By Sarah Cascone
Over twenty years after his first nomination, Leonardo DiCaprio was award Best Actor Oscar at the 88th Academy Awards on February 28. Now he can add the iconic golden statuette to his impressive art collection.
The honor recognized the actor's work in The Revenant, Alejandro González Iñárritu's western thriller, in which DiCaprio plays a man left for dead in wilderness. The film picked up awards for Best Cinematography and Best Director, the second year in row Iñárritu was honored, but lost out for best picture to Spotlight.
DiCaprio had previously been nominated for Best Actor for roles in The Aviator (2005), Blood Diamond (2007), and The Wolf of Wall Street (2014), and for a Best Supporting Actor for 1993's What's Eating Gilbert Grape.
In recent years, the actor has become a regular on the art fair scene in New York; in 2015, DiCaprio was spotted snapping up work at PULSE and scarfing down pizza at Frieze. Later in the year, he stopped by the Mike Kelley opening at New York's Hauser & Wirth, and cut the line to enter Exploded Fortress of Solitude. He also bought at $250,000 Walton Ford painting at a charity auction for endangered turtles.
His love art may stem in part from his father, George DiCaprio, a former comic book artist who he thanked in his acceptance speech. The actor dedicated his acceptance speech, however, to another passion, calling viewers to support an environmentalist cause.
"Climate change is real, it is happening right now," said DiCaprio. "It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating."
The stirring remarks were hardly a surprise coming from the activist actor, who has been supporting conservation efforts through his Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation since 1998. The organization's most recent gala in St. Tropez, France, sold $40 million in art to benefit the cause.
This past July, DiCaprio announced plans to donate $15 million to a number of organizations working on environmental projects. Last year, he also gifted Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada), a massive installation by John Gerrard, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and co-chaired LACMA's annual Art + Film gala, where Iñárritu was honored along with James Turrell.
Source: news.artnet.com
