Léos Aqua Aqua was born on 17.2.1939 near Frauenstein in Upper Austria. The parental home is located near a mountain spring. This circumstance was later to have symbolic significance. Fatedly, he understood water as a being that he loved right down to its deepest roots. Since he was three years old, he has had only one favourite activity: drawing and painting on the water - at the springs, creeks, rivers and the Danube. He tries to depict lakes and waterfalls, ponds, gorges and pools of water, drawing and painting water drops, rain, dew, hoarfrost, hail, ice, snow, steam, haze and clouds in between.

1954-1957 Attended the art school in Steyr with the professors Krepcik and Schatzl. At the Enns, but especially in the floodplain of the Steyr river, he gains essential insights into the structure and visualization of the deep layers in the artistic representation of water. He also comes to the realization that ultimately not only the stars, but the entire life on earth finds its optical evocation in the world of water. Continues his water drop representations.

In 1955, in Venice, he dedicated his entire life to artistic research and representation of the primeval and living element of water and included his commitment to the "protection of water". In numerous ecological water pictures, including water-writing pictures, he is committed to the various aspects of water and nature conservation. Also in the following years numerous stays in the lagoon city, as well as in Trieste, Duino and Chioggia.

1959 he is accepted into the master class for painting / University of Applied Arts in Vienna (Prof. Eduard Bäumer) as a water painter without an entrance examination. The Danube plays a dominant role in the representation of his river pictures. Important works are being created on its banks, mainly in Wilhering, Linz, Krems, Klosterneuburg, Vienna, Lobau and the Hainburger Auen.

1963 successful completion of studies (Mag. Art.). The artist is awarded the "Prize of the University of Applied Arts". He subsequently painted seawater pictures in Italy, where he spent two years mainly in Calabria/Tropea, Sicily, on the Aeolian Islands and a little later in Sardinia.

1965 Elizabeth C. Wong takes the water painter into the gallery TAO in Vienna. She is impressed by the "Painting of the Water World" and organizes numerous exhibitions at home and abroad, with those in Spoleto, during the "Festival dei Due Mondi", being of particular importance. Start of his public commitment to water protection. It is always important to him to combine the artistic questions of water with those of his commitment to water as an element of life. He paints and draws on numerous waters in Austria, especially in the Salzkammergut and the Carinthian Lake District. At the Neusiedlersee its Water Reed Baled. Most of his seascapes he paints in Venice, in southern Italy, in Istria, on the Dalmatian Islands and the Cyclades. Short-term painting stays took him to Spain, Portugal and Morocco. The first museum directors and art historians in Vienna who welcomed his waterway with full interest were Professors Dr. Walter Koschatzky/AIbertina and Dr. Fritz Nowotny/Belvedere.

Since 1965, the artist has been campaigning for the introduction of an annual "World Water Day", which is finally set by UNESCO for 22 March 1992. He paints and draws at the springs and streams of the Otscher, at Walster Ursprung in Annaberg and at the river Kamp near Mollands and Rosenburg.

1966 Léos Aqua Aqua is described by Italian art critics as "The painter of water" and "The painter of the sea" / Franca Calzavacca, Enrico Filippo Gasparrini, Alessandro Morichelli - in the 70s: Arturo Bovi, Michelangelo Masciotta, Domenico Coletti, Lev Menage/Ljubljana, Gorka Ostojic-Cvajner/PuIa. 1968 Since there is still no water reading with a contemporary art reference, he turns to the water-sea and behavioral research. The books of Konrad Lorenz, Hans Hass, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt accompanied him from then on.

In 1969 he advocated the inclusion of water protection as a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools.

In 1973, he called for an awakening to the "element of life" and pleaded for water to be incorporated into all areas of art.

1975 during a double exhibition in Assisi, the important Roman art historian and art critic Arturo Bovi commented on the artist: "Never before in the history of mankind and art known to us and handed down to us has an artist like Aqua Aqua dedicated himself exclusively to water, and never before has an artist like Aqua Aqua attempted to use the water in of painting - in its lawfulness, essentiality and complexity".

1977 Set off on the Cyclades Islands, Naxos and Santorini create ink drawings and oil paintings on the theme "What do you do man? in relation to the crimes man inflicts on "water-nature". Ecological water pictures, "Water-Script-BiIder" and archaeological underwater representations are created.

1981 high recognition in Paris. Michel Leiris, a close friend of Picasso and well-known ethnologist, art critic and comrade-in-arms of the Surrealists, successor of the legendary Picasso gallery owner Kahnweiler, calls him "The Creator of Aquatism". I am convinced, Leiris continues, that her art will be recognized as "fundamental", perhaps in the near future. Pierre-Louis Desprez, his Parisian writer friend, says of him: "Aqua Aqua has become synonymous with water".

1984 The cultural editor Leopold Netopil/Vienna calls him the "ambassador of water" and expresses the following in the art magazine "old and modern art": "Exclusivity to deal with the world of water as intensively as Aqua Aqua does knows no example in art history".

1998 Participation in the WATER EXPO 98 in Lisbon. The Austrian contribution is: "Land of healthy water". Spanish academy professors call his painting of water "totalmente nuevo". His aquatism enjoys worldwide recognition. The historian Brigitta Mader begins her essay on the artist in Aqua-Press-lnternational with the words: "WATER as NUCLEUS of ARTISTIC PRESENTATION".

In 2005 and 2007 at the "Biennale Internazionale delMArte Contemporanea" in Florence, his aquatism caused a sensation.

2006 paints the oil painting "HOMMAGE AN FRIEDRICH CERHA". Begins to paint water homages for people who have done essential work above and for the water, fought for, composed and filmed. Among them are: Manfred WAGNER, cultural scientist, "Über die Wasser-Deutung in Mozarts Idomeneo" Freda MEISSNER-BLAU, " Rettung der Hainburger Donauauen" Udo MAURER, filmmaker, film "Uber Wasser" Karo KATZMANN, water biologist, "Schwarzbuch Wasser" Robert POBITSCHKA, composer, "Water is Life".

2008 and 2009 watercolours on the volcanic island La Palma.

2010 to 2014 Cycle 1, Mondrian in the Game of Water.

2013 Private exhibition with the support of Elisabeth Wolkenstein.

2015 Exhibition in the gallery ART MARK, Singerstraße 17-19, 1010 Vienna.

Further exhibitions at home and abroad are planned.