Léo Dorfner. Watercolor

Léo Dorfner. Watercolor, Paris, Éditions Lord Byron, 2025

First edition
Special edition of 30 numbered and signed copies, from I to XXX
Each copy includes an original watercolor by the artist
Hardcover, 23 x 27.5 cm, 240 pages
Bilingual edition: French, English
Translations by John Barrett
ISBN: 978-2-491901-95-0

Léo Dorfner. Watercolor is the first monograph dedicated to the artist Léo Dorfner, acclaimed for his watercolor works.
The volume features a preface by Julie Chaizemartin, along with essays by Marc Donnadieu, Laurent Dubarry, and Madeleine Filippi.

"Here, there is neither resignation nor retreat—quite the contrary. Instead, we find broken, scattered, disjointed fragments, sparkling despite their darkness or savagery—shards of awareness, of doubt, uncertainty, perplexity, of human contestation or resistance, traced at the surface of the skin or along the razor’s edge." (Excerpt from the text by Marc Donnadieu)

Born in 1985, Léo Dorfner is a French artist who lives and works in Paris. A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Caen and the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied in the atelier of Djamel Tatah, he is internationally renowned for his mastery of watercolor. For nearly two decades, his work has been exhibited in numerous galleries, most notably at Galerie Claire Gastaud, which represents him, as well as in institutions such as the Philharmonie de Paris, Château du Rivau in Lémeré, Le Parvis in Tarbes, the Paju Museum in South Korea, the Musée des Beaux-Arts – Palais de Carnolès in Menton, the Artothèque de Caen, and Les Salaisons in Romainville.

Julie Chaizemartin, journalist and art critic, holds degrees in Art History and Law from the École du Louvre and Paris I Sorbonne. A regular contributor to the magazines Transfuge, Artpress, and Le Quotidien de l’Art, she also writes for exhibition catalogues and artist monographs. In parallel, she has been a columnist for Le Quotidien du Pharmacien for 15 years, and is the founder of Art District Radio, a web radio dedicated to art and jazz.

Born in 1960, Marc Donnadieu is a former museum curator, independent exhibition curator, researcher, educator, art critic, journalist (Art Press, Beaux-Arts Magazine, Kanal Magazine, Eighty, among others), and French writer known under the pen name Charles-Arthur Boyer. He has worked with numerous institutions, including the FRAC Haute-Normandie, the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Rouen, the André Malraux Museum of Modern Art in Le Havre, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the LaM – Lille Métropole Museum of Modern Art, among others.

Madeleine Filippi has been an independent curator and art critic since 2011. She collaborates with both public and private cultural institutions (Beirut Art Fair, Colombo Art Biennale, Frac Champagne-Ardenne, Musée National de la Maison Bonaparte, among others). She currently contributes to various magazines and exhibition catalogues focusing on the emerging art scene and the art market (Art Press, Le Quotidien de l’Art, L’art Même).