “Boris”, placed in the corner of the canvas. The originality of style lies in the fact that it is put in the first place of creativity - the image of a beautiful and strong human body, female or male.
Athletic folded heroes and heroines, dressed in a minimum of clothing or armor, appear in almost all works. Like any bright work, they earned loyal love and fierce criticism. Enemies noted the implausibility and excessive eroticism of the images, emphasizing that the true characters of the fantasy worlds could not dress in this way. But, in spite of everything, fans of the genre continue to love what Boris Valeggio draws . The paintings of this author express the triumph of the physical beauty of people over the world of ugly demons that heroes and heroines fight with.
Interesting work
His first successful project was illustrations for a series of books about Tarzan. Noteworthy are the fruits of cooperation with the famous comic book publisher Marvell. However, Valeggio found his real vocation in creating covers first for books in the fantasy genre, and then various films. Popular projects include Queen of the Barbarians, Knights on Wheels, Barbarella, and European Vacations. He also painted a number of advertising posters. The artist released his works in more than a dozen illustrated albums, the last of which were released in 2005-2006.
Not only among ordinary drawing enthusiasts, Boris Valeggio is popular. Pictures of his authorship often received high marks from art critics, and one of his works, The Amazon Princess and her Pet, was awarded the prestigious British Fantasy Award-1979.
Pop Culture and Boris Valeggio
Fantasy with a bias in eroticism - such a style appealed to very many, and not only lovers of invented worlds. The illustrations of the Peruvian began to decorate amateur sites, covers of music CDs, T-shirts and various souvenir products. Often the images were used illegally, which is not very good, but once again testifies to the enormous popularity of the paintings.
Artist Boris Valeggio, creating in the style of “erotic fantasy”, is very popular in many countries due to the boldness of his imagination and the talented embodiment of images.