The State Russian Art Museum in St. Petersburg is hosting an exhibition of paintings by Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone. Titled "Sylvester Stallone, 35 Years of Paintings," the exhibition at the museum's St. Michael's Castle will showcase more than 30 pieces by the U.S. action-film star -- many of them in the expressionist style -- spanning from the early 1970s to the present.
The star of "Rocky" and "Rambo" has only recently begun to show his paintings, first with an exhibition at the Art Basil Miami Beach Fair in 2009 followed by a retrospective at Switzerland's Galerie Gmurzynska in 2011.
Stallone is scheduled to appear at the opening of his Russian Museum exhibition on October 27 and will tour the museum's permanent collection, which includes masterpieces by Russian artists like Ilya Repin and Ivan Kramskoi, and the world’s largest collection of works by avant-garde painter Kazimir Malevich.
Sylvester Stallone Exhibits Paintings In Russia
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"Angel Skin"
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"Champion Due"
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"An Art Concept by Sly"
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“The Arena”
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"Time Hands"
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"Motherless"
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"Eruption"
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"City Scape"
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"Hercules O’Clock"
Stallone on "Hercules O’Clock": "This painting is really special because it represents what I was feeling as a young man. I was looking for a role model. One day I went to see -- I think I was 12 years old -- “Hercules,” with Steve Reeves. All of a sudden I saw something that ended up changing my entire life. I said, 'That is the male image I want to be. That is something that will make me forget who I am.' So I did, I changed my physique, I did everything. Yet, as I got older, I realized that Hercules isn’t really Hercules. He isn’t that man, the character I was playing -- the superstar. Superheroes are sometimes very, very self-destructive. But for a very brief time they burn bright and look invincible, but -- nothing’s invincible."
Stallone on "Hercules O’Clock": "This painting is really special because it represents what I was feeling as a young man. I was looking for a role model. One day I went to see -- I think I was 12 years old -- “Hercules,” with Steve Reeves. All of a sudden I saw something that ended up changing my entire life. I said, 'That is the male image I want to be. That is something that will make me forget who I am.' So I did, I changed my physique, I did everything. Yet, as I got older, I realized that Hercules isn’t really Hercules. He isn’t that man, the character I was playing -- the superstar. Superheroes are sometimes very, very self-destructive. But for a very brief time they burn bright and look invincible, but -- nothing’s invincible."
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Sylvester Stallone poses with his "The Electric Burst of Creativity" at the opening of Art Basel Miami Beach in Miami in 2009.