TARSI ARSILA LA DO AM AMAR ARAL AL
TARSI ARSILA LA DO AM AMAR ARAL AL INVE IN VENTING NTING MOD MODER ERN N ART IN BRAZIL STEPHANIE D’ALESSANDRO A N D LUIS PÉREZ-ORAMAS
The Art Institute of Chicago / The The Museum of Modern Art, New York Distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London
11 FOREWORD 13 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 16 TARSILA DO AMARAL: DEVOURING MODERNIST NARRATIVES STEPHANIE D’ALESSANDRO AN D LUIS PÉREZ-ORAMAS
27 PLATES 38 A NEGRA, ABAPORU, AND TARSILA’S ANTHROPOPHAGY STEPHANIE D’ALESSANDRO
57 PLATES 84 TARSILA, MELANCHOLIC CANNIBAL LUIS PÉREZ-ORAMAS
101 PLATES 125 CHRONOLOGY 131 PHOTOGRAPHS AND DOCUMENTS 155 HISTORICAL TEXTS 178 182 186 191
CHECKLIST SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS
At the Art Institute of Chicago, major support is generously provided by the Diane & Bruce Halle Foundation. Additional funding is contributed by the Morton International Exhibition Fund, Robert J. Buford, Noelle C. Brock, Constance and David Coolidge, Margot Levin Schiff and the Harold Schiff Foundation, the Jack and Peggy Crowe Fund, and Erika Erich. Annual support for Art Institute exhibitions is provided by the Exhibitions Trust: Neil Bluhm and the Bluhm Family Charitable Foundation; Jay Franke and David Herro; Kenneth Griffin; Caryn and King Harris, The Harris Family Foundation; Liz and Eric Lefkofsky; Robert M. and Diane v.S. Levy; Ann and Samuel M. Mencoff; Usha and Lakshmi N. Mittal; Thomas and Margot Pritzker; Anne and Chris Reyes; Betsy Bergman Rosenfield and Andrew M. Rosenfield; Cari and Michael J. Sacks; and the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Foundation.
This exhibition catalogue is made possible by the Diane & Bruce Halle Foundation.
Major support for the New York presentation is provided by The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art. Additional support is provided by the Annual Exhibition Fund.
FOREWORD
The Art Institute of Chicago and The Museum of Modern Art,
works during the many months of this exhibition’s tour. Thanks are
New York, are proud to present the work of Tarsila do Amaral,
also due to Douglas Druick, former president and director of the
which has been included in only a handful of group exhibitions
Art Institute of Chicago, for his early and enthusiastic support of
on Latin American and Brazilian art and has never been the sole
this project.
subject of an exhibition in North America. The Art Institute has a special connection to Tarsila, as she is affectionately called
We acknowledge the generous donors who have made possible
in Brazil, in that the museum’s permanent collection includes
the organization of this exhibition. In Chicago, major funding was
a painting she purchased for her own collection in 1923, the year
provided by the Diane & Bruce Halle Foundation. In New York,
she began to develop a modern art for her country. Robert
the exhibition was made possible by The International Council of
Delaunay’s Champs de Mars: The Red Tower (1911/23) graced
The Museum of Modern Art and the Annual Exhibition Fund.
Tarsila’s home in Paris and also traveled to São Paulo, where it inspired her own work as well as that of many of the young modernists in the city. Tarsila sold the painting in the early 1950s;
James Rondeau
it eventually joined the museum’s collection, and her legacy is
President and Eloise W. Martin Director
now a part of our story. The Museum of Modern Art is the only
The Art Institute of Chicago
institution in North America where the three major works by Tarsila that constitute the core of our project’s narrative—A Negra
Glenn D. Lowry
(1923), Abaporu (1928), and Anthropophagy (1929)—have been
Director
shown together before this exhibition: in 1993 they were united
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
in Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century. For an institution that has collected Latin American art for almost ninety years, it was imper ative to produce a monograp hic exhibition devoted to Tarsila’s most significant production and that will include her first work to enter MoMA’s collection, a recently gifted drawing from 1930. To present Tarsila’s oeuvre to North American audiences, and especially young artists, at this time in our own histories is particularly poignant for both institutions. We are grateful to Stephanie D’Alessandro, former Gary C. and Frances Comer Curator of International Modern Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, and to Luis Pérez-Oramas, former Estrellita Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art at The Museum of Modern Art, for their dedication to the artist and her work, for their perseverance on this complex project, and for the great attention and care they brought to both the catalogue and the exhibition. We extend our thanks to Tarsila’s family, and especially to Tarsilinha do Amaral, who generously facilitated Stephanie and Luis’s research and enthusiastically supported our institutions’ efforts. We are additionally indebted to the many private and institutional lenders who have entrusted us with the care of their
11
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil is the first exhibition
the many international colleagues who shared information, advice,
in North America exclusively dedicated to the pioneering work of
and their passion and expertise with us as we developed this
one of the greatest Brazilian artists of the last century. Our project
project, including Waltercio Caldas, Pedro Corrêa do Lago, Lenora
not only traces the path of Tarsila’s groundbreaking art but also
de Barros, Marco Augusto Gonçalves, Marcelo Mattos Araújo, Ivo
clarifies its power to inspire others. In January 1928 she painted
Mesquita, Adriano Pedrosa, and Carlos Zilio. Like all those seeking
Abaporu —a curious canvas of an elongated, isolated figure with a
a greater understanding of the artist, we are grateful to many
blooming cactus—that soon spawned Anthropophagy, a powerful
scholars, among them most especially Aracy Amaral, Beatriz
artistic movement that sought to overcome outside influences
Azevedo, Juan Manuel Bonet, Estrella de Diego, Michele Greet, Paulo
and make an art for and of Brazil itself. By the 1960s and 1970s, a
Herkenhoff, Ana Gonçalves Magalhães, Sônia Salzstein, Jorge
new generation of young artists rediscovered both Antropophagy
Schwartz, Lilia Schwarz, Megan Sullivan, Regina Teixeira de Barros,
and Tarsila’s art. The subjects of her paintings and drawings were
and others noted in the bibilography for their many contributions.
recuperated as part of a lost national imaginary, resuscitated and restored by Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticia, Lygia Pape, Caetano Veloso,
An exhibition such as this would not have been possible without
and other artists whose work is associated with the Tropicália
the assistance of numerous individuals who helped us locate
movement. Even today, nearly ninety years after the production
works, secure critical loans, and identify essential research and
of Abaporu, Tarsila’s art retains its formidable call.
photographic materials. In particular, we thank Antonio Almeida, Raquel Arnaud, Carlos Dale, Paulo Kuczynski, André Millan,
Although the artist’s work is of foundational importance to contem-
Max Perlingeiro, Marilia Razuk, Ricardo Ribenboim, Renata Viellas
porary Brazil, its almost complete invisibility to North Americans
Rödel, and Monica Tachotte.
has made organizing this project a serious challenge. In navigating a sometimes uncertain and rocky path, we have depended on
A great many institutions demonstrated remarkable generosity
the assistance and collaboration of many individuals. First and
in making their objects available for loan to the exhibition. For their
foremost, we want to thank the artist’s heirs and recognize the
essential cooperation and support, we extend our thanks to the
unwavering commitment of her great-grandniece, Tarsilinha do
following colleagues: Carlos Adão Volpato, Marcio Harum, Eduardo
Amaral. Without their enthusiasm and support, this exhibition and
Niero, and Pena Schmidt, Arte da Cidade/DADoC /CCSP/S MC/
catalogue could not have happened.
PMSP; Ana Cristina Barreto de Carvalho, Acervo Artístico-Cultural dos Palácios do Governo do Estado de São Paulo; Bianca Dettino,
We are also grateful for the essential contributions of colleagues
Sandra Margarida Nitrini, Elisabete Marin Ribas, and Paulo Teixeira
in museums, universities, libraries, archives, government agencies,
Iumatti, Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros da Universidade de São
galleries, and auction houses, as well as of many other individuals
Paulo; Cristina Antunes, Biblioteca Mindlin, Universidade de
who helped us to locate and secure loans or who shared their
São Paulo; Marie-Christine Doffey and Fabien Dubosson, Fonds
knowledge and expertise. From across Brazil, Argentina, Europe, and
Blaise C endrars, Archives littéraires suisses; Deirdre Lawrence
the United States, more than forty-eight institutions, organizations,
and Anne Pasternak, Brooklyn Museum; Aude Bodet, Juliette Pollet,
and private collectors graciously agreed to share their most cherished
and Yves Robert, Centre National des Arts Plastiques; Lina
works with us, in many cases to be shown for the very first time
Gomes Amade o and Helena Se vero,Fundação Biblioteca Nacional;
in North America. We are profoundly indebted to all the lenders for
Fernando Mauro Barrueco, Fundação José e Paulina Nemirovsky;
their immense generosity and trust.
Carlos Alberto Gouvea Chateaubriand and Luiz Camillo Osorio, Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro; Paulo Roberto Amaral
While our work on the exhibition and catalogue stretched over
Barbosa, Carlos Roberto Brandão, Katia Canton, Ana Gonçalves
four years, the idea was born much earlier, and we want to thank
Magalhães, and Hugo Segawa, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da
13
Universidade de São Paulo; Eduardo F. Costantini, Victoria Giraudo, and Agustín Pérez Rubio, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires–Fundación Costantini; Živé Giúdice, Sandra Regina Jesus, and Marcelo Rezende, Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia; Scott Krafft, Sarah Pritchard, and Morton O. Schapiro, Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University; Marcelo Araújo, Tadeu Chiarelli, Fernanda D’Agostino, Ivo Mesquita, Valeria Piccoli, and Joachim Volz, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; Monica Alarcon, Peter Hanff, Janet Napolitano, and Elaine Tennant, the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; Andrew Ashton, Jonathan L. Chenette, Elizabeth Howe Bradley, and Ron Patkus, Vassar College Libraries; and Peter Salovey, E. C. Schroeder, and Timothy Young, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. We also acknowledge the valued role played by our funders. At the Art Institute of Chicago, major support for the catalogue and exhibition is generously provided by the Diane & Bruce Halle Foundation. Additional funding is contributed by the Morton International Exhibition Fund, Robert J. Buford, Noelle C. Brock, Constance and David Coolidge, Margot Levin Schiff and the Harold Schiff Foundation, the Jack and Peggy Crowe Fund, and Erika Erich. Annual support for Art Institute exhibitions is provided by the Exhibitions Trust: Neil Bluhm and the Bluhm Family Charitable Foundation; Jay Franke and David Herro; Kenneth Griffin; Caryn and King Harris, The Harris Family Foundation; Liz and Eric Lefkofsky; Robert M. and Diane v.S. Levy; Ann and Samuel M. Mencoff; Usha and Lakshmi N. Mittal; Thomas and Margot Pritzker; Anne and Chris Reyes; Betsy Bergman Rosenfield and Andrew M. Rosenfield; Cari and Michael J. Sacks; and the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Foundation. Major support for the New York presentation is provided by The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art. Additional support is provided by the Annual Exhibition Fund. The realization of this project depended on many talented people at the Art Institute of Chicago and The Museum of Modern Art, and we have been gratified by their immediate enthusiasm for Tarsila’s work. First and foremost, we want to acknowledge the support of our museums’ directors—James Rondeau and
14
Tarsila do Amaral
his predecessor Douglas Druick in Chicago and Glenn D. Lowry in New York. We should also recognize former Art Institute colleagues who provided essential support—Erin Hogan, Gordon Montgomery, and Martha Tedeschi—and Christophe Cherix, Kathy Halbreich, Jay Levenson, and Ann Temkin at the Museum of Modern Art. At the Museum of Modern Art, we would additionally like to acknowledge Peter Reed and Ramona Bannayan. We should also thank Milan Hughston and Jennifer Tobias in Library and Museum Archives; Anny Aviram and Erika Mosier in Conservation; Rachel Kim, Jennifer Cohen, and Erik Patton in Exhibition Planning and Administration; Matthew Cox in Exhibition Design and Production; Nancy Adelson in General Counsel; Rob Jung, Caitlin Kelly, Tom Krueger, Susan Palamara, Stefanii Ruta-Atkins, and the team of art handlers and preparators in Collections Management and Exhibition Registration; Kim Mitchell, Margaret Doyle, and Sara Beth Walsh in Communications; Shannon Darrough and Maggie Lederer in Digital Media; Leslie Davis, Ian Eckert, Allison LaPlatney, and Kathryn Ryan in Collections and Exhibitions Technology; Sara Bodinson, Pablo Helguera, Sarah Kennedy, Jess Van Nostrand, and Wendy Woon in Education; and finally, Todd Bishop, Bobby Kean, Sylvia Renner, and Anna Luisa Vallifuoco in Development. In Drawings and Prints, Karen Grimson attended to every detail of the exhibition, from inception to realization, with a distinguished spirit of commitment and enthusiasm, and was instrumental to the success of the project; Jodi Hauptman provided brilliant support and insight; John Prochilo supported and guided the project with skill and intuition; Jacqueline Cruz lent a valuable hand at crucial moments; Jerónimo Duarte-Riascos supported, encouraged, and disseminated our discussions; and Lilia Taboada made flawless contributions to the project. Additionally, Emily Edison and Emily Cushman offered critical support to the exhibition. At the Art Institute of Chicago, this project has benefited from the extraordinary dedication, support, and enthusiasm of Sarah Guernsey and Ann Goldstein. We must also acknowledge Zahra Bahia, Jennifer Draffen, and Jennifer Paoletti in Exhibitions; Julie Getzels, Troy Klyber, and Maria Simon in the General Counsel’s
Office; Sally-Ann Felgenhauer, Darrell Green, Susanna Hedbloom,
the book’s production. Jena Sher created an elegant and intelli-
and Anna Simonovic in Registration; John Molini and his team
gent design, and we are grateful for her inventiveness, care, and
in Art Handling and Preparation; Samantha Grassi and Sara Urizar
keen eye.
in Design and Construction; Emily Lew Black Fry, Nenette Luarca, Fawn Ring, and Jacqueline Terrassa in Learning and Public En-
And last but never least, we want to offer our heartfelt thanks to
gagement; Eve Jeffers, Jennifer Moran, Jennifer Oatess, George
our friends and families, who supported our work, delighted in our
Martin, Jonathan Kinkley, Anna Maria Carvallo, Nina Yung, and
progress, and offered us the greatest inspiration, most especially
James Allan in External Affairs; Amanda Hicks and Katie Rahn i n
David and Maisie Rownd, and Samuel Guillén.
Marketing and Communications; and Jeff Wonderland in Design. We wish to also thank Christine Fabian, Douglas Litts, and Autumn Mather in the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries.
Stephanie D’Alessandro Luis Pérez-Oramas
In Modern and Contemporary Art, Katja Rivera worked with intelligence and precision, contributing to every effort of our project in innumerable ways. With remarkable ease and good humor, she took on additional responsibility late in the project and coordinated it all with great dedication and care. Allison Hoffmann handled the many aspects of managing such a complicated exhibition with energy, efficiency, and skill. Special thanks go to colleagues Ionit Behar, Tyler Blackwell, Orianna Cacchione, Jadine Collingwood, Robyn Farrell, John McKinnon, Jennifer Moon, Nora Riccio, and Lekha Waitoller. Nicholas Barron and Jason Stec oversaw the installation with great skill and finesse. Maggie Borowitz, Abby Bresler, and Cecilia Santos provided essential support for our wideranging research needs. In addition, we wish to acknowledge the essential contributions of Sylvie Penichon in Photography, Antoinette Owen and Chris Connif-O’Shea in Prints and Drawings, and Allison Langley, Kirk Vuillemot, and Frank Zuccari in Conservation and Science. Colleagues in Publishing, led by Greg Nosan, have been valued partners in the conception and realization of this book. In addition to supporting the project within the department, Greg has led the editorial enterprise with intelligence, skill, and good humor, and we are also thankful to his gi fted colleague Amy Peltz and freelance editor David Frankel, who have improved this catalogue in countless ways. We must also acknowledge the fine translations, generous insight, and spirited collaboration of Stephen Berg, who brought life to Tarsila and Oswald, as well as their milieu. Lauren Makholm, Joseph Mohan, Rachel Edsill, and Katie Levi expertly supervised
15
TARSILA DO AMARAL: DEVOURING MODERNIST NARRATIVES STEPHANIE D’ALESSANDRO
AN D LUIS
It is the habit of North Americans to regard our sister republic of the Southern hemisphere as a fabulous region of mighty rivers, impenetrable forests, rich and rare dye-woods, fantastic vegetation, and incalculable resources in the way of rubber, coffee, and kindred commodities. Such impressions, however picturesque, fall short of simple justice to Brazilian culture. —Christian Brinton, “Brazilian Art Comes to America,” 19301
PÉREZ-ORAMAS
It is hard to shake the figure of the Brazilian actress Carmen Miranda (see fig. 1), “the lady in the tutti-frutti hat” who danced the samba all the way onto the North American popular film screen in the 1940s. A manufactured fantasy of Brazil’s plenitude and fecundity amplified in the saturated tones of Technicolor, Miranda became to non-Brazilian observers an embodiment of the country, an object of desire, and a spectacle, as well as—especially since her death in 1955—a code word for kitsch, for a lack of taste and knowledge. Worse, as time has revealed her complicity in the propaganda of the Good Neighbor Policy; her appropriation of authentic cultural markers (especially the distinctive clothing of the
bahiana ,
or woman from the state of Bahia) into a revealing,
exoticized costume used to sell bananas; and her transformation into an ethnic and comedic spectacle, Miranda has come to demonstrate the problems of difference in the face of persistently inflexible canons of art and culture.2 Unlike Miranda, Tarsila do Amaral (1886–1973) did not travel to the United States and, apart from a handful of exhibitions, her work has not been promoted in North America with nearly the same singularity or sustained attention.3 Her reception, however, has been entangled in some of the very same expectations: in the 1920s, she was engaged in the project of Brasilidade, part of the larger search in Latin America for national identity, artistic legitimacy, and freedom. Her works championed native colors and vernacular subjects that lay decidedly outside the mainstream of modern European art, celebrating her country’s lush natural environment in a way that paralleled tourist and promotional materials (see figs. 2–3).
16
Fig. 1 Carmen Miranda singing
Fig. 2 Tarsila do Amaral (Brazilian,
Fig. 3 The Street Market I , 1924.
“The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat” in
1886–1973). Fruit Seller , 1925. Oil on
Oil on canvas; 60.8 × 73.1 cm
Busby Berkeley’s The Gang’s All
canvas; 108 × 84 cm (42 1 / 2 × 33 1 / 16
(23 15 / 16 × 28 3 / 4 in.). Private collection.
Here (Twentieth Century Fox, 1943).
in.). Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand, Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de
Fig. 4 Brazilian Religion I , 1927.
Janeiro. Unless otherwise noted, all
Oil on canvas; 63 × 76 cm (24 13 / 16 ×
works of art in the catalogue are by
29 15 / 16 in.). Acervo Artístico-Cultural
Tarsila.
dos Palácios do Governo do Estado de São Paulo.
Furthermore, through her paintings and drawings, she both proclaimed and participated in the founding of Anthropophagy, a movement that imagined a specifically Brazilian culture arising from the symbolic devouring, or artistic “cannibalism,” of the Other, including the colonial Other (which included the traditions of European taste as well as the formal characteristics of Modernism).4 Indeed, focused on the subject of Brazil and acting, especially in the case of Tarsila’s landmark 1928 canvas, Abaporu (pl. 54), as a standard for the nation’s modern artistic project, her works speak of and celebrate singularity as a marker of identification and powerful difference. In Brazil this has made Tarsila, as she is known affectionately, the most popular and beloved artist of the twentieth century. By contrast, in the United States, her work was until recently so unfamiliar that it seemingly had no place, so different that it appeared suspiciously close to the spectacle of Miranda. Indeed, difference was a prized quality in 1930, the first time a handful of Tarsila’s paintings was
presented in North America along with the work of other Brazilian artists. Then, a review in the New York Times praised Tarsila’s canvas Brazilian Religion I (fig. 4) for its newness and its quality of being “fundamentally ‘of the land.’”5 Over the years, however, this difference has also led to isolation and a major disparity in reception: her work is passionately regarded in Brazil (see fig. 5), while in North America it has not been the subject of even one solo exhibition until now. Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil is more than an overdue introduction to the artist’s oeuvre—
17
Fig. 5 A performance at the closing
Fig. 6 Cover of Alfred H. Barr’s
ceremony of the 2016 Summer
Cubism and Abstract Art (Museum
Olympics in Rio de Janeiro featuring
of Modern Art, New York, 1936).
elements from Tarsila’s Setting Sun (1929; pl. 69).
it is a crucial opportunity to question and challenge not only received
identified by degrees as Latin American, Brazilian, and an “exotic.”
canons of art and culture, but also the structures and institutions
She wore Parisian couture (see pl. 95) but served her French
that reinforce them.
guests the popular Brazilian spirit cachaça in order to “reinforce
—
the bond,” as she phrased it, between their two countries. 9 In São Paulo, meanwhile, she was characterized as a part of the
Tarsila’s work, and by extension the artist herself, have been
local avant-garde, a member of the upper class, and a represen-
challenged by varied, traditional, and narrowly defined sets of
tative of French culture; in her first interview upon returning to
Eurocentric binaries around culture—mainstream and margin,
Brazil in late 1923, she was described as belonging to “the group
France and Brazil, colonizer and colonized, male and female, high
descended from the illustrious Cézanne.”10 A little more than a
and low—and also by the strictly formal approach to the develop-
year later, however, she was identified as a resolutely Brazilian artist
ment of modern art typified by the famous diagrams of Alfred H.
and heralded for her “extraordinary capacity for assimilation” in
6
Barr (see fig. 6). Set within this context, her story could therefore
regard to her “concern for nationalism,” as the Brazilian journalist
be read equally simplistically: the dramatic tale of an artist over-
Assis Chateaubriand termed it, or her sympathetic absorption of
coming a dominant culture and system of values to achieve creative
Brazil as the subject of her art (see fig. 7).11
emancipation. Tarsila herself would sometimes depend upon such binaries, writing in 1946, for instance, of a Brazilian childhood in
The artist also actively re-presented her aims and roles depending
which she roamed freely through nature “like a wild goat, jumping
on the context: as just one example, for over forty years, she
here and there between rocks and cacti,” only to return to
perpetually recast her place in the formulation of Anthropophagy,
a refined home filled with French music, literature, and food. 7
sometimes describing herself as collaborating with the poet Oswald de Andrade, who wrote the movement’s manifesto (and
She and her oeuvre, however, are multifaceted and unfixed,
also happened to be her husband), and at other moments claiming
and these qualities make the experience of looking at them all the
only the role of sympathetic transmitter or benevolent observer.12
8
more important for us today. Even within this project’s decade
This may be due to the artist’s similarly shifting performance of
of focus, the 1920s, we can witness Tarsila’s desire, ability, and
her gender and social roles. Writing to her family, for instance, she
willingness to shift and change her artistic identity—and allow
credited Oswald for the bold, exotic frames that decorator Pierre
others to do so as well—depending on audience and environment.
Legrain created for the paintings in her 1926 (and 1928) Paris
In Paris in 1923, for instance, when she was decidedly engaged
exhibitions (see pl. 44): he, she reassured them, “does not neglect
with avant-garde cultural circles (p. 42, fig. 7), she was variously
a single arrangement . . . he talks to the photographer, to the
18
Tarsila do Amaral
Fig. 7 Assis Chateaubriand, “Como
São Paulo está cultivando a arte moderna,” O Jornal , May 30, 1925, p. 1. Fig. 8 Self-Portrait I , 1924. Oil on card
mounted on fiberboard; 38 × 32.5 cm (14 15 / 16 × 12 13 / 16 in.). Acervo ArtísticoCultural dos Palácios do Governo do Estado de São Paulo.
typesetter . . . to the framer, etc.” But in reality, it was Tarsila who commissioned and paid Legrain.13 In fact, it is clear not only that Tarsila was the sole visual artist deeply associated with the inception of Anthropophagy, but also that she exercised an exceptionally high degree of creative and personal freedom. Indeed, her biographer, the eminent art historian Aracy Amaral, has stated, “As a woman, she always managed to do exactly what she wanted, even while always trying to keep up appearances.”14 Tarsila practiced self-censorship as well as self-promotion, and a fascinating example of the latter can be found in her self-portrait of 1924 (fig. 8), in which she appears sphinxlike, her detached head hovering against a bare background with pulled-back hair, dramatically outlined eyes, and long, dangling earrings. The artist made two versions of this picture, which was likely based on a photograph (pl. 96), and in the 1920s she used it on the cover of the catalogues for all but one of her solo exhibitions in both France and Brazil (see pls. 97, 111, 112). This image became her public persona, decidedly different from the woman we see photographed at her family’s fazenda, or large estate that is a farm, with relatives and friends (see pl. 91). Such conflicting presentations further complicate Tarsila, her voice, and our unders tandin g o f her work—but they allowed her to fashion a productive space in which she could test and forge her national, modernist project. We can appreciate the artist both for the specific accomplishments of her vibrant canvases and elegantly refined drawings, and for the ways in which she navigated the crucial decade of the 1920s, working to invent her own modern art.
— While Tarsila has been included in only nine North American group exhibitions since 1930, in Latin America she is a central figure of Modernism—actively exhibited, the subject of countless publications, and part of a highly select group of artists that includes Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Mexico, Joaquín Torres-García in Uruguay, Armando Reverón in Venezuela, Andrés de Santa María in Colombia, and Tarsila’s peer and contemporary in Brazil, Anita Malfatti, among others. Her current centrality, however, is the result of a complex series of deferments. We might argue that this is true of any artist whose legacy is predicated on history, as both centrality and relevance are concepts and values constructed through contemporary critical reception and later theoretical appropriation. The belatedness of Tarsila’s recognition is, however, more complex than a simple delayed or posthumous reception. The artist understood the enormous symbolic treasure of her own land while living
D’Alessandro and Pérez-Oramas
19
Fig. 9 Waltercio Caldas (Brazilian, born 1946). Tarsilas , 1997. Ink on paper; 27 × 21 cm (10 5 / 8 × 8 1 / 4 in.). Patricia and Waltercio Caldas Collection, Rio de Janeiro.
in Paris in the early 1920s, engaging with and committing herself to the utopian project of Anthropophagy. This endeavor, as outlined in Oswald’s 1928 “Manifesto antropófago” (Manifesto of Anthropophagy), became one of the earliest modern sources for the production and understanding of Brasilidade. However, it was not until decades later that the country would truly embrace it (indeed, Oswald himself seems to have abandoned this call while briefly flirting with Marxism in the 1930s, revisiting it only in 1950).15 The true realization of Anthropophagy’s project only became critical to Brazilian culture at the end of the 1960s, with the birth of Tropicália, a movement centered in theater, music, and film that sought to bridge mass culture and high culture, embracing marginality and cafonice (the Brazilian equivalent of kitsch). Tropicália’s seminal
theoretical program appeared in the artist Hélio Oiticica’s well-known 1967 essay “Esquema geral de Nova Objetividade” (General Scheme of the New Objectivity), in which he wrote that “the avantgarde in Brazil is no longer the concern of a group coming from an isolated elite, but a far-reaching cultural issue of great amplitude tending toward collective solutions.”16 Then, notably, through the Tropicália movement and in the work of a handful of other key artists from that time—Waltercio Caldas, Lygia Clark, Antonio Dias, Nelson Leirner, Anna Maria Maiolino, Lygia Pape, and Tunga— Tarsila and her oeuvre found vindication and indeed became the heart of a renewed national cultural project (see fig. 9). Today, her works from the 1920s, praised at the time of their inception by an intellectual elite, are the popular emblems of modern Brazilian identity she originally envisioned them to be, her iconography and palette the very elements of a national self. Universally known in Brazil, Tarsila’s work knows no social, political, gender, or racial distinctions; instead, it is a symbol of communal belonging. The belated reception of Tarsila’s work, and its nearly complete lack of reception in North America, also overlap with a complex set of personal, cultural, and politi cal circumstances. The artist’s 1929 exhibitions in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo constituted the first monographic presentations of her work in Brazil, featuring catalogues that are dense anthologies of quotations from critics praising her work throughout the decade. Soon after, however, Tarsila’s life and the broader cultural landscape abruptly changed, shaped by a series of profound events, including the 1929 crash of the United States stock market, which destroyed her family’s fortune; the dissolution of her marriage and artistic partnership with Oswald that same year; and, in 1930, the Brazilian Revolution, which begot a series of authoritarian governments that would last until 1956.
20
Tarsila do Amaral
Fig. 10 Second Class , 1933.
Fig. 11 Page from Hélio Oiticica’s
Oil on canvas; 110 × 151 cm
notebook with a list that includes
(43 5 / 16 × 59 7 / 16 in.). Private
the item “9) Tarsila’s painting: will write
collection, São Paulo.
‘bout it,” 1975. César and Claudio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro, AHO/PHO, 1376.75–p5.
In 1931 Tarsila traveled to the Soviet Union and exhibited her work there. A year later, as punishment for this trip and for her leftist activities in São Paulo, she was incarcerated for a month at the Presídio do Paraíso in São Paolo, where a number of revolutionaries were imprisoned in the 1930s. This experience profoundly affected the artist, and although she now turned to subjects of social realism (see fig. 10, pl. 82), she also began to create a rotating repertoire that included new versions of earlier paintings mixed with religious and folk themes. She also began to contribute many essays on art and culture to newspapers and journals; continuing through the 1950s, this endeavor contributed substantially to her public presence.17 While her work appeared in a 1933 solo exhibition in Rio de Janeiro and sporadically thereafter in group shows in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America, Tarsila’s next major monographic exhibition in her own country was only in 1950, when she was given a retrospective at the Museu de Arte Moderna in São Paulo. In the catalogue, her longtime friend, the author Sérgio Milliet, wrote that Tarsila’s work had been treated unfairly, reprimanded for its “decorativism” and characterized as “European” by the public, who “scarcely recognized their own motifs.” He argued that the exhibition offered a chance to reassess not just the artist’s work, but the country’s cultural heritage: “A retrospective exhibition of Tarsila do Amaral’s work is not only a well-deserved tribute to a pioneer of the Brazilian artistic liberation movement, it is also a first attempt to review values after the anarchy of two decades. It is currently about seeing what deserves to stay and what place it should occupy.”18 This landmark exhibition sparked a number of projects and publications that culminated in the reclamation of Tarsila and her work, and her conversion into a national artistic figure in the 1960s by such artists as Clark and Oiticica, whose correspondence and notes (see fig. 11) are peppered with references to her, as well as by Caldas, Maiolino, Pape, and Tunga; theatrical figures including José (Zé) Celso Martinez Corrêa; and musicians such as Caetano Veloso.19 Indeed, it was Veloso who acknowledged the transformative effect that the rediscovery of Anthropophagy had on his generation and, in particular, the 1967 staging of the avant-garde Teatro Oficina’s production of Oswald’s 1933 play O rei da vela (The Candle King ) as the first step in reviving the cultural legacy of “Tarsiwald” (as Tarsila and Oswald were called by poet Mário de Andrade in the 1920s). Hélio Eichbauer’s radical scenography (see fig. 12) was explicitly inspired by Tarsila’s powerful paintings and drawings. Following this moment, and especially after the foundational writing of Aracy Amaral and the 1998 São Paulo Biennial devoted
D’Alessandro and Pérez-Oramas
21
Fig. 12 H élio Eichbauer’s staging
of Oswald de Andrade’s 1933 play O rei da vela (The Candle King ) in Teatro Oficina’s 1967 production.
to the anthropophagic project, Tarsila’s name became inextricably
open field for future scholars, we have begun this research for some
linked with the discourses of Brazilian modern and contemporary art.
of the most critical works of the 1920s, including City (The Street) (pl. 70) and most especially Tarsila’s seminal canvas A Negra (pl. 13).
Against this background, and taking into account these various histories and structures of reception, the present catalogue and
Tarsila found a unique place in the visual arts of Brazil. Most impor-
exhibition seek not only to introduce the artist to those unfamiliar
tantly, she alone gave visual shape to the verbal forms of her fellow
with her work, but also to set aside her often mythologized persona
Anthropophagists, especially Oswald and Mário. Without her
in order to consider afresh her formulation of a modern art for Brazil.
paintings and drawings, the most important cultural movement in
To do this, the project focuses primarily on the works the artist
modern Brazilian history would have had a very different effect
executed in the second decade of the twentieth century, the heroic
on artistic production in the 1920s and the national imagination in
years of the development of an independent, modern Brazilian
decades to come. This project explores the evolution of Tarsila’s
idiom. This moment is unlike any other in Tarsila’s career, and com-
vision during this time, charting her innovative paintings and
mentators have long recognized its importance. Surprisingly few,
drawings, collaborations, and inspirations. In doing so, it considers
however, have considered the technical and material connections
the deep connections between certain works, the fluid application
between her works and her life, especially against the backdrop
of ideas and art across cultures, and the deeply performative role
20
of the available first-person accounts. Although this remains an
22
Tarsila do Amaral
she played as she toggled between artistic circles and the cities
of São Paulo and Paris. Indeed, this proje ct takes on Tarsila’s
This exhibition and catalogue unite close to one hundred of Tarsila’s
mythology and, rather than revealing a single figure, appropriately
paintings and drawings, offering new art historical and technical
complicates her story. The essays that follow reflect our differing
information as well as fresh perspectives on the artist. In addition
perspectives on her work, her context, and her legacy, and we
to the artworks are included nearly fifty historical documents that
hope that they work together in a productive and dynamic way to
function in different ways: some illuminate Brazil’s artistic milieu in
challenge the traditionally univocal reading of the artist.
the 1920s, while others reveal aspects of the artist’s life, working processes, and collaborations. Readers will also find texts, particularly Tarsila’s contemporary statements about her work, that
—
capture her voice in changing contexts; many of these have been
Our story begins in 1923, when Tarsila arrived in Paris, determined
translated into English for the first time. Together, these materials
to become a modern artist just after the Semana de Arte Moderna
relate the intricate and sometimes conflicting demands placed
(Modern Art Week) of 1922, and continues until about 1929,
upon the artist and her work. Indeed, in a more general way, this
when she painted her major canvas Anthropophagy (pl. 77), which
project takes on the issues of race, class, and gender in Brazil and
celebrated her discovery, after years of artistic searching, of a
between Brazil and France, as well as larger matters of nationalism
Brazilian artistic Arcadia. It ends with a kind of coda: Workers (pl. 82),
and internationalism, primitivism and colonial history, and the rela-
her great 1933 painting, which gives form to the next chapter
tionship between high art and low, regional, folk, or vernacular art.
of Tarsila’s career, in which she moved away from the project of
Embedded in Tarsila’s story are the deeper issues that artists
Anthropophagy. The exhibition considers her early works, which
face still outside the North American and European mainstream—
were informed by the figurative European academic tradition and,
specifically, how to negotiate the mechanisms and institutions
a bit later, the influences of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.
that make meaning and value, and how to make a place for differe nt
It then charts the path she forged , spurred by artistic heroes
conversations, different art, different understandings.
(especially Paul Cézanne), avant-garde developments (particularly Cubism), and popular manifestations of European primitivism.
At its core, Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil ques-
We consider her work between 1924 and 1927, when she was
tions the traditional perception of the “wholeness” of modernity
emboldened to add to her palette the pinks and turquoises remi-
and its “universal” meaning; in looking at Tarsila’s work as an
niscent of Brazilian country homes and the polychromed Baroque
alternative to this perception, the exhibition offers an understanding
sculpture of colonial towns, as well as religious themes taken
of modernity as a fractured, multiple process rather than one
from vernacular sources and folk types—all subjects outside the
exclusively driven by the idea of progress or the forces of colonialism
paradigm of European Modernism. In reclaiming these, Tarsila
and cultural domination—key issues in our globalized age. Her
gave such apparently primitive elements a new power and made
story offers much to consider about what was at stake for artists in
her work uniquely her own and her country’s. This exhibition also
the 1920s as they forged their own paths on an international stage,
examines the period between 1928 and 1929, when she focused
what challenges they faced, and how they negotiated between
on single subjects, giving them an uncanny presence; often she
various art worlds.
depicted them in heavy outline and with repeated forms that almost impart a sense of pace or tempo, an incessant and unstoppable
Tarsila and her work offer even more poignant lessons that are of
beat that proclaims their existence. These were the subjects made
urgent importance now: mainly, how is it, exactly, that we have
at the height of An thropophagy; but sadly, soon after, her leading
not known about them in North America and are only introducing
position and the passion of the movement would wane. This period
her art monographically nearly a century after it was made? What
of remarkable creativity ended due to the personal and historical
structures, invisible or not, have inscribed Tarsila’s art as a local
events already mentioned: the dramatic effects of the Great
one, a feminine one, or a decorative one, and what strictures do
Depression on the Brazilian economy; the brutal rise of a nationalist
we operate under that compel us to make the judgments we
government centered on the military figure of Getúlio Vargas, a
have—and will continue to have—about her work today? These
leader close to the European fascists and deeply opposed to the call
questions imply the intertwinement of art history and an increasingly
for Brasilidade implicit in the anthropophagic project; and Oswald’s
fractured, multicultural world. The historical indifference of main-
21
and Tarsila’s separate embraces of Marxism.
stream institutions to the art produced in communities that fall
D’Alessandro and Pérez-Oramas
23
outside the cartography of hegemonic countries is both a political and moral question that cultural institutions must urgently address. In 1975 the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard proposed a reading of Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (also known as The Large Glass ; 1915–23, Philadelphia Museum of Art) as a metaphor for the changing political power structure of the contemporary world.22 Lyotard claimed that the idea of pol itical reality mirroring a homogeneous, linear, two-dimensional structure had reached its end. Citizens of the world, he posited, were similar to but not replaceable with each other, and a “politics of incommensurables” should supplant the old structure. Still unrealized, this challenge implies an understanding of politics and art history as capable of dealing with objects that resist assimilation into ready-made categories and whose symbolic relevance cannot be compared with that of the standard protagonists of canonical art historical narratives. Also in 1975, Aracy Amaral published the first major monograph on Tarsila, bringing her legacy forward in an unprecedented way. Amaral, to this day the most rigorous interpreter of Tarsila’s oeuvre, was part of a generation ofBrazilian intellectuals and artists contemporary with the Tropicália movement, and her groundbreaking work paralleled the embrace of Tarsila’s legacy by Oiticica, Pape, Veloso, and others. Tarsila, in some sense, stands as the embodiment of the incongruences and incompatibilities within the modern canon, which are similar to those evoked by Lyotard in reference to politics and his demand for a paradigm shift. Tarsila’s legacy is a testimony that modern art—and art history for that matter—are not perfect Euclidean spaces in which everything can be measured and equated. On the contrary, Tarsila’s work—and the significance of her legacy for an entire continent—reveal that modern art is made of singularities and is always resistant to the hegemonic, flattened categories that characterize stereotyped versions of Modernism. Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil is an invitation to see Modernism again, and still again, from a less comfortable yet more intellectually potent point of view—one that matches the real texture of our very complex world.
24
Tarsila do Amaral
NOTES
a modern interest from European intellectuals
and its place in the general project of Antropophagy.
Unless otherwise specified, all Portuguese translations
connected with Dada and Surrealism, including Tristan
Both of these texts are translated i n the present publi-
are by Stephen Berg.
Tzara and Georges Bataille. Oswald de Andrade was
cation, pp. 167–69 and 162–65, respectively.
certainly aware of this modern fascination with canni-
13
in International Art Center of Roerich Museum,
balism and likely read Revue Cannibale, Francis Picabia’s
Estanislau do Amaral Filho, May 13, 1926, in Aracy
The First Representative Collection of Paintings by
1920 journal that opposed civilized conventionality and
A. Amaral, Tarsila do Amaral: Sua obra e seu tempo ,
Contemporary Brazilian Artists (International Art
sought provocation. Breaching these European sources
p. 229.
Center of Roerich Museum, 1930), n.p.
with his own Brazilian cultural upbringings, Oswald
14
wrote the “Manifesto antropófago.”
Biography,” in Aracy A. Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral,
1
2
Christian Brinton, “Brazilian Art Comes to America,”
The Good Neighbor Policy (1933–1945), inaugurated
This was in The First Representative Collection of
Tarsila do Amaral to Lydia Dias do Amaral and José
Aracy A. Amaral, “Study of an Oeuvre: And a
exh. cat. (Fundación Juan March, 2009), p. 14.
by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, rejected
5
interventionist tactics in the hope of establishing a
Paintings by Contemporary Brazilian Artists; Ruth
15
closer relationship with Latin American countries.
Green Harris, “News of Exhibitions: A Briskly Moving
aspecto antropofágico da cultura brasileira—O
Intended to maintain political stability, the policy also
Week in the Galleries of New York—Group and One-
homem cordial” in Oswald de Andrade: A utopía
ensured U.S. economic leadership in the region. See
Man Shows,” New York Times , Oct. 19, 1930, p. 124.
antropofágica (Globo, 1990), pp. 157–59.
Fredrick B. Pike, FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy: Sixty
6
Years of Generally Gentle Chaos (University of Texas
H. Barr, Cubism and Abstract Art , exh. cat. (Museum of
Objetividade,” in Nova Objetividade Brasiliera (Museu
Press, 2010); and Amy Spell acy, “Mapping the Meta-
Modern Art, 1936); and Sybil Gordon Kantor, Alfred H.
de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro), Apr. 1967. For an
phor of the Good Neighbor: Geography, Globalism,
Barr, Jr. and the Intellectual Origins of the Museum of
English translation, see Guy Brett et al., Hélio Oiticica ,
and Pan-Americanism during the 1940s,” American
Modern Art (MIT Press, 2002).
exh. cat. (Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art/
Studies 47, 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 39–66. For more on
7
Carmen Miranda and her significance, see Shari Roberts,
Acadêmica , Nov. 1946, p. 74, repr., Crônicas e outros
Tropicália, see Carlos Basualdo, “Tropicália: Avant-Garde,
“’The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat’: Carmen Miranda, a
escritos de Tarsila do Amaral , ed. Laura Taddei Brandini
Popular Culture, and the Culture Industry in Brazil,” in
Spectacle of Ethnicity,” Cinema Journal 32, 3 (Spring,
(Editora da UNICAMP, 2008), p. 725.
Basualdo, Tropicália: A Revolution In Brazilian Culture
1993), pp. 3–23; Bianca Freire-Medeiros, “Star in
8
the House of Mirrors: Contrasting Images of Carmen
Gabara, Errant Modernism: The Ethos of Photography
“The Resurgence of Anthropophagy: Tropicália, Tropical-
Miranda in Brazil and the United States,”LIMINA:
in Mexico and Brazil (Duke University Press, 2008).
ismo and Hélio Oiticica,” Third Text 18, 1 (Jan. 2004),
A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies 12 (2006),
See also Néstor García Canclini, Hybrid Cultures:
pp. 61–68.
pp. 21–29; and Martha Gil-Montero, Brazilian Bombshell:
Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity
17
The Biography of Carmen Miranda (Donald I. Fine, 1989).
(University of Minnesota Press, 1995); Randal Johnson,
e outros escritos.
For more on Barr’s historic diagram, see Alfred
Tarsila do Amaral, “França, eterna França . . . ” Revista
A critical text representing this perspective is Esther
16
See, for example, Oswald’s 1950 essay “Um
Hélio Oiticica, “Esquema geral da Nova
Walker Art Center, 1992), pp. 110–20. For more on
(Cosac Naify, 2005), pp. 11–28; and Cynthia Canejo,
For a full bibliography, see Brandini, Crônicas Sérgio Milliet, “Uma exposição retrospectiva,”
“Brazilian Modernism: An Idea out of Place?” in
18
tation in 1930, the work of Tarsila do Amaral has been
Modernism and Its Margins: Reinscribing Cultural
in Tarsila: 1918–1950 , exh. cat. (Museu de Arte Moderna,
included in only nine group exhibitions, all general
Modernity from Spain and Latin America, ed. Anthony
São Paulo, 1950), n.p.
surveys of Brazilian or Latin American art: The First
L. Geist and José B. Monleón (Routledge, 1999),
19
Representative Collection of Paintings by Contem-
pp. 186–214; and Andreas Huyssen, “Geographies
document to the authors’ attention. Another example
porary Brazilian Artists (International Art Center of
of Modernism in a Globalizing World,” New German
of Tarsila’s influence can be found in Lygia Pape’s
Roerich Museum, 1930); Exhibition of Latin American
Critique 100 (Winter 2007), pp. 189–207.
film Catiti-Catiti (1978).
Art (Riverside Museum, 1939); The 1955 Pittsburgh
9
International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting
Dec. 8, 1937, repr., Brandini, Crônicas e outros escri-
exists in Maria Eugênia Saturni and Regina Teixeira
(Carnegie Institute, 1955); Art of Latin America since
tos, p. 299.
de Barros, eds., Tarsila: Catálogo raisonné, 3 vols.
Independence (Yale University Art Gallery, 1966);
10
Artists of the Western Hemisphere: Precursors of
dá-nos as suas impressões,” Correio da Manhã , Dec.
São Paulo, 2008).
Modernism (Inter-American Art Center, 1967); Art of
1923, repr., Aracy A. Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu
21
the Fantastic: Latin America, 1920–1987 (Indianapolis
tempo , 3rd ed. (Editora 34/ Editora da Universidade
Herkenhoff and Adriano Pedrosa, XXIV Bienal de
Museum of Art, 1987); Latin American Artists of the
de São Paulo, 2003), p. 417; translated in the present
São Paulo: Núcleo histórico; Antropofagia e histórias
Twentieth Century (Museum of Modern Art, 1993);
publication, pp. 155–57.
de canibalismos , exh. cat. (Fundação Bienal de São
Latin American Women Artists: 1915–1995 (Milwaukee
11
Art Museum, 1995); and Brazil: Body and Soul (Solomon
cultivando a arte moderna,” O Jornal, May 30, 1925,
22
R. Guggenheim Museum, 2001).
p. 1.
Art and Artists , vol. 6, Duchamp’s TRANS/formers
3
4
In the United States, beginning with its first presen-
Anthropophagy was the term used in colonial
Tarsila do Amaral, “Tovalu,” Diário de São Paulo ,
12
“Tarsila do Amaral, a interessante artista brasileira,
Assis Chateaubriand, “Como São Paulo está
Compare, for example, Tarsila’s description
narratives to describe the purported practice among
in Revista anual do Salão de Maio 1 (1939), n.p., and
native Brazilians of eating human flesh—in other
her interview published in Veja 181 (Feb. 23, 1972),
words, cannibalism. Aside from the many accounts
pp. 3–6, as but two examples of her shifting story of
and mythologies about it during the time of the
the making of the canvas ti tled Abaporu, which sub-
colonial conquest, cannibalism was also the object of
sequently accompanied the “Manifesto antropófago,”
20
Thanks to Ionit Behar for bringing Oiticica’s
An important source of research on individual works
(Base 7 Projetos Culturais/Pinacoteca do Estado de Sônia Salzstein, “A audácia de Tarsila,” in Paulo
Paulo, 1998), p. 362. Jean-François Lyotard, Writings on Contemporary
(Leuven University Press, 2010).
D’Alessandro and Pérez-Oramas
25
26
Tarsila do Amaral
1
Colored Study of Cubist
Composition III , 1923 (cat. 3)
27
2
Cubist Composition II , 1923
(cat. 5)
28
3
Two Studies (Academy No . 1
and The Model) , 1923 (cat. 15)
29
4
Study for La Tasse, 1923 (cat. 13)
5
Study (Academy No. 2) , 1923
(cat. 12)
30
6
Cubist Composition (Hands
at the Piano) , 1923 (cat. 4)
7
Study of a Hand II , 1923
(cat. 14) 8
Sketchbook with Notes and
Drawing for Caipirinha, 1923 (cat. 10).
32
9
The First A Negra, 1923
(cat. 8) 10
Sketch of A Negra I ,
undated (c. 1923) (cat. 11) 11
A Negra III , c. 1923
(cat. 7)
35
12
Sketchbook with a Drawing of
A Negra, undated (c. 1924) (cat. 9)
36
13
A Negra , 1923, (cat. 6)
A NEGRA, ABAPORU ,
AND TARSILA’S ANTHROPOPHAGY STEPHANIE D’ALESSANDRO
In December 1922 Tarsila do Amaral arrived in Paris. Although it
something wholly new. The canvas embodied this impulse even
was not her first trip to that city—indeed, just five months earlier
before it had a name in Brazilian modern art, and it fueled all of
she concluded a two-year sojourn there—and it would certainly not
Tarsila’s production immediately following its making. To consider
be her last, the year-long visit would prove to be the most
the environment in which A Negra was made is to uncover the
important of her career.
artist’s deep-seated practice of aesthetic ingestion and digestion, which would itself become the subject of her artistic appetite
There are many reasons to single out this particular stay, including
later in the decade and the paintings Abaporu and Anthropophagy .
Tarsila’s expanded artistic and social circle and the emergence of
Indeed, seen in this light, the story of A Negra is the story of
her persona as the “caipirinha dressed by Poiret,”1 but the most im-
Anthropophag y as we ll as, in many ways, Tarsila’s true invention
portant is a surprising painting that is seemingly without precedent
of modern art in Brazil.
or peer in her oeuvre: the bold, mysterious, and hieratic A Negra (pl. 13).2 By far the largest Tarsila produced during her time in Paris,
“CONTAMINATED BY REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS”
it occupies a singular place in her work; she herself acknowledged
To appreciate the importance of Tarsila’s 1923 Paris trip and the
its importance in 1939, when she described the “seated figure
central place of A Negra in her work, we must return to the last
with two crossed, robust tree trunk legs, a heavy breast hanging
months of her stay in that city the year before. The artist’s thoughts
over her arm, huge, pendulous lips, [and] a proportionally small
are sometimes difficult to document, as her descriptions of events
head” as “announcing Anthropophagy” and serving as a forerunner
often postdate them by at least fifteen years or more, but her
to the landmark canvases Abaporu (pl. 54) and Anthropophagy
art from this moment makes her goals quite clear. 5 For her first
(pl. 77).3 A Negra ’s connection to Tarsila’s later works has been
exhibition opportunity in the city, she submitted Portrait of a
noted previously—especially since the painting’s re-presentation
Woman (fig. 1) to the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français.
4
to the public in the early 1950s. However, its iconic status and
Although the canvas was accepted by an established organization,
long-rehearsed significance have masked, and even resisted,
both the venue and the painting did not reflect her awareness
critical issues of its origin and context. This essay seeks to explore
of the current and more experime ntal styles to which she was
those aspects in order to offer a more nuanced understanding
exposed while studying at the Académie Julian. As she reported
of Tarsila’s aims, not only for her 1923 stay in Paris, but also for
to the Brazilian artist Anita Malfatti, “Almost all of it runs to Cubism
her particular form of Modernism that depended on a kind of
or Futurism. Lots of impressionist and Dadaist l andscapes.”6 She
artistic cannibalism—not yet named Anthropophagy—to create
confided to her friend, however, that she did “not approve of
38
Fig. 1 Portrait of a Woman, 1922.
Fig. 2 Portrait of Mário de Andrade ,
Oil on canvas; 61 × 50 cm
1922. Oil on canvas; 53 × 44 cm
(24 × 19 11 / 16 in.). Private collection,
(20 7 / 8 × 17 5 / 16 in.). Acervo Artístico-
São Paulo.
Cultural dos Palácios do Governo do Estado de São Paulo.
exaggerated Cubism and Futurism,” and her work—as Portrait of a Woman suggests—remained in a generally more naturalistic style.7 Weeks later she returned to São Paulo, joining Anita and the poet Oswald de Andrade—with whom Tarsila would begin a relationship soon after— as well as authors Mário de Andrade (who was unrelated to Oswald) and Menotti del Picchia to form the Grupo dos Cinco (Group of Five). In February 1922 Tarsila had missed the momentous Semana de Arte Moderna (Modern Art Week; see pls. 86, 87), a public series of exhibitions, poetry readings, concerts, lectures, and debates that would prove to be as inspiring for the development of modern art in Brazil as the 1913 Armory Show was in the United States. Coinciding with the centenary celebration of the country’s political independence from Portugal, the rebellious events of the Semana announced a desire for independence from artistic conventions but promoted no single, unified style and would remain one of a series of isolated events in the history of Modernism in Brazil.8 Tarsila, however, quickly absorbed the spirit of the Semana through her Grupo dos Cinco colleagues, who had participated. “[We were] kooks,” she recalled in 1950, “tearing deleriously and joyfully around in Oswald’s Cadillac, conquering the world in order to renew it. It was Paulicéia desvairada [Mário’s 1922 book, Hallucinated City ] in action.”9 While such experiences powerfully fueled the artist’s motivation, they are hardly the visual equivalent of Mário’s revolutionary, form-challenging poems; rather, as her portrait of him (fig. 2) suggests, her relatively naturalistic painting style changed only slightly, with more solidified brushwork and an intensified palette. Tarsila’s Brazilian experience and transformation would visibly register only later, in France. Indeed, she returned to Paris i n December 1922 “contaminated,” as she described herself, “by revolutionary ideas,” and it was there that she identified and constructed a visual vocabulary that matched her objectives.10 She was purposeful, forging an artistic and social path quite different from those of her previous visits and pursuing a rich range of experiences and sources from which she could choose to realize her goals. That work began in February 1923, after a two-month trip to Spain and Portugal with Oswald. Settling in Paris, she moved into an apartment at 9, rue Hég ésippe Moreau, which she was delighted to learn was a former studio of the artist Paul Cézanne.11 This discovery was more than a historical curiosity, however, and the inspiration it provided would be the first of many points on Tarsila’s complex journey to produce A Negra.
39
Fig. 3 Paul Cézanne (French,
Fig. 4 Paul Cézanne. Bathers ,
1839–1906). The Large Bathers ,
1902–06. Oil on canvas; 73.5 × 92.5 cm
1900–06. Oil on canvas; 210.5
(29 × 36 3 / 8 in). Private collection.
7
3
× 250.8 cm (82 / 8 × 98 / 4 in.). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with the W. P. Wilstach Fund, 1937, W1937-1-1.
In March she began three months of study with André Lhote, the Cubist artist and theoretician whom she would later describe as “the bridge between classicism and Modernism.”12 Lhote’s teaching and writing stressed the techniques and compositional methods of the Old Masters, as well as of Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and Gustave Courbet, but it was to the lessons of Cézanne that he gave the most attention. Lhote praised the solidity and weight of Cézanne’s forms and—using the specific example of his bathers, especially The Large Bathers (fig. 3), then owned by the Paris collector Auguste Pellerin—extolled the artist’s particular will to ugliness, forcing and deforming bodies for an overall composition.13 Near the end of her instruction with Lhote, Tarsila met Blaise Cendrars, the novelist, poet, and author of the 1921 Anthologie nègre, who would prove to be a trusted friend and advisor in the years to come. Cendrars welcomed Tarsila and Oswald into his social circle and facilitated many i ntroductions over the next months, including to the dealer Ambroise Vollard, whom Tarsila would visit at least once in 1923. She shared this rarified encounter in a 1936 article for the Diário de São Paulo: Vollard only opens his doors to friends . . . if you want to see Cézanne up close . . . you must visit his apartment . . . He has a magnificent collection of Cézanne, who was his very close friend. He can talk about the artist’s life in great detail, about his art, and then he’ll go and get a canvas, one that no one is allowed to touch, and adjust it upon the easel to catch the most favorable light and tell you where and under what circumstances he obtained it. In his book on Cézanne, he deals with the most curious details of such things.14
It is certain that among the canvases that Tarsila saw there was Cézanne’s intimate Bathers (fig. 4), as well as the photograph of the artist before his great Large Bathers (1895–1906; Barnes Foundation), which Vollard had published in his 1914 monograph.15 Cézanne’s challenge to traditional perspective and hi s use of proto-Cubist construction and figural deformation might well have influenced Tarsila’s springtime output, especially as she continued to wrestle with what she would later describe as Cubism’s “military service,” but it was the artist himself and his compositions of bathers that would prove most galvanizing for her work.16 In experiencing these paintings, Tarsila joined her artistic peers— many of whom would become part of her circle in Paris—who had been similarly motivated, since at least the 1907 commemorative
40
A Negra , Abaporu , and Tarsila’s Anthropophagy
Fig. 5 Pablo Picasso (Spanish, active
Fig. 6 Paul Gauguin (French,
France, 1881–1973). Seated Nude
1848–1903). Arearea (Joyousness ),
Drying Off Her Foot , 1921. Pastel on
1892. Oil on canvas; 75 × 94 cm
paper; 66 × 50.8 cm (26 × 20 in.).
(29 1 / 2 × 37 in.). Musée d’Orsay, Paris,
Museum Berggruen, Nationalgalerie
RF 1961 6.
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, NG MB 38/2000.
exhibition of Cézanne’s work at the Salon d’Automne, to produce
compositions had renewed currency in the post–World War I
their own bathers compositions. This group included Pablo Picasso,
return to order. Tarsila would have experienced this directly when
whom Tarsila would visit in late May orearly June 1923; both
she visited Picasso’s studio in late May or early June 1923:
Albert Gleizes and Fernand Léger, with whom she would study in
introduced by Cendrars, she arrived hoping to better understand
June and October of that year, respectively; and others (Georges
“the hieroglyphic world of Cubism” but was surprised to see, in
Braque, Robert Delaunay, André Derain, and Henri Matisse) whose
addition, what she described as the artist’s “Pompeian-style paint-
17
bathers could be seen in Paris at the time. Situated within this
ing.”21 Her 1936 recollection of her first visit to Picasso’s studio,
expanded group of artists looking to break free from tradition, she
published in Diário de São Paulo, mentions a portrait of the artist’s
would make A Negra , and, in producing her own version of a modern
son, but it is also li kely that Tarsila saw Seated Nude Drying Off
bather, find both the means to communicate membership in a
Her Foot (fig. 5) and Large Nude with Drapery (1923; Musée
vanguard (at the time read as a “Cubist” community, especially for
de l’Orangerie, Paris) there.22 Such massive, weighty figures set
its esteem for Cézanne) and the path for her own modern art.18
against spare, banded backgrounds were surely yet another inspiration on her journey to A Negra .23
By 1923 bathers compositions summoned up a number of related and competing associations: connected to the Roman poet Virgil’s
Although poignant representations of Arcadia, modern bathers
theme of Arcadia, such images had existed since antiquity, and
compositions also drew upon the concept of the noble savage
French artists from Nicolas Poussin to Ingres to Pierre Puvis de
and its long and complicated history of colonialist and primitivist
Chavannes had explored them as powerful symbols of an idyllic
associations, as well as its dialectical and romanticized interactions
19
golden age unspoiled by civilization. In the late nineteenth an d
with the concept of the Other. Reminders of this legacy were
early twentieth centuries, the theme was also a popular choice
omnipresent but not consistent in 1923, and Tarsila would have
for décorations, large-scale paintings that promoted tranquility
encountered them many times in Paris: for instance, in April and
20
and uplift through their mythical subject matter. While it never
again in July, Paul Gauguin’s powerful scenes of exotic, preindustrial
completely waned in popularity, the Arcadian nature of bathers
idyll (see fig. 6) were on view at the Galerie Dru as well as avai lable
D’Alessandro
41
Fig. 7 From left: Oswald de Andrade,
Fig. 8 Photograph of Constantin
Tarsila do Amaral, Yvette Farkou,
Brancusi’s Paris studio with
Fernand Léger, Constantin Brancusi,
White Negress , 1923.
and an unidentified man in Paris, 1923.
to see in the private collections of her acquaintances, including Vollard. 24 On July 3, throug h the introduction of Cendrars, Tarsila also called upon Constantin Brancusi (see fig. 7), who had recently completed the spare, compact White Negress in his studio (fig. 8). According to his friend Eileen Lane, the hieratic sculpture was inspired by an African woman whom Brancusi had seen at the 1922 Exposition Coloniale in Marseilles and from whom he had purchased some postcards. Tarsila’s encounter with Brancusi as well as with White Negress should not be underestimated, as she zealously reported her experience to her family at the time: “You cannot imagine how much I learned from talking to this man. He . . . lives holed up in his studio, like some apostle . . . making a true religion of his art.”25 Both Tarsila and Oswald were aware of the importance of primitivist sources for contemporary art as well as their own potentially exotic presence in Paris. They had seen examples of African and Oceanic works in the homes and studios of their friends, and just months earlier Oswald lectured at the Sorbonne on African art’s influence on modern painting, citing t he examples of Derain, Lhote, Picasso, and “other celebrated artists of Paris.” He discussed Cendrars’s Anthologie nègre and praised Tarsila’s work, stating, “Never before has the suggestive presence of the Negro drum and of the Indian song been so strongly felt in the ambiance of Paris. These ethnic sources are right in the middle of modernity.”26 Such associations are certainly at play in Brancusi’s later depiction of Tarsila and Oswald, in which he transformed his own roughly hewn sculpture, The Kiss, into a primitivist portrait of the young married couple (see pl. 100). A particularly noteworthy example of this association as it merges the subject of origin and genesis with the primordial—and accentuates the popularity of African themes in France at the time—is the ballet La Création du monde (The Creation of the World ), which was inspired by Cendrars’s Anthologie nègre and brought to life by Léger, the Ballets Suédois’s Rolf de Maré, and composer Darius Milhaud.27 Based on Cendrars’s libretto, which celebrated African folk myths of humanity’s origin, the production combined de Maré’s interpretation of African dance and Milhaud’s modern jazz rhythms with Léger’s Cubist scenery and costume designs. Through her friendship with Cendrars, Tarsila surely knew about the ballet for several months before the October premiere. In fact, in early July she visited Léger’s studio, where she likely saw designs for costumes that made the dancers resemble African sculptures come to life (see fig. 9).28 Tarsila and Léger forged a friendship, and at the start of October, just weeks before the premiere, she even brought some of her recent work to his studio for review. According to art historian Aracy Amaral, who interviewed Tarsila on
42
A Negra , Abaporu , and Tarsila’s Anthropophagy
Fig. 9
A scene from La Création
du monde (The Creation of the World )
at the Theâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, 1923, showing Fernand Léger’s set design and costumes. Stockholm Dance Museum Archive.
numerous occasions, among those canvases was A Negra, and the artist was thrilled to report to her parents that Léger had found her work “very advanced.”29 At the end of October, the dealer Léonce Rosenberg visited Tarsila’s studio and probably saw the canvas; at this time he offered her an exhibition when she “was ready.”30 In reconstructing some of Tarsila’s experience at this moment, it is important to note that the subject of the bather was not a stable or fixed one. Rather, it drew upon multiple, overlapping, and sometimes conflicting associations of Arcadia from classical to modern times and upon exotic, erotic, and even aesthetic notions of primitivism.31 The bather’s fluid nature made it an appealing subject for the artist to adopt in her search for a new art and to depend upon in the following years, as additional associations and identifications came to expand and complicate its initial meanings, and especially when she produced the canvases Abaporu and Anthropophagy. It is also worth underscoring that these complex, unfixed associations extended beyond the bather to include the artist herself. Although Tarsila was living in Paris, Brazil was never too far from
her thoughts, and even after two months of new experiences in the French capital, she wrote to her family in April about feeling “increasingly Brazilian.”32 It was in finding a visual form in France for the goals announced in Brazil by the Semana de Arte Moderna— and, to a certain extent, by reinforcing that language in the acquisition of works by many of the artists she visited and studied—that Tarsila assembled the aesthetic means to make a modern art for Brazil.33 This process of ingesting and digesting a variety of influences and identities from many sources would come to form the basis of Anthropophagy, and these coalesced for the first time when she painted A Negra. ROAD MAPS
The first impression of A Negra calls to mind Tarsila’s description of Brancusi’s work as “primitive purity that has nothing t o do with naturalism.”34 There is a wholeness in the seated figure’s naked form, a volumetric concentration in her bald head and tubular neck, broad shoulders, and solid limbs. Part of the effect is due to Tarsila’s fine brushwork and careful tonal modeling on the edges of body parts; in contrast, the flat bands of color and the diagonal leaf in the background resist and push the figure forward. The body
D’Alessandro
43
Fig. 10 Plate from Cesare Lombroso, La donna deli nquente: la prostituta e la donna normale , 4th ed. (Fratelli
Bocca, 1923), Tav. II a. Lombroso’s 1893 publication was translated into many languages and widely circulated by the 1920s.
is smoothly painted—its surface seems almost stonelike, possibly
pencil-and-ink sketches and studies, as well as one tracing of the
the result of the artist adding extra medium to her paint to produce
figure (see pls. 10–12 and fig. 11). 40 Until scientific examination
a glaze-like effect.35 This quality recalls Oswald’s reaction,
can be undertaken to determine the exact relationship between
commemorated in a draft stanza of his poem “Atelier,” in which
these works, we might imagine them as points on a journey in
he introduced Tarsila as the “caipirinha dressed by Poiret”:
the production and reproduction of the painting. The most detailed is an undated watercolor (pl. 10) once owned by Mário that may
The excitement
represent Tarsila’s next complicated step. It is a more worked image
Of this negress
than The First A Negra, particularly with its delicate additions of
Polished
color, and more recognizably related to the painting. Within the
Lustrous
darkened contours of the figure we can yet again identify Tarsila’s
Like a billiard ball in the desert 36
discarded pencil lines that relay the changing placement of body parts, widening limbs, and altering shape of the head. Most
In contrast to the bather’s full form, her outlined and pronounced
significant is the torso, where we can distinguish the forms of two
lips are disjointed, as if they were cut and pasted onto the canvas.
breasts: the one on the proper left was abandoned, while the
Even as they seem to lie upon the surface, an indeterminate
other was reinforced with heavy pencil. The artist employed water-
dark space, bordered by the breast, arm, hand, and leg, exists
color to refine forms, whittling down the size of the head and
below the surface; in place of the body, there is a mysterious
revising its once oval shape. In fact, she applied the paint in a way
and suggestive void. Behind the figure, the artist has painted a
that is quite different from—even the opposite of—her usual
series of bands of varied colors, widths, and lengths, which recalls
approach to building form. In the oil painting, Tarsila created
the pattern of non-Western as well as modernist textiles. This
volume by paying careful attention to the inside edges of forms,
37
element acts as a signifier of primitivist and exotic associations and as the background before which the figure sits; it also locates the bather within the landscape of European Modernism. Part of the shock of A Negra derives from its hermetic subject, resistant to narrative and opposed to the still life, portrait, and landscape genres Tarsila had chosen until that time. It also arrived in her production without much foretelling.38 The first appearance of the subject comes in the form of a large graphite drawing (pl. 9). Placed squarely in the middle of the sheet is the heavily outlined form of a woman of African descent, her broad features slightly off-center on her face, which is framed by an irregular hairline. The angled eyes and brows, matched with heavy eyelids, echo the figure’s sloped shoulders and downturned hand, giving her a stoic impression that recalls similar representations of ethnographic types in popular European anthropological texts of the period (see fig. 10). Within the network of lines that make up the figure’s body, we can discern Tarsila’s efforts to position her on the page, firm up and smooth the face, build the mass of the torso, and once set, leave the rest of the pose for later consideration. At bottom left is an annotation, likely written by the artist’s niece, that records the work as 1a Negra (First Negra)— her first drawing made in advance of the canvas.39 There are as many as eight other known drawings related to A Negra, which take the form of similarly scaled, single-sheet,
44
A Negra , Abaporu , and Tarsila’s Anthropophagy
Fig. 11 Sketch of A Negra II,
Fig. 12 X-radiograph of A Negra ,
1923. Pencil and India ink on paper;
1923. Oil on canvas; 100 × 81.3 cm
22 × 17 cm (8 11 / 16 × 6 11 / 16 in.).
(39 3 / 8 × 32 in.). Museu de Arte
Private collection, São Paulo.
Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo.
meticulously applying color in graduated layers of light to dark and then pulling her loaded brush inside the edge of contours to leave a slim ridge of medium. Here, in the watercolor, she built form by means of reduction, removing and covering mass with dense paint around the proper right shoulder and head, working on the outside of contours. She also used color to cover an earlier hairline drawn on the figure’s head that is similar to the hairstyle i n The First A Negra. Like the painting, this composition includes a tropical leaf—possibly from a banana tree or African traveler palm—but it is shown complete; this element is the only bit of background. There are other differences from A Negra, particularly in the pose, and they hint that Tarsila was continuing to consider the figure long after she moved it to the canvas. Recent X-radiograph examination of the painting (see fig. 12) permits us to better understand for the first time how this process of translation occurred.41 In X-radiography, dense paint layers and heavy brushwork read as white marks and signal where an artist reworked forms; here, these include the elongated breast, thickened limbs, and sharpened proper right elbow. Some of these changes relate to forms in The First A Negra, most significantly on the chest: on the figure’s proper left side, we can see an earlier rounded breast form that was later painted over, and along the inside of the proper right arm, we can identify an abandoned contour that mimics the proper left breast on the drawing. These changes suggest that Tarsila may have looked to her drawing to initiate A Negra but then made notable alterations, like the orientation of the exposed breast, as she worked.42 When comparing the X-radiograph with the watercolor, we can also identify significant similarities and differences. The compositions demonstrate that Tarsila approached the final form of the head in related ways. Working on paper, she eliminated the hair with careful layers of watercolor to arrive at the figure’s final smooth pate; the X-radiograph shows no evidence that the artist included hair when she painted the figure on canvas. She likely borrowed the finished form from the watercolor and perhaps even found inspiration for her fine, glaze-like application of oil paint in the delicate layers of her watercolor. Elements on the lower half of the composition, however, differ substantially between the two works.43 In the watercolor, the figure’s legs are crossed, proper left over right; in the painting, we find the opposite. No earlier poses have been revealed, so we must assume that the artist chose an independent path on canvas, which produced the present network of limbs and an interior, shadowy cavity. Likewise, the hips of the figures differ: in the watercolor, light pencil lines echo the proper right hip in the painting;
D’Alessandro
45
darker ones, however, extend and reinforce an elongated hip
view with the local newspaper Correio da Manhã, and it was on
that is not replicated on the canvas. Again, there are no changes
this occasion that she announced her new goals. Couched within
around the hip on the canvas to indicate that Tarsila followed the
the legacy of Cézanne and the development of Cubism, which
watercolor. Instead, the repeated and reinforced quality of the hip
she defended for its ability not to “destroy the old schools” but
in the watercolor suggests a revision after the fact; indeed, it is
to reject “the continuation of those very schools in a century in
noteworthy that although the reversed legs and elongated hip are
which they no longer have any reason for being,” the artist stated
not common between the watercolor and the painting, they are
her purpose plainly:
shared among the watercolor and the other known drawings of A Negra.
I am profoundly Brazilian and will study the taste and the art of our caipiras . In the hinterlands, I hope to l earn from those
These common characteristics urge us to consider whether Tarsila
who have not been corrupted by the academies. Painting
might have produced the watercolor in two different campaigns—
Brazilian landscapes and caboclos doesn’t make one a Brazilian
one focused on the head before she started the canvas and another
artist, just as one who paints machines realistically and dis-
at some point after the completion of A Negra —as she continued
torts the human figure is not necessarily a modern artist.48
to explore the composition. As proof of a possible extended period of production, only some of the drawings are annotated with the
Although she announced them publicly i n a Brazilian newspaper,
year and location in which they were made. Taken as a group, these
Tarsila had formulated these ideas earlier in Paris, and we can
sheets, with their abbreviated, cleaner lines of pencil and ink,
chart their development in her l etters to her family. In August she
reveal Tarsila’s process of inscribing the path to A Negra again and
reported that she hoped to “bring back all kinds of Brazilian
again onto the page and, by extension, into her mind and body.
topics,” and that her plan upon returning to Brazil was to visit the
Put differently, Tarsila sated her artistic appetite initially by ingesting
northeast state of Bahia, a place of l ush vegetation and seacoasts,
a great variety of sources to produce A Negra; her continued
and a center of sugarcane production and the African slave trade
reconsideration depended on digesting the painting itself.
from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. It was here, she believed, that she would find “precious examples of [the type of]
Such repetition of forms recalls the advice of the artist’s early
Brazilian art that is my present direction.” 49 Although she did
teacher in São Paulo, Pedro Alexandrino, who encouraged her to
not visit Bahia for some time, she soon embarked on a course of
preserve works through copying: “It is always good to keep
rich experiences related to the discovery and rediscovery of her
things. You might need them someday.”44 These drawings, in fact,
homeland. Much of this was rooted in a sense of nostalgia for a
could have functioned as road maps back to this originary moment
lost Brazil that she initially associated with her childhood. Earlier,
as well as toward the future, to a time when the canvas might
in April 1923, she had written to her family wistfully, “I want to be
no longer be present but was nonetheless needed for a new goal.
the painter of my country. I am so thankful to have spent the
Alexandrino, for instance, copied compositions before del ivering
whole of my childhood on the fazenda. My memories of that time
them to collectors. Tarsila, who finished A Negra by early October,
have grown precious to me. In art, I want to be the caipirinha of 45
had, during the summer, acknowledged her plans to return to Brazil.
São Bernardo, playing with straw dolls.”50 In this respect, it is no
With her departure on her mind, the artist may well have been
surprise that even though Tarsila and Oswald resided in the city of
following a similar process, preserving the form of her bather in order
São Paulo in 1924 and celebrated the growing metropolis and
46
to use it again at a later date. Remembering Rosenberg’s offer of
its modern innovations and industry in their work, they also spent
an exhibition in Paris, Tarsila might have left the work there, reserving
much time at the fazendas of family and friends in surrounding
47
it for a future presentation. If this were the case, it is possible
small towns of the state.
that she brought only her related watercolor and some of her line drawings to Brazil for, as we shall see, she was hardly finished
Embellished or not, Tarsila’s nostalgia extended beyond herself
with A Negra.
and her own experience, tapping into a larger cultural memory of another kind of lost Brazil that she had never known, a country
ITINERARIES. ITINERARIES. ITINERARIES.
whose native artistic traditions were judged and devalued from
Tarsila returned to Brazil in December 1923. Arriving in Rio d e
both within and without. The artist was not alone in her wide and
Janeiro, she was met aboard the Orânia for an extended inter-
unrestrained hunger for her land, its people, and their vernacular
46
A Negra , Abaporu , and Tarsila’s Anthropophagy
art and culture. Mário, for instance, had urged her just months earlier, while she was still in Paris, to “come to the virgin forest, where there is no black art, where there are no gentle streams either. There is VIRGIN FORE ST. I have created virgin-forestism. I am a virgi n-forester.”51 His work depended upon the recovery of Brazilian folklore, neologisms, proverbs, and colloquialisms— another kind of reconstruction of a lost history or memory—as a specific strategy for modern prose. In Paris, Oswald had been similarly focused, and soon after his return home, he published his “Manifesto da Poesia Pau-Brasil” (Manifesto of Pau-Brazil Poetry). His declaration, written in a free-flowing style, announced, “Poetry exists in the facts. The shacks of saffron and ochre in the green of the Favela, under cabralín blue, are aesthetic facts.” Oswald rejected traditional Brazilian culture as a product imported from Europe; he implied this by referring to the first Portuguese navigator, Pedro Álvares Cabral, to describe the sky. Instead, he called for the production of uniquely Brazilian work that—like the prized pau brazil (brazilwood) tree itself—could only come from Brazilian soil. To reach such a place of production, he declared in a telegraphic method that artists would need to seek originary, unspoiled experiences:
that Tarsila, Oswald, and other friends traveled to Rio de Janeiro to experience Carnival. In mid-April, along with Mário; Gofredo Teixeira da Silva Telles, a politican and the son-in-law of patron and art collector Olívia Guedes Penteado; René Thioll ier, a writer and one of the organizers of the Semana; and the young artist Nonê de Andrade, who was Oswald’s oldest son, they toured the historic cities of the southeastern state of Minas Gerais. Confronted with Brazil’s colonialist history while visiting the forgotten towns of Congonhas do Campo, Lagoa Santa, Ouro Preto, Sabará, São João del Rei, Tiradentes, and the state capital of Belo Horizonte, Tarsila felt “dazzled” and inspired. She recalled her experience vividly in 1939: The mural decorations in the modest corridor of a hotel; the room ceilings, made of colored and braided bamboo; the church paintings, simple and moving, made with love and devotion by anonymous artists; Aleijadinho, with his statues and the brilliant lines of his religious architecture. Everything caused us to cry out in admiration. In Minas I found the colors I loved as a child. Later, I was taught that they were ugly and caipira. I followed the hum of refined taste . . . But later, I took
my revenge on that oppression, transferring them to my No formula for the contemporary expression of the world.
canvases: purest blue, violet pink, vivid yellow, strident green,
See with open eyes.
all in various grades of strength according to how much white was mixed in. Clean painting above all, without fear of con-
This step realized, the problem is other. To be regional and
ventional canons. Freedom and sincerity, a certain stylization
pure in our time.
that adapted it to the modern age.54
Merely Brazilians of our time. The necessary of chemistry, mechanics, economy and ballistics. Everything assimiliated. Without cultural meetings. Practical. Experimental. Poets. Without bookish reminiscences. Without supporting comparisons. Without ontology. Barbarous, credulous, picturesque and tender. Readers of newspapers. Pau-Brasil. The forest and the school. The National Museum. Cuisine, ore and dance. Vegetation. Pau-Brasil. 52
Fueled by the idea of an unknown Brazil, Tarsila and her friends, like many Latin American artists in their own countries at this time, embarked on a thrilling voyage of discovery reminiscent of the kind undertaken by foreign travelers.53 Indeed, while seeing her country with fresh eyes, she also experienced it through the perspective of the Swiss poet Cendrars, who came to Brazil at Oswald’s suggestion in early February 1924. It was in his company
While the poets worked—Oswald on a collection of poems “on the occasion of the discovery of Brazil” entitled Pau Brasil, Mário on the ode “Noturno de Belo Horizonte” (Night Train to Belo Horizonte), and Cendrars on the travelogue Feuilles de route (Road Maps )—Tarsila registered her experiences in countless graphite notes and sketches as well as elegant ink drawings (see pls. 25–29). Employing an organic, animated line, the artist conveyed her enthusiastic ambition to record the details of her visions. As documents, these works recall the productions of European artist-travelers who visited Brazil from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, detailing their romantic excursions in the academic styles of the time and sharing their adventures in widely distributed illustrations and popular travel journals (see fig. 13). Tarsila made many of her drawings in notebooks, and they are intimate in scale and detail; some later served as inspiration for paintings or as illustrations in Pau Brasil (pls. 30–32, 34, 92) and Feuilles de route (pls. 17–19, 28, 35–37, 39–43, 93). From her first impressions to the production of such canvases as Carnival
D’Alessandro
47
Fig. 13 Jean-Baptiste Debret
Fig. 14 Blaise Cendrars (Swiss,
(French, 1768–1848). Indian Village
1887–1961). Draft cover for Feuilles
in Cantagalo , plate 6 from Voyage
de route (Road Maps ), 1924. Pen on
pittoresque et historique au Brésil
paper. Collection Oswald Estanislau
(Firmin Didot Frères, 1834–39),
do Amaral.
vol. 7. New York Publlic Library, Special Collections.
bather was first located in the i mmediate cultural landscape of 1920s France, but now, subjected to the artist’s continued process of cultural digestion, the figure came to be simultaneously situated in 1920s Brazil as well. A Negra became a kind of talisman, integral to Tarsila’s project of rediscovering and recovering memories of Brazil. Noteworthy in this context is a fascinating album (see pl. 99), stained and dog-eared from use, in which Tarsila organized photographs and mementos of her trips in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East during the 1920s. Previously this book was dated to about 1926, but this is challenged by the contents of its pages—a photograph of the participants in the Semana de Arte Moderna from 1922; an Italian document from 1923; and inscribed postcards, marked invoices, and casual snapshots of her visits in Madureira (pl. 21) and Hills of the Favela (pl. 24), we can also
to the interior of Brazil and various fazendas, all from 1924. Such
trace Tarsila’s digestion of her country’s African heritage and her
materials suggest that Tarsila either started to assemble the
expansion of A Negra ’s connections from Europe to Brazil.
album in the years before 1926 or, at the very least, incorporated preexisting materials into it at that time. In either case, she
A previously undocumented notebook that Cendrars inscribed for Tarsila while in Brazil (pl. 12) holds the key to this understanding: nestled within the pages of her illustrations of people and places, we again find A Negra . This time the figure is composed in quick, assured lines, reduced to shorthand elements—bald head, enlarged lips, breast, and leaf—and colored with dark pencil. Freed from the original banded background, she floats on the page. On the opposing side of the spread, we see a similarly spare colored pencil and ink drawing that features a colonial church and the stylized profile of the artist herself i n the foreground. Although the two pages might have been drawn i ndependently, seen together side by side, they present A Negra like a vision, a dream in the artist’s mind. A Negra would also appear as the cover of Feuilles de route (pl. 93), published in Paris later that year. Cendrars, of course, was with Tarsila during her travels, and we might imagine that the painting arose at this time as an idea for the cover and that the sketchbook drawing was a result of their conversations. While in São Paulo, Cendrars also drafted a number of related covers that feature A Negra ; one of them (fig. 14), signed and dated São Paulo 1924, closely follows Tarsila’s watercolor and her use of shadow around the figure, and suggests that it did, in fact, travel to Brazil with Tarsila.55 Regardless, we can be certain that, in its reappearance in the midst of these voyages of discovery and in its final installation on the cover of a book of poems about travels through the country, A Negra came to stand for Brazil.56 This African
48
A Negra , Abaporu , and Tarsila’s Anthropophagy
Fig. 15 Johann Moritz Rugendas (German 1802–1858). Praia Rodriguez , near Rio de Janeiro , plate 1 from Voyage pittoresque dans le Brésil (Engelmann & Cie, 1835). Special collections, Getty Research Institute.
demonstrated care, thought, and sometimes even whimsy as she
the only texts in the catalogue—the image of a woman of African
selected and placed documents and photographs on each page.
descent became firmly associated with Brazil. Critical attention to the painting, although minimal in comparison to that devoted to
Found among these artifacts is an intriguing photograph of a woman
Tarsila’s other works, reflected the original context in which she
(p. 89, fig. 6), who, according to scholars, was a former worker
conceived it and in which critics received it, namely European
on one of the fazendas belonging to Tarsila’s family.57 She is posed
associations of the bather with Arcadia and the primitive. The critic
in a way that recalls A Negra, and her long white dress gives her
Georges Remon recognized the “curious figure” as Eve, while
body the concentrated form of the painted bather; the wall and stair-
the writer Gaston de Pawlowski simply called her “buttocks and
case behind her also mimic the banded background of the canvas.
lips.”59 José Severiano de Rezende, a critic for the Gazette du Brésil,
Although undated, the photograph may have been taken—and
countered these responses by reading into A Negra a romanti-
perhaps even staged—during Tarsila’s 1924 visit to São Paulo, since
cized connection with Brazil, and he praised Tarsila’s portrayal of
so many other similar photographs from the album date to this
“the old Black-mother, with breasts full of tenderness and thick
time. The artist placed this image on a page just below Cendrars’s
lips so touching in their mystical retreat” as a sign of the artist’s
French identity card, thus reinforcing specific associations dating
true and sensitive understanding of African-Brazilians. No doubt
to after A Negra ’s completion in Paris and expanding them with
thinking of this reception, and this tension between notions of
specifically Brazilian-focused travel and cultural memory.
European discovery (exoticism) and Brazilian memory (nostalgia), years later the artist would call A Negra at this time “a very
Over time, as Tarsila carried the book between Paris and São Paulo
controversial picture.”60
and added more mementos, this photograph would accumulate and amplify its meanings through connections to new places and
Such contradictions perhaps suggest why the artist chose to
events. A similar kind of accretion took place with A Negra itself,
exhibit the painting only once more, in 1928, not in her second
as the artist continued to suggest new memories and links even
show at the Galerie Percier, which featured clearly Brazilian
in the last years of her life. In a 1972 interview, for example,
subjects (cats. 53, 54, 58, 60, 61, 63), but rather in a more
she stated:
conservative presentation of the Association Artistique des Vrais Indépendants (Artistic Association of the True Independents).
One of the most successful paintings I exhibited in Europe is
By then, La Négresse received no critical attention whatsoever,
called A Negra. Because I have recurring memories of having
and a year later, when she was preparing for her first-ever solo
seen one of those old female slaves when I was a five- or six-
exhibition in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Tarsila elected not to
year-old, you know? A female slave lived on our fazenda, and
include it.
she had droopy lips and enormous breasts because ( I was later told) in those days black women used to tie rocks to their breasts in order to lengthen them, and then they would sling them back over their shoulders to breastfeed the children they were carrying on their backs. 58
Despite our possible reaction to the subject of Tarsila’s recollection, it is nonetheless an example of the powerful process of accumulation, or continued ingestion, that was at the root of her conception of A Negra as a bather. This continued in a new yet simultaneous direction in 1924, when the figure became known primarily as an illustration for Cendrars’s Feuilles de route and, by association, as an image denoting discovery and travel. The painting was not shown to the public until three years after its conception, when it was included as La Négresse in the arti st’s long-awaited first solo exhibition at the Galerie Percier. Here, reinforced with Cendrars’s poems that celebrated São Paulo—
D’Alessandro
49
Fig. 16 José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior
(Brazilian, 1850–1899), The Guitar Player , 1899. Oil on canvas; 141 × 172 cm (55 1 / 2 × 67 3 / 4 in.). Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (former collection of Tarsila do Amaral).
It is clear that although its continued digestion from 1923 to 1928
shared with Oswald; the work was so successful that the poet
granted A Negra a fluid status in Tarsila’s work, its multifaceted
Manuel Bandeira would later describe their home as “a little
yet specific nature at this point also led to a gap in its reception.
Brazilian trunk painted blue and the color of pink.” 62 A number
Indeed, by 1928 Tarsila’s bather—and its bold announcement of
of Tarsila’s own works from this time present an increasingly
her artistic identity and path—had gone mute. But even though
vernacular, folk, and even naïve style adapted from sources such as
missing from view, the canvas was hardly absent from the artist’s
the murals. In many ways, the experience recalls Tarsila’s repeated
attention: it would now itself become subject to her own artistic
compositions of A Negra and the physical retracing and mental
cannibalism, emerging as a new Brazilian bather and a product of
inscribing—ingesting—intrinsic to t he process.
her specific artistic process—the very origin of and inspiration for Anthropophagy.
In reclaiming their country’s past, Tarsila and other Brazilian modernists yearned for still more immediate, visceral, originary
ONE WHO EATS
experiences in order to reconnect with both a personal and
In the years between 1924 and 1929, Tarsila would move fluidly
national beginning—a childhood—unfiltered by outside sources.63
between Paris and São Paulo, and the focus of her artistic appetite
In 1927 Mário, Olívia Guedes Penteado, her niece Margarida, and
slipped, shifted, and expanded. For instance, in an unpublished
Tarsila’s daughter, Dulce, traveled to northeastern Brazil, where
manuscript written about 1925, Oswald offered insight into one
they were later joined by Tarsila and Oswald. During their journey
aspect of this development: in outline form, he noted Tarsila’s
to the historic towns of Recife and Salvador and then along the
growing interests in “the issue of Brazilian painting” and cited as
Amazon, Mário took more than six hundred photographs and
examples the engravings of nineteenth-century artist-travelers
voraciously recorded the local myths and legends that fed his
Jean-Baptiste Debret and Johann Moritz Rugendas (see fig. 15);
radical 1928 novel Macunaíma .64 Tarsila, for her part, fixed on
the illustrations of José Wasth Rodrigues, who documented
indigenous subjects in her research and produced such paintings
colonial art and architecture; and the portraits of Brazilian types by
as Manacá (pl. 50), a stylized portrait of the Amazon plant used
the late nineteenth-century painter José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior
by the Tupi people for medicinal and magical purposes. She also
61
(see fig. 16). For Tarsila, Brazilian culture and history were not
focused on acquiring art that reflected the cultural heritage of
just issues of intellectual study and artistic recovery, but subjects
Brazil: a photograph (pl. 113) taken of the artist in her São Paulo
also to be physically consumed. By 1927, for example, the artist
home, probably in 1930, records the presence of ethnographic
was intimately engaged in the repair and repainting of the folk art
material alongside works by Brancusi, Delaunay, and Léger. Although
murals at the Santa Teresa do Alto fazenda in Itupeva that she
not well documented, records indicate that Tarsila also owned at least one object from the northwestern state of Pará, which she later donated to the Musée de l’Homme in Paris.65 The ambition for Brasilidade, expressed in Brazil through the search for real indigenous character but felt in analogous form in Latin American countries generally at this time, demanded transformation, something Mário and Oswald recognized in their poem “Homenagem aos homens que agem” (Homage t o People Who Act) of 1927, which contains this stanza devoted to Tarsila: Tarsila paints no more With Paris green She paints with Cataguazes Green66
In the remainder of the poem, the poets, who signed themselves with the combined pen name “Márioswald,” lauded themselves— as well as the sculptor Victor Brecheret and the composer Heitor
50
A Negra , Abaporu , and Tarsila’s Anthropophagy
Villa-Lobos—for overcoming the influence of outside sources and
composition and the successor to A Negra. Indeed, when the
embodying the native qualities represented by the town of
work was shown in Paris in 1928, it was called Nu (Nude ) and not
Cataguases in Minas Gerais. In seeking an authentic character and
by its invented Tupi title. We know the painting was significant to
national heritage, Tarsila and other Brazilian modernists—whose
the artist, as it, like A Negra , was subjected to multiple redrawings
goals would soon be formalized into the movement known as
and retracings (see pls. 51–53). The compositions are, in fact,
Anthropophagy—came to define their own golden age and imagine
related: both feature figures with disproportionately small heads
a truly Brazilian Arcadia.
and elastic bodies that Tarsila pressed and pulled as she applied compositional pressure. As solitary individuals set in distinct envi-
It is in this context that Tarsila made Abaporu (pl. 54). The canvas
ronments, they are rooted, anchored even, to place: A Negra ’s
presents a lone figure turned in profile against a clear blue sky. A
abstract, banded background connotes the European mode rnist
subject of extreme deformation, the nude appears like an extension
context of its making, whereas Abaporu ’s tropical signifiers point to
of the earth or at least is bound to it, as its heavy right hand and
a primordial Brazilian origin. It is also in this comparison that Tarsila’s
grotesquely outsized foot are weighted to the green mound on
removal of the grotesque aspects of A Negra ’s sexuality and race
which it sits. The figure’s right arm covers much of its bo dy,
become evident, underscoring the figure’s transformation. If,
while its miniature left arm and hand support the absurdly small
therefore, A Negra was a bather that announced Tarsila’s member-
head. Opposite, as if the object of its contemplation, stands a
ship in a community of modern artists, Abaporu proclaimed that
cactus with a bright yellow flower. According to the artist, when
Modernism specifically for Brazil.
she presented this as a birthday gift to Oswald on January 11, 1928, he and their friend, the poet Raul Bopp, were “shaken” and
Tarsila’s final step on this path seems to have coincided with her
concluded “that an important intellectual movement could come
preparations for her first solo exhibition in her home country in
of this.”67 Together, in a process reminiscent of Tristan Tzara’s
1929. There, she would present neither A Negra nor Abaporu, but
naming of Dada, they consulted a Tupi-Guarani dictionary to find
a new work entitled Anthropophagy (pl. 77). In a literal culmination
a title, settling on the combination of the words aba , meaning
of her journey, documented in numerous drawings in preparation
68
“person,” and poru , signifying “who eats.”
(pls. 75, 76), Tarsila painted the figures from A Negra and Abaporu together, physically transformed and united.70 Rooted by the earth,
Tarsila later described this figure as a “cannibal: a solitary monstrous
the faceless forms, which might now read as female and male, are
figure,” but nothing in i ts visual attributes—especially its lack of a
set against a thick green wall of cacti and a banana plant. The
mouth—suggests this. Rather, it is as the inspiration for Oswald’s
vegetation protects them just as Cézanne’s many trees functioned
April 1928 “Manifesto antropófago” and through its presence as a
in his bathers compositions, and we might now imagine that we
line drawing in its published form (pl. 104) that the painting acquired
are witnessing Tarsila’s long-sought Arcadia, a modern art made by
its cannibal status. Oswald’s notion of Anthropophagy pushed
her own means.
beyond the vision of Pau Brasil, imagining a violent culmination of Brazilian Modernism in extreme artistic appropriation, embracing
In 1923, the year that Tarsila first arrived at A Negra, Oswald
destruction and consumption as a means of new production:
gave a lecture on Brazil at the time of the nineteenth-century artist-traveler Debret, noting in his depictions the always present
Only anthropophagy unites us. Socially. Economically.
“obsession of Arcadia, with its shepherds, Greek myths, then
Philosophically.
imitation of the landscapes of Europe with docile roads and well
The one and only world principle. Disguised expression
combed fields, in a country where nature is unconquered, vertical
of all individualisms, of all the collectivisms.
light and life in full construction.”71 In the process of inventing
Tupi or not tupi, that is the question. [ . . . ]
her own form of modern art for Brazil—of ingesting and digesting
We have never been catechized. We really made Carnival. [ . . . ]
inspiration from many sources at many times and repeatedly
We already had Communism. We already had the Surrealist
subjecting them to her artistic appetite thereafter—Tarsila had
language. The golden age.69
succeeded in realizing the goals of the Semana, announcing her creative identity, and discovering her own artistic Arcadia. Her
Seen in this context, as a visual announcement of a new artistic
process gave rise to the movement of Anthropophagy. The key
identity and direction, we might consider Abaporu a Brazilian bather
to this was the fluid, shifting figure of A Negra.
D’Alessandro
51
NOTES
The author wishes to thank Tarsilinha do Amaral, Marcelo Mattos Araujo, Aracy Amaral, Ana Gonçalves Magalhães, Jorge Schwartz, Michele Greet, Megan Sullivan, Katja Rivera, Camille Grand-Dewyse, and Cecilia Resende-Santos for their many contributions to this essay. Unless otherwise specified, all Portuguese translations are by Stephen Berg. The identification of Tarsila as the “caipirinha dressed by Poiret” derives from the poet Oswald de Andrade’s “Atelier,” published in Pau Brasil (Au Sans Pareil, 1925), pp. 75–76; it has come to be one of the phrases that feeds her near-mythic reputation in Brazil. In Portuguese, a caipirinha is a country girl (one of the personae with whom Tarsila identified in the 1920s); Paul Poiret was a leading French fashion designer who, along with the designer Jean Patou, made dresses for Tarsila, which helped shape another of her personae: the cosmopolitan figure. For more on Tarsila’s identity in the 1920s, see the introduction to this volume, pp. 16–25. 2 Throughout this catalogue, the reader will find the French words nègre and négresse and the Portuguese words negro and negra . In the early twentieth century, the French words were used to designate all darkskinned people—whether Africans, colonial subjects, or African Americans, for example—without regard to national or cultural identity. In Brazil, since at least the beginning of the twentieth century and continuing today, negro and negra have had a different connotation. Because of their mixed culture, which embraces European, African, and native Indian elements, Brazilians have a different sense of racial identity. The term is still used in the Brazilian-Portuguese vernacular and considered the most polite description (as opposed to preto , or black, for example). Often, the term is used as a form of familiar address and endearment, as in “meu negro ” (my dear, my friend, or old man), but it can also be used ironically. The authors have elected to keep the title of A Negra in the original Portuguese to preserve the additional nuances of the word in its original language, which are very different than in the American usage of the term. 3 Tarsila do Amaral, “Pintura Pau-Brasil e Antropofagia,” RASM —Revista anual do Salão de Maio 1 (1939), n.p.; see pp. 167–69 in this publication f or an English translation. 4 Tarsila kept A Negra until 1951, when it was acquired by the Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo; in 1963 that museum donated it to the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo. For a fascinating recent study on the reception of A Negra , 1
52
A Negra , Abaporu , and
Tarsila’s Anthropophagy
see Renata Gomes Cardoso, “ A Negra de Tarsila do Amaral: Criação, recepção e circulação,” VIS: Revista do Programa de Pós-graduação em Arte da UnB 15, 2 (July–Dec. 2016), pp. 90–110. 5 See, for example, Tarsila do Amaral, “Confissão geral,” in Tarsila: 1918–1950 , exh. cat. (Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, 1950); and “Recordações de Paris,” Habitat—Revista das artes no Brasil 6 (1952). These sources are reprinted in Crônicas e outros escritos de Tarsila do Amaral , ed. Laura Taddei Brandini (Editora da UNICAMP, 2008), pp. 727–30 and 731–36, respectively, and translated in this publication, pp. 169–73. 6 Tarsila do Amaral to Anita Malfatti, Oct. 26, 1920, in Aracy A. Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo , 3rd ed. (Editora 34/Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 2003), pp. 48–49; for an English translation, see Aracy A. Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral , exh. cat. (Fundación Juan March, 2009), p. 236. 7 Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo , p. 51. 8 For more on the Semana, see Mário Pedrosa, “Modern Art Week,” in Mário Pedrosa: Primary Documents , ed. Glória Ferreira and Paulo Herkenhoff (Museum of Modern Art, 2015); and Aracy A. Amaral, Arts in the Week of ’22 , trans. Elsa Oliveira Marques (BM&F, 1992). Given their anti academic stance and forward-leaning positions, organizers such as Mário de Andrade and Oswald de Andrade were labeled “Futurists” by the media, and the term was used in general to stand for modernist artists. For more on the nuances of the term in the Brazilian context, see Stella M. de Sá Rego, “Tarsila/Pau-brasil, Her Sources in the French Avant-garde and the Significance of Her Work in the Context of Brazilian Modernism” (Master’s thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1985), p. 22. See also Rubens Borba de Moraes, “Recordações,” repr. in Aracy A. Amaral, Artes plásticas na Semana de 22 (Editora 34, 1998), p. 296. 9 Tarsila, “Confissão geral,” in Tarsila: 1918–1950 , exh. cat. (Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, 1950), p. 727; translated in this publication, pp. 169–70. Paulicéia desvairada (1922) was Andrade’s most controversial and influential book of poems, introducing the use of free meter into Brazilian modern poetry. For an English translation, see Mário de Andrade, Halluci- nated City, Paulicéia Desvairada , trans. Jack E. Tomlins (Vanderbilt University Press, 1968). 10 Tarsila, “Recordações de Paris,” p. 731. 11 Paulo Prado, the Brazilian patron and writer who was also living in Paris at the time, is responsible for the discovery. Cézanne actually lived at 15, rue Hégésippe Moreau from January 1898 until the end of June
1899. See RMN-Grand Palais, Cézanne and Paris , exh. cat. (Éditions de la RMN–Grand Palais, 2011), p. 211. Whether or not it was the same address, the connection with Cézanne was clearly important to Tarsila and a point she referred to even late in life. 12 Tarsila, “Recordações de Paris,” p. 732. 13 On Lhote’s appraisal of Cézanne, see, for example, “Fine Arts: A First Visit to the Louvre,” Athenaeum 4660 (Aug. 22, 1919), pp. 786–88; and “L’Enseignement de Cézanne,” La Nouvelle revue française 8, 86 (Nov. 1, 1920), pp. 649–72. 14 Tarsila do Amaral, Diário de São Paulo , June 23, 1936, repr. in Brandini, Crônicas e outros escritos , pp. 53–55; for an English translation, see Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral , pp. 203–204. 15 Although the exact date of Vollard’s acquisition of the painting is not documented, it was listed in Georges Rivière’s 1923 chronology of Cézanne’s works as “Collection A. Vollard” and was shown in a 1929 exhibition at Galerie Pigalle, which was a loan show organized by Vollard. This information is based on Jill Shaw’s entry on “Bathers” in Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde , ed. Rebecca A. Rabinow, exh. cat. (Metropolitan Museum of Art/Yale University Press, 2006), p. 344. Vollard was also a great collector of Renoir, another artist who produced numerous images of bathers. 16 Tarsila used the phrase “Cubism is military service” in the interview “Tarsila do Amaral, a interessante artista brasileira, dá-nos as suas impressões,” Correio da Manhã , Dec. 25, 1923, p. 2; translated in this publication, pp. 155–56. 17 See, for example, Joseph J. Rishel and Katherine Sachs, ed. Cézanne and Beyond , exh. cat. (Philadelphia Museum of Art/Yale University Press, 2009). 18 For more on Cézanne’s bathers, see Christian Geelhar, “The Painters Who Had the Right Eyes: On the Reception of Cézanne’s Bathers,” in Paul Cézanne: The Bathers , ed. Mary Louise Krumrine, exh. cat. (Museum of Fine Arts, Basel/Eidolon, 1990), pp. 275–304. 19 Kenneth E. Silver, Esprit de Corps: The Art of the Parisian Avant-Garde and the First World War, 1914–1925 (Princeton
University Press, 1989). For more on the history of décoration as it pertains to late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century France, see Nancy Troy, Modernism and the Decorative Arts in France: Art Nouveau to Le Corbusier (Yale University Press, 1991); and Gloria Groom, Beyond the Easel: 20
Decorative Painting by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, and Roussel, 1890–1930 ,
exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/ Yale University Press, 2001). Another example of a modern artist’s adoption of Cézanne’s subject of the
bather can be found in Stephanie D’Alessandro and
exhorting him to facilitate Tarsila’s impending exhibition;
To read the other drafts of the poem, see Maria Eugênia
John Elderfield, Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–17 ,
reproduced in Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo ,
Boaventura, “O Atelier de Tarsila,” in I Encontro de
exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University
p. 230. A similar mixing of “exotic” (African and Indian)
crítica textual: O manuscrito moderno e as edições
Press, 2010).
characteristics was performed by all the modernists;
(Universidade de São Paulo, 1986).
a different, but related, blending was paralleled
37
article for the Diário de São Paulo as “Um mestre da
by Cendrars, who inscribed a copy of his Anthologie
found in the central seated figure of Gauguin’s Arearea
pintura moderna,” repr. in Brandini, Crônicas e
nègre to the combined figures of “Tarsiwald.”
(1892; Musée d’Orsay), which Tarsila likely saw in the
outros escritos , pp. 53–54; for an English translation,
27
see “A Master of Modern Painting,” in Amaral et al.,
Swedish Ballet , trans. Ruth Sharman (Abrams, 1989),
See Rabinow, Cézanne to Picasso , p. 358.
Tarsila do Amaral , p. 203.
pp. 41–44; and Darius Milhaud (who himself traveled
38
to Brazil in the late 1910s while serving as secretary to
although different in composition and style: it is the
is unknown, but she met Cendrars, who facilitated the
French ambassador Paul Claudel), Notes without Music:
small canvas Bathers (1923), which Tarsila might have
visit, on May 28, and she stated in “Um mestre da
An Autobiography , trans. Donald Evans (Knopf, 1953),
made while she visited Portugal or Spain, but the
pintura moderna” (see note 21 above) that it was before
pp. 149–50, 152–53.
painting does not have enough evidence to be fully
her studies with Gleizes, which began sometime in
28
June (according to a letter from Mário de Andrade,
letter to her family. See Tarsila to Lydia Dias do Amaral
more traditional Arcadian image than the composition
mentioned in Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo ,
and José Estanislau do Amaral Filho, in Amaral, Tarsila:
of A Negra . See Maria Eugênia Saturni and Regina
p. 400). According to the catalogue of the Berggruen
Sua obra e seu tempo , p. 407.
Teixeira de Barros, eds., Tarsila: Catálogo raisonné ,
collection, Seated Nude Drying Off Her Foot was with
29
Picasso until it was sold to Paul Rosenberg, Paris.
Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo , p. 119n47.
See Peter-Klaus Schuster, Picasso und seine Zeit: Die
30
Sammlung Berggruen (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—
do Amaral Filho, Oct. 31, 1923, in Amaral, Tarsila: Sua
Teixeira de Barros, the inscription A 1ª Negra in the
Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Ars Nicolai 1996), p. 436.
obra e seu tempo , p. 130; Tarsila told her parents that
bottom left corner was written by Tarsila’s niece,
to have a show at his gallery (L’Effort moderne) would
Helena do Amaral Galvão Bueno; see Tarsila: Catálogo
Portrait of a Woman (1895; Musée Picasso, Paris) and
be a “consecration.”
raisonné , vol. 2, p. 219.
Renoir’s Seated Bather in a Landscape (1895–1900;
31
Musée Picasso, Paris), which the artist had acquired
herself as among “the primitives of a great century.”
De172, De192, DI108, Dq001 in Tarsila: Catálogo
from Paul Rosenberg in 1919 or 1920. For more on the
See “Tarsila do Amaral, a interessante artista brasileira,
raisonné .
Rousseau canvas, see Roger Shattuck, The Banquet
dá-nos a suas impressões.”
41
Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885
32
to World War I; Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie,
do Amaral Filho, Apr. 19, 1923, as quoted in Amaral,
At the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade
Guillaume Apollinaire (Vintage, 1968), p. 66; for more
Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo , pp. 101, 102; for an
de São Paulo: Ana Gonçalves Magalhães, associate
on the Renoir, see Anne Roquebert, “Seated Bather in
English translation, see Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral ,
professor, curator, and researcher for the Núcleo de
a Landscape,” in Rabinow, Cézanne to Picasso , p. 398.
p. 238.
Apoio à Pesquisa de Física Aplicada ao Estudo do
21
22
23
24
Tarsila memorialized her visit in a March 27, 1936,
The exact date of Tarsila’s meeting with Picasso
At Picasso’s studio, Tarsila also likely saw Rousseau’s
Among the works by Gauguin that Tarsila might
33
For more on the ballet, see Bengt Häger, The
Tarsila mentions visiting Léger’s studio in a July 5
Tarsila to her family, Sept. 29, 1923, as quoted in Tarsila to Lydia Dias do Amaral and José Estanislau
In an interview, Tarsila would soon even identify
Tarsila to Lydia Dias do Amaral and José Estanislau
Tarsila acquired a number of important paintings
A similarly suggestive shadowy space can be
collection of Vollard, who owned the canvas until 1928. There is only one potentially related painting,
accepted in the catalogue raisonné. It represents a far
vol. 2 (Base 7 Projetos Culturais/Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 2008), p. 157. 39
40
According to Maria Eugênia Saturni and Regina
See numbers AG005, D032, D033, D034, De171,
I would like to thank a number of individuals for
their valuable assistance in obtaining this X-radiograph.
Patrimônio Artístico e Histórico (NAP-FAEPAH); Paulo
have seen in Vollard’s home, for example, is Tahitian
and drawings during her time in Paris, including works
Roberto do Amaral Barbosa, head of the Collections
Women Bathing (1892; Metropolitan Museum of
by Brancusi, Gleizes, Léger, Lhote, and Picasso. The
Department; Ariane Soero Lavezzo, conservator; and
Art, New York). It is also worth noting that at about
Art Institute of Chicago’s collection contains another
Fábio Ramos and Mauro Silveira, art handlers. I would
this time Gauguin was acknowledged in at least
work formerly owned by the artist, Delaunay’s Red
also like to thank, at the Physics Institute (NAP-FAEPAH):
one instance as a “painter of American subjects of
Tower (1911/23; 1959.1). Tarsila also acquired works
Márcia Rizzutto, professor in the department of nuclear
the south.” See Sérgio Milliet, “Feuilles de route: le
for others in Brazil, including Mário de Andrade and
physics and coordinator of the NAP-FAEPAH; Paulo
formose,” Revue de l’Amérique latine 9 (Feb. 1925),
art patron Olívia Guedes Penteado.
Costa, professor of nuclear physics; and Nemitala
pp. 170–71.
34 Tarsila,
“Brancusi, ” Diário de São Paulo , May 6,
Added, professor of nuclear physics; as well as Camila
1936, repr. in Brandini, Crônicas e outros escritos , p. 73;
S. Melo and Alejandro Heiner Lopez, technicians.
do Amaral Filho, July 5, 1923, in Amaral, Tarsila: Sua
for an English translation, see Amaral et al., Tarsila
42
obra e seu tempo , p. 408.
do Amaral , pp. 209–10.
ent than those seen in recent X-radiographs of City
25
26
Tarsila to Lydia Dias do Amaral and José Estanislau
Oswald de Andrade lectured at the Sorbonne
35
Special thanks to Allison Langley for her insight
The many changes in A Negra are distinctly differ-
(The Street) (pl. 70) and Urutu Viper (pl. 58), in which
on May 11, 1923; the lecture was published as
and expertise in the examination of A Negra .
“L’Effort intellectuel du Brésil contemporain,” Revue
36
de l’Amérique latine 20 (July 1, 1923), pp. 197–207.
“Atelier” by Oswald. For more on this subject, see Jorge
City (The Street) with thin layers of color. Visual ex-
Cendrars specifically identified Oswald’s “Indian” char-
Schwartz, “Tarsila and Oswald in the Wise Laziness
amination of Tarsila’s other canvases from the 1920s
acter in his letter to the poet on April 1, 1926,
of the Sun,” in Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral , p. 101.
suggests A Negra ’s reworking is unusual and that her
This verse is from a discarded draft of the poem
there are few revisions; examination reveals that Tarsila carefully followed her original pencil sketch for
D’Alessandro
53
50
and Urutu Viper . Thanks again to Allison Langley for
do Amaral Filho, Apr. 19, 1923, as quoted in Amaral,
Gazette du Brésil 4, 30 (June 17, 1926), pp. 1–2.
her study of these works.
Tarsila do Amaral , p. 102; for an English translation, see
Translation by the author.
Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral , p. 238.
61
43
The change in the position of the crossed legs
Tarsila to Lydia Dias do Amaral and José Estanislau
José Severiano de Rezende, “L’Expéditi on Tarsila,”
process more typically follows that of City (The Street)
A document housed in the archives of Mário de
Andrade records Tarsila’s collection as including a
was first noted by Alexandre Eulalio; see A Aventura
51
brasileira de Blaise Cendrars: Ensaio, cronologia,
quoted in Amaral, Tarsila do Amaral , p. 369; for an English
drawing of heads by Johann Moritz Rugendas as well
filme, depoimentos, antologia (Edições Quíron, 1978),
translation, see Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral , p. 23;
as O Violeiro (1899), a canvas by Ferraz de Almeida
p. 87.
and reproduced in this publication, p. 166.
Júnior once owned by her father, which she inherited
44
Tarsila, as quoted in Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e
52
Letter from Mário to Tarsila, Nov. 15, 1924, as
60
Oswald, “Manifesto da Poesia Pau-Brasil,” Correio
in 1906. Thanks to both Fernanda Pitta and Pedro
da Manhã , Mar. 18, 1924, p. 5; as translated by Stella
Nery, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, for sharing
M. de Sá Rego, “Manifesto of Pau-Brasil Poetry,” Latin
documentation from the Museu Paulista Archives
that she began study with Léger and that on the previous
American Literary Review 14, 27 (Jan.–June 1986),
of the University of São Paulo concerning Tarsila’s
Saturday she had shared some of her works with the
p. 184, and in this publication, pp. 174–75.
donation in 1939.
artist in his studio. According to Aracy Amaral, who
53
interviewed Tarsila about many of her recollections,
within Brazil was unusual for such artists and writers
repr. in Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo , p. 257;
A Negra was among the canvases she shared with
at the time, and that this was also true of “upper-class
translated in Juan Manuel Bonet, “A ‘Quest’ for Tarsila,”
Léger (Tarsila do Amaral , p. 119n47). Without further
Brazilians wealthy enough to travel, a category which
in Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral , p. 84.
documentation, we can assume that if this is correct,
included many of the Modernists.” Sá Rego also notes
63
the painting was probably finished by Saturday, October
that even to attend Carnival in the streets, rather than
Brazilian artist Rego Monteiro. See Edith Wolfe, “Paris
6, 1923. Tarsila traveled to Italy in the late summer,
in the society balls, “constituted a kind of ‘slumming’
as Periphery: Vicente do Rego Monteiro and Brazil’s
so it is likely that the majority of her work on A Negra
for the aristocratic Brazilian group” and points to the
Discrepant Cosmopolitanism,” Art Bulletin 96, 1 (Mar.
was completed in anticipation of this trip.
remark of Olívia Guedes Penteado to Tarsila after leaving
2014), pp. 98–119. This idea of origin and becoming are
a celebration, “Thank god no one I know passed by.”
further explored in Luis Pérez-Oramas’s essay in this
to the canvases Abaporu (pl. 54) and Anthropophagy
Sá Rego, “Tarsila/Pau-brasil,” pp. 49–50.
publication, “Tarsila, Melancholic Cannibal,” pp. 84–99.
(pl. 77). These are reproduced in Tarsila: Catálogo
54
Tarsila, “Pintura Pau-Brasil e Antropofagia.”
64
raisonné , vol. 2; for Abaporu , see numbers D228, D229,
55
For more on Cendrars’s experience in Brazil, see
traditions of Brazil’s indigenous people would lead the
D230, D231, and D232; for Anthropophagy , see D245,
Alexandre Eulalio, A Aventura brasileira de Blaise Cendrars ;
following year to Mário de Andrade’s novel Macunaíma ,
D246, D247, and D248.
his drawings after A Negra are reproduced on pp.85–87.
which follows a young man born in the Brazilian jungle
Tarsila also made covers for both publications—
and whose personality represents the country of Brazil.
seu tempo , p. 44n7. 45
46
47
Tarsila wrote to her family on October 8, reporting
Tarsila would do the same years later, in relation
It is possible that Tarsila returned to Brazil with
56
Stella M. de Sá Rego has pointed out that tourism
62
Manuel Bandeira, “Felicidade perfeita” (Dec. 1927),
A fascinating related case can be found in the
Such research into the language, culture, and
some of the art she made in Paris—on January 3, Mário
a variation on the Brazilian flag for Oswald (pl. 92) and
For more on the novel, see Esther Gabara, Errant
wrote to Anita that Tarsila’s paintings were held in
a variation on A Negra for Cendrars. Both books were
Modernism: The Ethos of Photography in Mexico and
customs and that he had witnessed her new “magnif-
published in Paris, and it is noteworthy, considering the
Brazil (Duke University Press, 2008), pp. 79–119.
icent drawings”; Mário de Andrade to Anita Malfatti,
nationality of each author, how their books announce
65
Jan. 3, 1924, published in Renata Gomes Cardoso,
“Brazil” differently.
as Cylindre gravé in the collection of the Musée
“A Negra de Tarsila do Amaral,” p. 94n9. Cardoso points
57
to the possibility that the large size of A Negra
the Amaral family (“Fotografia de funcionária da família
a growing awareness in Paris of Latin American art,
prevented its shipment to Brazil and notes the l ack of
Amaral, que integra o album de viagens de Tarsila”) in
a new kind of “exotic” identity that Tarsila would
commentary about the painting by Brazilian colleagues
Regina Teixeira de Barros, “Tarsila Viajante,” in Aracy
negotiate in varying ways. By 1926 she was navigating
upon her return; p. 99.
A. Amaral and Regina Teixeira de Barros, Tarsila: Viajante,
this gap, preparing for her first exhibition at the Galerie
viajera , exh. cat. (Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo,
Percier, when Cendrars advised Oswald to “make a
artista brasileira, dá-nos as suas impressões.” Caipira
2008), p. 31. The woman is also identified as a “former
FRENCH, PARISIAN exhibition and not a South American
means “country bumpkin”; a caboclo denotes some-
slave of the Amaral family” in Regina Teixeira de Barros,
manifestation. The danger to you is to be understood
one of mixed race with Native and European ancestry
“Tarsila do Amaral: Chronology,” in Amaral et al.,
as official. . . . This time use your Indian character.”
but is also a generic term in Brazilian Portuguese for
Tarsila do Amaral , p. 235.
Blaise Cendrars to Oswald de Andrade, Apr. 1, 1926,
the rural poor. Thanks to Stephen Berg for sharing his
58
nuanced understanding of these terms.
aquela coisa?’” Veja 181 (Feb. 23, 1972), p. 6; translat-
66
ed in this publication, pp. 162–65.
“Homenagem aos homens que agem,” Verde 1, 4
48
49
Tarsila do Amaral, “Tarsila do Amaral, a interessante
Tarsila to Lydia Dias do Amaral and José Estanislau
The photograph is identified as a former worker of
Tarsila, “Entrevista: Tarsila do Amaral, ‘O que seria
du Quai Branly (71.1931.29.1). This was at odds with
repr. in Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo , p. 409. Mário de Andrade and Oswald de Andrade,
(Dec. 1927), p. 9, as translated in Amaral et al.,
do Amaral Filho, Aug. 12, 1923, as quoted in Amaral,
59
Tarsila do Amaral , p. 116; and Tarsila to Lydia Dias
de l’art français et des industries de luxe 9, 6 (June
Tarsila do Amaral , p. 83.
do Amaral and José Estanislau do Amaral Filho, Aug.
1926), p. 368; and Gaston de Pawlowski, “Les Petites
67
5, 1923, as quoted in Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu
expositions, Tarsila, 38, rue La Boétie,” Le Journal
” The exact chronology of events following Tarsila’s
tempo , pp. 115–16.
(June 22, 1926), p. 3. Translation by the author.
painting and the actions of each protagonist shifted
54
A Negra , Abaporu , and Tarsila’s Anthropophagy
Georges Remon, “Galerie Percier,” La Renaissance
The decorated ceramic cylinder is now catalogued
Tarsila do Amaral, “Pintura Pau-Brasil e Antropofagia.
even in the accounts she offered during her lifetime; see the introduction to this publication, pp. 16–25. 68
Although it recalls the similar narrative of Tristan
Tzara’s naming of Dada, the idea also intersects with Francis Picabia’s Dadaist publication Cannibale , which promoted a primitivist sensibility to consume the whole of the movement. 69
Oswald de Andrade, “Manifesto antropófago,”
Revista de Antropofagia 1, 1 (May 1928), pp. 3, 7, translated by Hélio Oiticica in Carlos Basualdo, Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture (Cosac Naify, 2005), pp. 205–207 and in this publication, pp. 176–77. 70
The united form of the figures of A Negra and
Abaporu into the new being in Anthropophagy parallel the combined portmanteaux of “Tarsiwald” and “Márioswald,” both invented by Oswald. For a consideration of this invention as an extension of anthropophagic practice, see Helba Carvalho, “Tarsiwald: O Princípo da ‘Devoração,’” (paper presented at the XI Congresso Internacional da Associação Brasileira de Literatura Comparada, Rio de Janeiro, July 13–17, 2008), http://www.abralic.org.br/eventos/cong2008/ AnaisOnline/simposios/pdf/026/HELBA_CARVALHO.pdf. 71
Oswald de Andrade lectured at the Sorbonne
on May 11, 1923; the lecture is published as “L’Effort intellectuel du Brésil contemporain,” Revue de l’Amérique latine 20 (July 1, 1923), pp. 197–207. Translation by the author.
D’Alessandro
55
14
The Railway Station, 1925 (cat. 48)
57
15
Landscape with Railroad
Car , c. 1924 (cat. 38)
58
16 Train Station, 1924 (cat. 23)
59
17–19
Drawings for Feuilles de route
(Road Maps ), ), c. 1924 (cats. 31, 34, 30)
60
20 Sertão Farm III , 1924–30 (cat. 39)
21 Carnival in Madureira , 1924
(cat. 16)
62
22
Mantiqueira Mountains/
Rio de Janeiro , 1924 (cat. 24)
64
23
The Papaya Tree , 1925 (cat. 47)
65
24 Hills of the Favela , 1924 (cat. 19)
66
25
Study of Mountains (Front
of Study of Landscape ), 1924 (cat. 22) 26
Ouro Preto and Padre Faria
(Front of Sabará ), 1924 (cat. 20)
67
27
Fragment of a Landscape , 1924
(cat. 18) 28
Drawing for Feuilles de route
(Road Maps ), c. 1924 (cat. 37) 29
Pen with Ox and Piglets II , 1924
(cat. 21)
68
69
30–32
Original illustrations for
Pau Brasil , 1925 (cats. 45, 44, 42) 33
Drawing for Feuilles de route
(Road Maps ), c. 1924 (cat. 29)
70
34
Original illustration for Pau Brasil ,
1925 (cat. 43)
71
35–37
Drawings for Feuilles de route
(Road Maps ), c. 1924 (cats. 32, 25, 26) 38
72
Town with Tram, c. 1925 (cat. 51)
39
Drawing for Feuilles de route
(Road Maps ), c. 1924 (cat. 33)
73
40–43
Drawings for Feuilles de route
(Road Maps ), c. 1924 (cats. 35, 27, 28, 36)
75
44 A Cuca ,
76
1924 (cat. 17)
45
Saci-Pererê , 1925 (cat. 49)
46
Animal with Fat Stomach,
1925 (cat. 40) 47
Study for Blue Woman
(Water Spirit ) I , 1925 (cat. 50)
77
78
48
Lagoa Santa , 1925 (cat. 41)
49
Palm Trees , 1925 (cat. 46)
50
Manacá , 1927 (cat. 52)
51
Abaporu IV , 1928 (cat. 55)
81
82
52
Abaporu III , 1928 (cat. 54)
53
Abaporu V , 1928 (cat. 56)
54
Abaporu , 1928 (cat. 53)
TARSILA, MELANCHOLIC CANNIBAL LUIS PÉREZ-ORAMAS
Beyond Devouring, there is nothing. Being is pure and eternal Devouring.
Such coincidences might be no more than that but for the fact
—Oswald de Andrade, “Mensagem ao antropófago
Brazilian artists of the twentieth century, but were among those
desconhecido” (Message to the Unknown Cannibal), 1946
who, with respect to the modern period in Brazilian art, initiated
that the two women not only may have been the two greatest
it (Tarsila) and brought it to a close (Clark). 4 Equally significant, both
Cannibalism would therefore be the mythical expression of a melancholy bereavement—a sort of putting to death—for an object under whose spell the self found itself and from which it cannot resolve to separate itself.
artists were closely linked to the image, the imaginary, perhaps the myth, and certainly the representation—the very ability to be represented—of the Brazilian aesthetic project of Anthropophagy, whose foundational text is the 1928 “Manifesto antropófago” (Manifesto of Anthropophagy), illustrated by Tarsila and written by the poet Oswald de Andrade, the artist’s husband at the time.
—Pierre Fédida, “Le Cannibale mélancolique”
On January 11, 1928, in celebration of his birthday, Tarsila gave
(The Melancholic Cannibal), 1972
Oswald a painting (pl. 54) that, to say the least, was disturbing and strange: a monumental elongated figure, in the canonical, cheekon-hand posture of melancholy dating back at least to Albrecht Dürer’s Melancholy I (1514; fig. 1), of which this image can be
I
seen as a modern Brazilian version—brutal, barren, asexual, naked,
It was in 1972 that Pierre Fédida published his essay “Le Cannibale
solar. Flaunting extremities now immense, now minute—an
mélancolique.” 1 That same year, in São Paulo, Tarsila do Amaral
enormous foot, a tiny head—the figure sits beside a monumental
was in the last days of her life, while another Brazilian artist, Lygia
cactus, potentially with sexual connotations, in the broad l ight
Clark, was undergoing a decisive psychoanalysis with Fédida in
of midday.5 (The sun, at its zenith, marks the exact center of the
Paris, where the young Tarsila had devoured her entire experience
composition.) To title the work, Oswald and his friend the poet
of European modernity.2 Years earlier, also in Paris, in different
Raul Bopp dove into the language of Brazil’s Tupi and Guarani
decades but each at an early moment in her creative career, both
peoples, using the Tupi-Guarani dictionary published by the Jesuit
had been apprentices in the studio of the artist Fernand Léger,
Father Antonio Ruiz de Montoya in 1640, and set about inventing
Tarsila in 1923, Clark in 1950. There, both had learned to be some-
a word: aba , “person,” plus poru, “who eats”—Abaporu, “the one
thing other than just one more of their teacher’s many followers,
who eats.”6 The work would come to be seen as the incarnation
just another “sub-Léger.”3
of Brazilian anthropophagy. Paradoxically enough, many years later
84
Fig. 1 Albrecht Dürer (German,
Fig. 2 Lygia Clark (Brazilian,
1471–1528). Melancholy I ,
1920–1988). Anthropophagic Drool ,
1514. Engraving; 24.5 × 19.2 cm
1973, probably in use in Paris in
(9 5 / 8 × 7 9 / 16 in.). National Gallery
1973. The material is thread.
of Art, Washington, D.C. Gift of R. Horace Gallatin.
Clark would describe to her friend the artist Hélio Oiticica the making of a work (see fig. 2) that would come to be seen as incarnating both the conclusion, and maybe the consecration, of the anthropophagic project as myth and utopia of Brazilian Modernism, as Abaporu had been for its beginnings: I’m sending you a photograph of a work I call Anthropophagic Drool . A person lies on the ground. Around him, kneeling
youths place multicolored spools of thread in their mouths. With their hands, they begin taking from their mouths the threads that fall upon the supine person until the spools have been emptied. The regurgitated thread is moist with saliva, and, although people initially feel they are merely pulling on strands, they soon become aware that they are drawing out their own entrails. It is actually the phantasmatics of the body that interests me and not the body in itself.7
In around the same period as this letter, Fédida, in “Le Cannibale mélancolique,” was suggesting that whether as phantasm, dream, or delusion, anthropophagy manifests a longing to devour an object of desire with which we identify, in a primitive identification infused by the anxious possibility of its own rupture. Among the various manifestations of South America’s aspiration to modernity— “utopic messianism,” “archaeological utopia,” “involuntary residuality,” and “deforming indifference” are terms I have used elsewhere to describe independent but visually related aesthetic projects across the continent—perhaps none is more fascinating than Brazil’s cannibalistic phantasmagoria, which becomes image in Tarsila’s work, then later becomes body in Clark’s.8 The philosopher Benedito Nunes saw Oswald’s “Manifesto antropófago” (Manifesto of Anthropophagy) as simultaneously metaphor, diagnosis, and therapy: the text set out to assert Brazil’s intellectual autonomy, to diagnose its colonial trauma, and to transcend the collective superego that had impeded the accomplishment of modernity in the region since the early stages of the repression that colonialism had imposed.9 The starting point of Oswald’s essay, as Nunes understood, was a simplified, somewhat erroneous description of the rituals of anthropophagy, which need not entail literal cannibalism and does not appear as a generalized practice in the tribal cultures that Claude Lévi-Strauss called “cold” societies.10 From here Oswald made the argument that Brazil could and should cannibalize other cultures, following in the footsteps of Nietzsche, by digesting, “without a trace of resentment or spurious guilty conscience, the inner conflicts and resistances of the exterior world.”11
85
Fig. 3 Anita Malfatti (Brazilian, 1889–1964). The Stupid Woman, 1915–16. Oil on canvas; 61 × 50.6 cm (24 × 19 15 / 16 in.). Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo.
This project, this utopia, would not find a responsive reception until long after Oswald first articulated it. Nearly half a century would pass before the idea would find real social resonance and have a real effect on Brazilian culture. That delay is a concern of the present essay, along with that of Tarsila herself, the “country girl from São Bernardo” who, “dressed by Poiret,”12 teamed up with Oswald in Paris and São Paulo during the long, heroic years in which his invention won no direct audience or response.13 Remarkably, the first systematic monograph on Tarsila’s work appeared only in 1975, contemporaneously, that is, with Clark’s Anthropophagic Drool and Oiticica’s Parangolés .14 It had had to wait, in other words, until after the late 1960s, when the generation of artists and intellectuals linked to the Tropicália movement had retrospectively embraced Oswald’s cannibalist message.15 In the 1970s, the first rigorous theoretical interpretation of Brazilian Modernism, written by the artist Carlos Zilio, cast Anthropophagy as its birthplace, though the newborn had yet to grow up—the Modernism that Oswald had conceived as a utopia had yet to be realized.16 Earlier on, Oswald himself had abandoned Anthropophagy for Marxism; only toward the end of the 1940s had he returned to his ideas of the 1920s, but again without wide effect.17
Brazil. They should eat up this unique and different culture, for
The task of embodying the terms of Brazil’s anthropophagic utopia
“before the Portuguese discovered Brazil, Brazil had discovered
had fallen, after a long wait, to later generations—to artists such
happiness.”20 And before Oswald’s invented anthropophagic rite
as Zé Celso, Gal Costa, Hélio Eichbauer, Gilberto Gil, and Caetano
kicked off the adventure of Brazilian modernity—even before that
Veloso. Just as significant, Oiticica, Clark, and Zilio had seen in
adventure came to have a name, as Sônia Salzstein has shown—
Oswald’s project the sign of a difference, the trace of a possibility
Tarsila had already produced its image.21
18
that might materialize as a Brazilian modernity, though one emerging in unexpected places and forms—the “line” of color, moistened
II
with saliva, in Clark’s Anthropophagic Drool , for example. Thus
The modernity foreshadowed in the swallowing of everything by
Oiticica could write to Clark in that galvanizing year of 1968:
everyone (“The one and only world principle. . . . I am only con- cerned in that [which] is not mine. Man’s law. The law of anthro-
Brazil is a form of synthesis of peoples, races, habits, where
pophagous,” as Oswald wrote) in actuality did not happen.22 It
the European speaks but does not speak so loudly; except in the
did not happen during the event that the simpler art histories tend
universalist, academic fields, which are not those of “cultural
to identify as the originary scene—the primal scene, the Urszene
creation” but those of closure. Creation, even in Tarsila and
in Freudian terms—of the modern in Brazil: the Semana de Arte
especially in Oswald de Andrade, possesses a subjective charge
Moderna (Modern Art Week), a festival organized, and quite well
that differs extremely from the rationalism of the European,
attended, by the coffee-producing elite of São Paulo in 1922 (see
this is our “thing,” that Guy Brett was able to understand
fig. 4). It did not happen during that week’s pomp and circum-
so well and that the Europeans will have to swallow, in fact
stance at the city’s Teatro Municipal, nor did it happen earlier: in 1917, for example, when another of Brazil’s great modern artists,
with appetite since they are fed up with everything and it 19
looks as if that saturated civilization is drying their imagination.
Anita Malfatti (see fig. 3), having returned to São Paulo after working in Berlin with Lovis Corinth and in Maine with Homer Boss,
Oiticica’s surprising metaphor inverts Oswald’s cannibalist
exhibited the work she’d been making—to no significant critical
principle: instead of Brazil cannibalizing Europe, ancient (and new)
reception. Nor did it happen in 1912, when Lasar Segall, an
colonists—Europeans—should devour what has metabolized in
avant-garde artist from Lithuania, brought to Brazil from Germany
86
Tarsila, Melancholic Cannibal
Fig. 4 Photograph of a group at the
Cândido Motta Filho, Paulo Prado,
Fig. 5 Tarsila do Amaral and Oswald
Semana de Arte Moderna from Tarsila
Flaminio Ferreira, René Thiollier,
de Andrade in hammock, c. 1924.
do Amaral’s travel album, c. 1922–28.
Graça Aranha, Manuel Villaboim,
Coleção de Artes Visuais do Instituto
Thaís do Amaral Perroy Collection,
Gofredo Teixeira da Silva Telles;
de Estudos Brasileiros, Universidade
São Paulo. Left to right, starting at
seated: Rubens Borba de Moraes,
de São Paulo.
far left, standing: Couto de Barros,
Luís Aranha, Tácito de Almeida,
.
Manuel Bandeira, Mário de Andrade,
and Oswald de Andrade (on floor).
Sampaio Vidal, Francesco Pettinatti,
the results of his intense journey through expressionist painting.
inextricably linked to the fate of Brazil’s modern project and to the
Modernity did not depend on what was brought into Brazil and
image of modernity there. For the moment, we must distinguish
what wasn’t; it wasn’t just a matter of cultured men and elegant
image from text—the images of Brazilian moderni ty from its ex-
23
women being able to feel that they were ahead of local time.
pressions in texts and manifestos.27 There are many reasons for
Nor was it yet the time for Modernisms elsewhere, such as the
this, but we can begin with one: the fundamental program of that
one that would blossom in North America after World War II.24
modernity, Oswald’s “Manifesto antropófago”—a text that is less
Modernity had no place in Brazil’s Semana de Arte Moderna,
a series of arguments than a series of verbal images—has as its
although an important public showing by many of the country’s
frontispiece and emblem a drawing by Tarsila.28 We must begin,
modern artists did take place there.
then, by establishing one condition: we must attempt to see that image—and Tarsila’s work of the 1920s more generally—independ-
The argument that the Semana de Arte Moderna failed to accom-
ently of that text, independently of that word and everything its verbal
plish its goals is far from new. Modernity—which in any case,
images impose upon us, because Tarsila literally precedes them all.
we know, is structurally always an unfinished project, insofar as it feeds on utopia—requires a series of conditions of possibility
In a beautiful reflection on the art of antiquity, Pascal Quignard
that were absent in the Brazil of 1922, or rather were only marginally
weaves his arguments around two assumptions: behind every
present in meaningful combination. Because modernity must consist
image is another image, fading into absence; and behind every
of something other than an elitist skirmish, it did not happen in
word is someone lost, someone missing. Behind any image rests
Brazil in 1922, or in Russia in 1915,25 or during the rest of that intense
a secular sediment of images, forgotten or lost, unknown or un-
decade of the 1920s, in which Tarsila produced her greatest
differentiated, that can somehow return to life in any given image;
iconographic arsenal: “The historic solitude of Tarsila’s work,”
behind any word rests the absent that the word names.29 What
Salzstein writes, “the fact that the peculiar modern visuality that
absent image hides behind the organi c ampleness of Tarsila’s
she mounted from an astute dialectic of tradition and experimen-
anthropophagic repertoire? What is the absent image behind
tation did not become generalized for Brazilian art, is due perhaps
Abaporu (1928; pl. 54) or Anthropophagy (1929; pl. 77), or, before
to the work’s profound engagement with the utopian project of
them, behind A Negra (1923; pl. 13), that absolute mother?30
modernity, which in the end was not realized for the country, at
Behind these devouring figures, what is the scene of devouring
least, in its utopic dimension.”26
that we do not see? And if behind every word is someone lost, who is the one hidden in the lines of the “Manifesto antropófago”
The present essay does not set out to resolve the question of what
written by Oswald—who by then had been named “Tarsiwald”
modernity was or was not in Brazil, but it does examine an artist—
in a poem by Mário de Andrade, making Oswald and Tarsila
Tarsila—whose work, artistic personality, and very being are
(see fig. 5) inseparable doubles in that cannibalistic plot?31
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Before addressing these questions, I would like to stress one fact:
Cannibales,” published in 1580), Tarsila’s work, too, came to fruition
if the Semana de Arte Moderna was the Urszene of Brazilian
later, becoming central in that history only when its trauma, or
modernity, as its program claimed and as some narratives still claim,
the effect of its trauma, had been made digestible.34
it is nevertheless the case that Tarsila was not there. In February 1922 she was in Paris and would not return to São Paulo until
An acerbic critic of the Semana de Arte Moderna, Monteiro Lobato,
this foundational event was over. I’d like to begin, then, with this
sarcastically commented that in the salons of the elitist and
particular delay, before getting to any others: Tarsila was not
Eurocentric café society of São Paulo, and in the rich halls of the
there. Tarsila came l ater.
Villa Kyrial, mansion of the illustrious senator José de Freitas Valle, they ate “foie gras de Nantes.” 35 This nemesis of Brazilian
Tarsila, like modernity, came later: for our current purposes her
Modernism was certainly aware that not only did foie gras come
embodiment of modern art crystallized between A Negra and
from Nantes, but much of what was imported from France passed
Anthropophagy, which, with Abaporu, constitute an emblematic
through that port, from the essays of Montaigne to—notoriously,
series of transformations and can be interpreted as such.32 What
and not that far back in time—African slaves. The anecdotal
is there of each of these paintings in the other two? How do
reference to Nantes in relation to a senator who had earlier, with
they mutually transform one another? We might perhaps think
arrogant cruelty, attacked Malfatti’s work—proof of the elites’
of them as three distinct sites of articulation: I—mother, black
myopia, an obstruction to the early development of Modernism—
woman, slave (A Negra ); you—uncertain of gender, devourer of
makes me think of the Africans who were sold in markets in the
humans (Abaporu ); he and she—a strange, deformed, monstrous,
French West Indies and then in Brazil, the last American nation to
copulating couple who condense the previous two characters into
abolish slavery. The fascinating woman in A Negra , whom some
a third person yet to come (Anthropophagy ). Following Hubert
may find disturbing but who ri vets our eyes—and who can be
Damisch—who, analyzing the practice of perspective in Western
linked to a photograph (fig. 6) that Tarsila kept from the early 1920s
art, replaced the word mask with the word painting in a text by
on, showing a black woman sitting outdoors, a woman Tarsila
Lévi-Strauss—we might perhaps then suppose “that one painting
spoke of when remembering her childhood in 1972—would certainly
responds to another by assuming its indi viduality” and that what
in 1923 have summoned a memory of slavery, which had ended
matters “is not primarily what it represents but what it transforms,
less than forty years before.36
33
that is to say what it chooses not to represent.”
The figure in A Negra is iconographically a matriarch at the We might perhaps interpret this transformation literally: as an
same time that she is historically a slave: simultaneously a primal
engendering, an act of conception or impregnation. And the issue
subject—a figure embodying a collective engenderment, the
of engendering (in this case also the engendering of the modern
troubled infancy of a nation—and a subject for emancipation. Nunes
in Brazil) naturally implies, we know, the complex issue of a primal
writes of Oswald’s anthropophagic texts,
scene—a scene, an image, that is always missing, always absent— as well as maternity, infancy, childhood, emergence, blossoming.
The maternalistic nature of Pau-Brasil’s poetic vision is reflected
In the light of these paintings, such issues indicate a problem at
in matriarchy as a schema of primitive life, having served as
once cultural and organic, relating not only to ideas but to bodies,
a core for the crystallization of technological barbarism in the
to coitions, swallowings, and digestions, all as much physical
form of an ideal society. And because the break with matriar-
as symbolic.
chal society took place when man had ceased eating his fellow man in order to enslave him, the lack of catharsis provided
Such is the metaphor, or the parable, that leads me down a
by ritual cannibalism allows us to see the cause that fixed the
strange trajectory: the idea that A Negra was devoured by Abaporu ,
power of the father as Superego onto the trauma of guilt
and that from that swallowing, that (symbolic) digestion, arose
feelings and, therefore, as an exterior reality principle, coercing
Anthropophagy . Just as the anthropophagic project cou ld not
and inhibiting the interior pleasure principle. 37
come to fruition at the time of its first articulation, but only later— delayed, appropriated, devoured, gulped down for other uses
Matriarch and slave, A Negra is the beginning of everything in
and other fates (just as Oswald’s manifesto was itself a delayed
Tarsila’s ar t. Anthropophagy does not operate among these
effect, an après-coup , of Michel de Montaigne’s essay “Des
works—they do not devour each other—but it does not precede
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Tarsila, Melancholic Cannibal
Fig. 6 Undated photograph of an unknown woman from Tarsila do Amaral’s travel album, (1922– at least 1926). Thaís do Amaral Perroy Collection, São Paulo.
the tension that links them either: her painting Abaporu is the
Yet Anthropophagy, this belatedly realized operating myth of
cannibal, and her painting Anthropophagy is what results from
the Brazilian modern project, is at root a European construct, and
the digestion of A Negra. Anthropophagy digests—condenses,
as such is not cannibalistic at all. Its constructors were white
metabolizes—both the matriarch and the slave.
Europeans, from Montaigne to Georges Bataille, without forgetting Francis Picabia.38 “We can already make out,” writes Nunes,
These three paintings cut through the marrow of Tarsila’s art of the
“in the ideas that Oswald de Andrade stole from Montaigne, Freud,
1920s. If we can sustain this hypothesis, this reading of the trio as
Nietzsche, and Keyserling . . . the general philosophical outline
a cannibal parable in which Abaporu might have digested A Negra
of Anthropophagy that passed unharmed onto the author’s
to produce Anthropophagy, then what Anthropophagy traces is
doctrinaire works.”39
simultaneously a neutral zone and a sphere—an interval—of deferment. The neutrality is that between two (perhaps imaginary)
The cannibal, simply, feeds on another human being in a totally
poles of tension: on the one hand, filiation, the maternal phantasm,
normal way. The idea that this behavior is extraordinary is a
perhaps also Mother Europe, and on the other, submission to
European invention, a construct of the canni bal’s victims. The
(and emancipation of) a messianic phantasm. In other words, the
cannibal, however, is a weak metaphor for symbolic assimilation
myth or ideology of Anthropophagy is that it establishes a neutrality
because it is too general: should we conclude that every attempt
between the blame-inducing constitutive tensions of Brazilian (and,
to assimilate modernity in Latin America was a sort of symbolic
I would add, Latin American) culture, between dependence and
cannibalism? “The world’s one law,” Oswald called anthropophagy
submission on the one hand and emancipation and messianic
in the manifesto, only to limit it to a term for the absorption of
promise on the other. The deferment comes because it could only
some cultures by others, a word describing the banal truth that
achieve its effects—still incomplete—quite a bit later, when it
cultures—all cultures—have always constituted themselves by
would become possible to locate in an entire social body—not just
symbolically metabolizing elements from outside them. The chal-
an illuminated elite—the field of a true public space, a popular
lenge lies in finding the codes specific to Brazilian anthropophagy,
culture whose forms and sites Tarsila was able to prefigure ahead
beyond the obvious and necessary kinds of assimilation inherent
of (her) time.
in cultural migration since time began. And perhaps it is precisely in an image that preceded Anthropophagy, shaping it even before it had a name—that is, in the work of Tarsila, that artist absent from the self-styled birth of Modernism in Brazil—that we can glimpse a path away from such generalizations. Setting aside the verbal texts of Anthropophagy, we must interrogate its image, and above all, as Quignard would say, the image that is absent in its images. What makes Tarsila’s work modern? How did it come to be modern, through what skirmishes, appropriations, and delays? And if, like Oswald’s writing, it had to wait for decades before a collective response to it became possible, we have to wonder: what of Tarsila is there in Oiticica, in Clark, in Lygia Pape? What of her is there in Eichbauer, set designer for Celso’s production of O rei da vela (The Candle King ), the play Oswald wrote in 1933 but whose debut came only in 1967, when the entire Tropicália generation discovered Anthropophagy, four decades after the writing of its manifesto (see fig. 7)? What of Tarsila is there in Gil, Veloso, Artur Barrio, Waltercio Caldas, Tunga, and Anna Maria Maiolino? Such questions arise easily, given that Tarsila’s connection to Anthropophagy seems not only authorized by her work but affected by it. Abaporu was printed as the frontispiece in Oswald’s
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Fig. 7 Hélio Eichbauer (Brazilian, born 1941). Set design for O rei da vela (The Candle King ), c. 1967. Coleção Teatro Oficina, São Paulo.
manifesto, although it predated it, and the cactus from Abaporu, or from Distance (1928; pl. 59) appeared in the backdrop for Celso’s production of O rei da vela. Veloso, who attended that production, saw it as the foundational event in the Tropicália movement’s embrace of Anthropophagy: “The idea of cultural cannibalism fit tropicalistas like a glove. We were ‘eating’ the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. Our arguments against the nationalists’ defensive attitude found in this stance its most succinct and exhaustive enunciation.”40 Less obvious, but more important, is an understanding of the heterogenous temporality of modernity, especially the Brazilian modernity that adopted the motto and visual imaginary of Anthropophagy. To understand this we must und erstand Tarsila’s “delays.” In his brilliant analysis of what Freud called Nachträglichkeit — the deferred action, the après-coup —Jean Laplanche emphasizes the alogical, anachronic order of its manifestation: the operative scene always happens later, and the originary, primal scene (which actually comes to light second, although it falls earlier in time) is always and forever lost. We were not in it; its trauma is such that we have no memory of having suffered it, until it emerges later, through and as an effect of a second event.41 In effect, it never happened. And if by some chance it did happen—as the Semana de Arte Moderna happened in 1922 or as the painting of Abaporu preceded the writing of the “Manifesto antropófago”—it is as if it had not happened, until another scene awakens the meaning of its traumatic effect. It is well known that any après-coup , any Nachträglichkeit , is built on a backward-looking fantasy: to have seen that lost Urszene , to have observed parental coitus. The Tropicália movement, and Brazil’s Concrete poetry and Neo-Concrete art of the late 1960s, were the standpoints for just such a backward view, toward Oswald’s and Tarsila’s Anthropophagy of the 1920s. That retrospective gaze would bring out the repressed meaning of a message that had been waiting to emerge since Tarsila conceived her melancholic monster, her melancholic cannibal. II I
Among the voices involved in revealing, materializing that delay, the voices that formulated the effects of Tarsila’s work, was that of the poet Haroldo de Campos. In a famous essay of 1969, this Concrete poet defined Tarsila’s painting as structural.42 To tie the work to one of the motivating impulses of literary formalism
90
Tarsila, Melancholic Cannibal
Fig. 8 Fernand Léger (French, 1881– 1955). Still Life , 1922. Oil on canvas; 65.4 × 48.3 cm (25 3 / 4 × 19 3 / 4 in.). Hermann und Margrit Rupf-Stiftung, Kunstmuseum Bern.
was a brilliant strategy: for de Campos, Tarsila revealed pictoriality in Brazilian painting, that is, the pictorial equivalent of what literaturnost , or
“literariness,” was for literature, according to the
Russian Formalists of the early twentieth century. De Campos’s argument that Tarsila read Brazil’s environmental and human landscape “along Cubist lines,” however, fails to take hold. Tarsila was not a Cubist—at least the Tarsila who interests us here, the artist working in the wake of brief studies with Léger, André Lhote, and Albert Gleizes in the early 1920s, was not a Cubist. Her work shows not the least sign of Cubism. It may be that during her apprenticeship in those Paris ateliers she absorbed the lesson that painting should account for relations, not things—an ancient lesson that in no way originates with Cubism—but as Paulo Herkenhoff clearly states, Tarsila’s work is far from being Cubist. . . . Her so-called “postcubism” merely reflects, by contrast, a period of development in Léger’s work [see fig. 8]. All of Tarsila’s work was devoid of the complex Cubist logic, which she never fully understood. This does not detract f rom Tarsila, nor from her founding role in the Brazilian “constructive project.”43
Contrasts of shape, and relationships whether synthetic or analytic, do not come into play in Tarsila’s art of the Pau-Brasil period (1923–25), and as Herkenhoff writes, she never reduced “space into its planar dimension or to the notion of surface.”44 What is interesting to observe instead is how she constructed her work out of a limited repertoire of iconographic elements that repeat and permute: tall palm trees, foliage à la Léger, semicircular hills, accumulations of spheres, conjoined ovals, horizontal colored rectangles, crisscrossing diagonal lines, forests of cones. In fact the work operates so heavily through variations of related forms—“[a] return albeit from something that differs from itself in [the process of] returning,” to the point that it prefigures “an ornamental geometry.”45 Hence the diagrammatic quality that is a prominent feature of Tarsila’s drawings, which are stripped of extraneous detail, like haikus of the Brazilian landscape. De Campos describes “Tarsila’s iconic world: synthetic, rigorously demarcated, and lucid places and figures that occasionally—and without contradiction—aspire to a stage of monumental abbreviation, of lush proliferation”46 In these “monumental abbreviations” of the Brazilian l andscape, animals and topographic features present there since time immemorial take on new life and new color through Tarsila’s eyes (see fig. 9): certain oval gray stones in the bluffs; the riverine capybaras that Frans Post described in the first Brazilian landscape painting in history, made in 1639 (fig. 10).
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Fig. 9 Detail of Setting Sun (1929;
Fig. 10 Frans Post (Dutch, 1612–
pl. 69) showing the capybara figures
1680). The Rio São Francisco and
that were inspired by the stones
Fort Morits , with a Capybara in
photographed in Landscape Indaiatuba
the Foreground , 1639. Oil on canvas;
(1928; pl. 103).
62 × 95 cm (24 7 / 16 × 37 3 / 8 in.). Musée du Louvre, Paris.
None of this has anything to do with Cubism. I would dare say, in fact, that none of it has anything directly to do with any of the canonical avant-garde languages (despite the link some have proposed with Surrealism).47 Following the traces of the work’s ornamental geometry, and the function of repetition and variation in the paintings of the late 1920s, I instead suggest that her iconography responds, in part, to a certain vocabulary—also ornamental—present in Art Deco.48 As Aracy Amaral has described, when Tarsila had her first solo show in Paris, at the Galerie Percier in 1926, she commissioned the paintings’ frames from the famous Art Deco designer Pierre Legrain (see fig. 11). Amaral establishes the bases—or throws out the clues—for a future investigation of the relationship between Tarsila’s work and Art Deco, and her position is decidedly critical: “Commissioning Legrain to construct frames that emphasized the exotic-magical nature of her works—in lizard skin, in corrugated cardboard, in polished wood, with mirrors cut at angles, etc.—always seems to us to have been a sign of insecurity in light of the public before whom she was presenting. In addition, these frames became works themselves, parallel with her paintings, no doubt interfering with them and causing some French critics to consider them tableaux-objets .”49 Legrain’s frames, however, don’t seem to have undermined the paintings at the time. The critic Paul Fierens, while mentioning “Pierre Legrain’s strange frames” in the Journal des débats, described the balance between the paintings’ freshness, freedom from artifice, and an “adequate dose of organizational intelligence.”50 Gaston de Pawlowski, in Le Journal, saw in the “Cubist frames” a desire to surprise—”There is something with which to shock the establishment”—but praised the “originality, the firm will of [Tarsila’s] compositions.”51 More interesting still, given the author’s conceptual reach, is Maurice Raynal’s remark in L’Intransigeant:“For Tarsila’s work, Pierre Legrain made special, very specifically designed frames, the formal and material combinations of which accompany the canvases no longer in a conventional way, but in order to isolate the picture less crudely and to enhance its qualities by harmonizing it with the objects that surround them.”52 Legrain’s assignment was elaborate: he designed a different frame for each work. Only one of these frames now survives, that for A Cuca (1924; pl. 44), but even so, it is surprising that this gesture of Tarsila’s has not been examined with greater care. A frame is no small thing—a parergon, an exhibition device, a Beiwerk —the “bit of cornice,” Nicolas Poussin called it in 1639, that differentiates between the work and the world.53 The decision to hire
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Tarsila, Melancholic Cannibal
Fig. 11 Mário da Silva Brito and Tarsila do Amaral with Abaporu in a frame by Pierre Legrain, c. 1950s. Biblioteca Mário de Andrade.
Legrain could not have be en made without the artist’s consent, 54
and she repeated it two years later, for her second show in Paris.
between the accessory and the necessary, the organic body and the inorganic thing imposed in early philosophical discourses.”56
In fact, the catalogues for both exhibitions explicitly mention Legrain’s frames. Their disappearance—not just their physical
There is quite a bit we might say about the parergon, but first
disappearance, their removal over time from all of the works
we must emphasize that logocentric approaches generally tend
except one, but their neglect when the work is discussed—may
to disregard both ornament and supplement: “Philosophical
be attributable to a repression typical of Modernism, with its
discourse,” Jacques Derrida writes, “will always have been against
taboo against the ornamental or anecdotal in art. This taboo is an
the parergon.” We must also observe that the parergon—like
accomplice to the ideology of the absolute artwork, a fiction that
any frame, including Legrain’s for Tarsila—is structurally called
art historians from Ernst Gombrich to Hans Belting have wisely
upon to position itself precisely against the material it contains
dismantled.55 That fiction contradicts the understanding of meaning
or highlights:
in art as the product of an expressive or linguistic system. Indeed, Legrain’s frames, and Tarsila’s tactical recourse to these ornamental
A parergon comes against, beside, and in addition to the
accessories, should be interpreted as a symptom of something
ergon, the work done [fait] , the fact [le fait] , the work, but it
deeper. Such accessories, Spyros Papapetros writes, are “less, but
does not fall to one side, it touches and cooperates within
also something more than a normative object. Biewerk is literally
the operation, from a certain outside. Neither simply outside
a side-work, or parergon in Greek (yet not a paralipomenon, or
nor simply inside. Like an accessory that one is obliged to
leftover). Such an intermediary object transcends distinctions
welcome on the border, on board [au bord, à bord] . It is first of all the on (the) bo(a)rd(er) [Il est d’abord l’à-bord] .57
The frames Tarsila commissioned for her first Paris show, and then again for her second, cannot be considered simply ancillary nor their function purely technical. The charge of making these frames, of transforming these paintings into objects, was not a banal or anodyne gesture that can be disposed of as reflecting “a certain insecurity.”58 Tarsila’s sensibility, after all, had been formed in the context of a symbolic universe marked by extraordinary supplements to the art object: the ornamental profusion of the Brazilian Baroque, the marvelous gilt reliefs that Aleijadinho made in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, not to mention the exuberant decoration omnipresent in the country’s countless popular celebrations, beginning with Carnival, a collective delirium on the part of the Brazilian people. Tarsila would have to have sustained some sort of determining interaction with Legrain. The fact that we know of no documentary traces of this dialogue does not invalidate the hypothesis: the commissioning of frames from Legrain was—is—an authorial decision, a stamp.59 That these accessories must be considered operators of historical inscription becomes even clearer when we remember that the gesture was repeated in 1928. In Paris, then, Tarsila presented her works within, or through, a considerable ornamental apparatus. This gesture was consequential and effective. The work “gobbled up” the avant-garde languages that were normalized—generalized and made familiar—through Art Deco during that period, but did so in a convertible, symmetrical manner: camouflaging itself in Art Deco strategies, the work let itself be digested by them.
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Fig. 12 Anita Malfatti). Group of Five , 1922. Ink and colored pencil on paper; 26.5 × 36.5 cm (10 7 / 16 × 14 3 / 8 in.). Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, Universidade de São Paulo. Left to right: Tarsila do Amaral (on sofa), Mário de Andrade and Anita Malfatti (at the piano), Oswald de Andrade (center), and Menotti del Picchia (bottom).
IV
Beyond Tarsila’s decision to inscribe her painting within the widely popular stylistic context of Art Deco, something in the excess of those frames should be read as standing in an oppositional relationship to the work they bordered. “Any parergon is only added on by virtue of an internal lack in the system to which it is added,” Derrida declares. “What constitutes . . . parerga is not simply their exteriority as a surplus, it is the internal structural link which rivets them to the lack in the interior of the ergon. And this lack would be constitutive of the very unity of the ergon.”60 If the one Legrain frame that has survived the harshness of time can be taken as representative, these objects supplemented the paintings with the exotic materials shown in the works’ interiors, setting dead materials, such as lizard- or snakeskin, alongside the depiction of animate ones. In the process, these accessory objects aligned with an ancient tradition in the visual arts: the life that is absent inside the frame, though vividly represented in shapes
of the 1920s gains a fascinating dimension. And now the commis-
and colors, is supplemented by the (dead) organic matter of the
sioning of frames from Legrain makes total (and another) sense, to
frame. With this in mind, perhaps we can understand Raynal’s
the point of arousing the suspicion that Tarsila might have had the
astute observation more fully: despite their excess and their strange-
idea that some of these works would become significant ornamental
ness, Legrain’s frames would have served to not to accentuate
objects through their frames. One might even speculate that for
but attenuate the difference between Tarsila’s works and everything
her second Paris exhibition in 1928, she could have painted some
around them, to make it less “abrupt,” more fluid.
of the works—Abaporu, for example, which she produced that
61
same year—with Legrain’s frames in mind.63 In Paris in 1926, then, Tarsila’s paintings appeared not just as singular and admirably different paintings but as decorative objects
A second delay: Tarsila came to modernity late. All indications show
inscribed into a style that was very à la mode in that city during
that in 1917, like so many others, she had failed to fully under-
those years. Aracy Amaral, despite her reservations in the face of
stand the message of Malfatti; nor does she seem to have found
this evidence, sees elements in the artist’s work from the late
herself attracted—although she was certainly intrigued—by modern
1920s that respond to that stylistic alignment: “Certainly these
art during her first stay in Paris, between 1920 and 1922.64 In truth,
works contain a stylization exploited by ‘art déco’ in stained glass
and paradoxically, Tarsila came to modernity in São Paulo: having
windows, tapestry and milk glass, the absorption of which [the
missed the Semana de Arte Moderna in 1922, and in the wake of
Brazilian artists [Antônio] Gomide, [Vicente do] Rego Monteiro,
the excitement it had generated, she found herself part of what
[Victor] Brecheret, and Ismael Nery also reflected.”
62
came to be called the Grupo dos Cinco (Group of Five), which also included Malfatti, Oswald, Mário, and Menotti del Picchia (see
Perhaps the vague assignment of Tarsila to a supposed “post-
fig. 12). I say paradoxically because when the artist returned to
Cubism,” an idea that cuts across the reception of her work from
Paris in 1923, she arrived with a commitment to modernity—
Mário de Andrade to Zilio, is just a critical euphemism, the result
a will to be modern—only to find Brazil.65 Its exoticism was repre-
of a reluctance to name Art Deco—as if that term, precisely because
sented tonally as flat, even paintings, and its vibrant colors lay
of its broad dissemination across the applied arts, were spurious
off in the distance. There was also its black population, widely
and ill-begotten. But once the myths and historical fictions of the
represented and embraced.66 Not for nothing is A Negra a Paris
modern avant-gardes are transcended, once the truth of Oiticica’s
painting, not a Brazilian one: “It was in Paris,” writes Herkenhoff,
remark “Purity is a myth,” inscribed in his Tropicália, Penetrables
“that Tarsila discovered Brazil. . . . It was in Paris that [Tarsila and
PN 2 (1966–67), is accepted, the setting of Tarsila’s work in the
Oswald] discovered the negro in a different light. African culture
massive international constellation of ornamental artistic languages
until then had been a disenfranchised culture in Brazil, a remainder
94
Tarsila, Melancholic Cannibal
of the Brazilian tradition of slavery. It was also notoriously absent 67
procedures and t ricks of traditional painting, all destined for the fictitious representation of volumes in space, the artist
from Brazilian academic painting.”
draws the contours of the icons with clear, limpid lines, in a
Tarsila, then, came to modernity when modernity was preparing
simple graphic procedure that attempts to evoke the whimsical
to be absorbed into daily life in innumerable industrial, ornamental,
arabesque of popular ornamentation, while the background
and utilitarian products, achieving the goal at which the supposedly
of the canvas is divided into flat color zones in which pure blue
pure historical avant-gardes had failed: to change the world, to
encounters pink, and a dense, banana-tree green is contrasted
invade reality, even at the sometimes-programmatic price of diluting
against the dark chestnut brown of black skin. 69
art with industry, the artist with the worker. The fact that one of the ways this came to pass was through impure, even bastard
There is a painting of this period, however, that Pedrosa’s detailed
means—the neutralizing assimilation of modern aesthetic languages
and colorful description doesn’t fit: A Negra. In this work alone
68
by the bourgeois fashion of Art Deco—matters least. Art Deco
might the ampleness of Legrain’s frame as an object be more
made a good part of modernity transparent, dissolving it into accept-
complementary than supplemental, combining with the arresting
ability, denying it differentiation. And this transparency, without
amplitude of the body that interrogates us frontally to produce a
excluding either modernity’s oddity or its invention of new forms,
material redundance. Perhaps this is what Legrain’s frames heralded,
seems to have served as the vehicle for a formative inscription
and perhaps Tarsila’s decision to commission them prefigured an
in Tarsila’s work, in Tarsila’s creative mind, in 1926.
intuition that would determine her work later in that decade, after the publication of Oswald’s “Manifesto antropófago”: the strategy
What were they like, those paintings in Legrain’s extravagant
of creating figures of an amplitude and size in tension with the field
frames? What quality in them, what internal deflation, would struc-
in which the artist has inscribed them, signaling in some now
turally explain the supplementary exteriority that framed them—
explicitly modern way a will toward overflow, a generative opposi-
up to a point—as monumentally ornamental objects? Perhaps no
tion, a matrix, a deforming force between imagination and repre-
one has better described Tarsila’s painting of the years following
sentation. That this tension was announced in a painting from early
Oswald’s “Pau-Brasil” manifesto of 1924, the work that made up
in that decade, and, further, in a work representing the problem
most of the 1926 show, than the Brazilian critic Mário Pedrosa:
figure of Brazilian national culture as a matricentric and racially mixed society—the black woman, as mother and slave—should
Tarsila do Amaral is the first Pau-Brasil transcription to
take on particular significance. Legrain’s monumental frames for
painting. Her mission is to restore the naïve iconography
Tarsila’s paintings—frames that turned them into ornament, that
of the provincial interior, transplanting it to the canvas.
integrated them into a decorative strategy—won them a space of
And, for the first time, modernism finds in Brazil the perfect
indifference, a neutral space where they could echo without facing
correspondence between newly learned techniques and the
resistance. Yet through this ingenious ornamental strategy, her
artist’s inspirational subject matter. Tarsila flirts with naïve,
work also announced that the modern message required another
caboclo taste
field in order to be able to emerge: a field yet to come, broader,
as well as the art of the native santeiros [makers
or vendors of images of saints]. It is her distinction to have
more social, more shared. It so happens that A Negra , spreading
realized the most technically modern paintings produced in
out from its excessive frame among avant-gardes that were
the country until then. In order to bring new life to the saints
already seeing their power of friction fade, was a traumatic image;
of domestic altars and the golden stars of its blue skies, the
but it was also, as the embodiment of a historical tragedy and an
languid purple of the manacá [an ornamental and medicinal
emancipatory promise, the ground on which the utopian anthro-
shrub] and the white of the jasmine, the scarlet of peasant
pophagic project could feed. A Negra was an implacable gift.
dresses, the tinplate chests with their laughing decorations, the
The other paintings in the trio—Abaporu, a message and visual
outlines of the banana trees, the crisscrossing lines of little
manifesto, and Anthropophagy , a synthesis potentially generating
paper flags underneath the gentle roofs of useless tiles, and of
a new kind of humanity—were a speculative wager, a bet on a
the stocks of elements of the everyday life of people, in poetry
possible world that history, with its delayed skirmishes, would only
and in festivity, preserving the qualities of purity and lyricism,
confirm quite some time later. This explains the delay in the
Tarsila found herself obliged to keep to the irreducible two-
reception of Tarsila’s work and its late assimilation at the end of the
dimensionalism of the rectangle. And, casting aside the
1960s, when it finally came to fulfill its function as the emblem of
Pérez-Oramas
95
Fig. 13 Albert Eckhout (Dutch, c. 1610–1665). Tapuya Woman, 1641. Oil on canvas, 272 × 165 cm (107 1 / 16 × 64 15 / 16 in.). National Museum Denmark.
hungry for human flesh, offered Montaigne an inverted metaphor for his own location in a bloody time and place, a place of religious wars, murders, massacres, regicides. For him, cannibals (see fig. 13) offered promise, being representatives of another possible culture. “We may call these people barbarous i nsofar as the rules of reason are concerned,” he writes, “but not in respect to ourselves, who in all sorts of barbarity exceed them.”70 The key to this essay, as to the modernity Tarsila embodied, is what has no place and remains pending. Montaigne, in sibylline fashion, uses a rhetorical devic e to articulate the inconclusiveness of history, which in its multiple delays repeats incessantly. Having led his readers to expect to hear from three Brazilian cannibals visiting the court of the French king Charles IX, he leaves us in suspense, producing a willful omission: the cannibals, he tells us, had come to transmit three messages, “of which I have forgotten the third—which distresses me—but I can still remember two.” Montaigne was surely aware of the abrupt interruption in another essential text announcing a possible world different from our own: Plato’s dialogue Critias (360 B.C.), which describes the land of Atlantis, and which, in the form in which history has passed it down to us, is cut short just as the “god of gods” Zeus is about to explain that utopia’s fate. Another masterful example is Giordano Bruno’s De Vinculis in Genere (A General Account of Bonding ) of 1588, which also leaves us in suspense just when the bonds are about to be resolved in the union of bodies.71 In any case, “Des Cannibales” does pass on the two messages of Charles IX’s exotic visitors that Montaigne remembers: their surprise, first, that a people has submitted itself to the rule of a king—and a child king no less—instead of choosing its sovereign themselves, and second, that half the kingdom lives comfortably and the other half in poverty. This is the real, perfectable, precarious world, summarized in two metonyms. And their third comment, their final message, is lost, consigned to enigma and permanent imminence. Montaigne also speaks of a mediocre interpreter, of a failure of Brazil’s anthropophagic project. Only then could those paintings
communication and meaning. Perhaps that lacuna resembles the
be digested in their sophisticated simplicity, like a song by Veloso
primal scene, something that happened in the past but only makes
or by Maria Bethânia. Until then, even as they appeared before
its way back to us through the labyrinths of the future. This is an
admiring eyes in Paris, São Paulo, and Rio, their message only partly
apt image for Tarsila, and perhaps also for the modernity that she
filtered into the culture.
sought, a modernity always pending, always to come, its presence always hoped for in the appropriation of some symbols by others,
In this regard, Tarsila was no different from the cannibals described
in the neutralizing digestion of the tensions that constitute us, in
in Montaigne’s famous essay (which refers to Brazil without using
endless anthropophagy.
that name, calling it “the place in which Villegaignon landed”): a people with a message only partly decipherable. These others,
96
Tarsila, Melancholic Cannibal
NOTES
(Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas, 2001), pp. 14–17;
da identidade da arte brasileira; O obra de Tarsila,
Many thanks to Jen Hofer for her sensitive translation
“Armando Reverón and Modern Art in Latin America,”
Di Cavalcanti e Portinari, 1922–1945 (Relume-
of this essay. Unless otherwise specified, all Portuguese
in Armando Reverón, exh. cat. (Museum of Modern Art,
Dumará, 1997). First published as an article in the journal
translations are by Stephen Berg.
2007), p. 90; “Reverón, el torpedo y la arcadia marina,”
Malasartes in 1976, Zilio’s text was developed into
unpublished lecture, New York University, 2008;
a book during his exile in Paris in the l ate 1970s.
“Is There a Modernity of the South?,” in Omnibus/
17
Documenta X (October 1997), pp. 14–15; “Gego, Residual
the essays “Mensagem ao antropófago desconhecido
of the most creative and mythological things I have ever
Reticuláreas, and Involuntary Modernism: Shadow,
(Da França Antártica),” Revista Acadêmica 67 (Nov.
experienced.” See Clark, letter to Hélio Oiticica, July 6,
Traces and Site,” in Questioning the Line: Gego in
1946); and “Um aspecto antropofágico da cultura
1974, in Lygia Clark–Hélio Oiticica: Cartas, 1964–1974,
Context, exh. cat. (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
brasileira—O homem cordial,” 1950, printed in Oswald
ed. Luciano Figueiredo, with a preface by Silviano Santiago
2003), pp. 83–115; and “Traumatic Modernity: Policies
de Andrade, Estética e política , ed. Maria Eugênia
(Editora UFRJ, 1996), p. 221.
of the Unfathomable,” lecture, Fundació Tàpies,
Boaventura (Globo, 1991), p. 447; and Obras Completas,
Barcelona, October 19, 2013, www.macba.cat/en/
p. 157.
later [in 1923], this much-discussed artist opened an
audio-luis-perez-oramas-tapies.
18
academy in Paris on the rue Notre-Dame des Champs,
9
and I was happy to be among his students. . . . All
todos,” in Obras completas de Oswald de Andrade ,
art,” writes Veloso. “He was endlessly interesting
of us there were sub-Légers. We admired the master:
vol. 6, A utopia antropofágica (Globo y Secretaria
to the artists who were in their youth during the 60s.
of necessity we bowed to his influence. From that large
de Estado da Cultura, 1990), pp. 5–39. For an English-
This ‘indigestible cannibal,’ rejected by Brazilian culture
group of workers, the true artists would one day
language summary of this long and important essay,
for decades, who had created a Brazilian utopia that
find their own personalities while the others would keep
see Nunes, “Anthropophagic Utopia, Barbarian Meta-
consisted of overcoming patriarchal messianism in
copying.” Tarsila, “Fernand Léger,” Diário de São Paulo,
physics,” in Mari Carmen Ramírez and Héctor Olea,
favor of a primal and modern matriarchy, became for
April 2, 1936; translated in Aracy A. Amaral et al.,
Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America, exh.
us the great father.” Veloso, Verdade tropical, p. 251.
Tarsila do Amaral, exh. cat. (Fundación Juan March,
cat. (Yale University Press/Museum of Fine Arts,
This passage, included here in my translation, is absent
2009), pp. 204–205.
Houston, 2004), p. 57.
from the English edition of Veloso’s book.
1
Pierre Fédida, “Le Cannibale mélancolique,”Nouvelle
revue de psychanalyse 6 (Autumn 1972), pp. 123–28. 2
3
4
Lygia Clark called her psychoanalysis with Fédida “one
Tarsila do Amaral wrote of Fernand Léger, “Two years
See Paulo Herkenhoff, “General Introduction,” in
See Benedito Nunes, “Antropofagia ao alcance de
10
Claude Lévi-Strauss coined this classic distinction in
Oswald’s return to Anthropoph agy is manifest in
“Oswald de Andrade, as a great Constructivist
writer, was also a prophet of the new left and of pop
19
See Hélio Oiticica, letter to Lygia Clark, November 8,
Paulo Herkenhoff and Adriano Pedrosa, XXIV Bienal
modern ethnology and structural anthropology between
1968, in Lygia Clark–Hélio Oiticica: Cartas, p. 73.
de São Paulo: Núcleo histórico; Antropofagia e histórias
societies at a low anthropic historical “temperature”
20
de canibalismos, exh. cat. (Fundação Bienal de São
(those grounded in myth) and societies at a high anthropic
Antropofagia 1, 1 (May 1928), pp. 7, translated by Hélio
Paulo, 1998), pp. 45–46.
historical temperature (those grounded in history).
Oiticica in Carlos Basualdo, Tropicália: A Revolution in
See Georges Charbonnier, Entretiens avec Claude Lévi-
Brazilian Culture (Cosac Naify, 2005), pp. 207, and in this
Miró, see Michele Greet, “Devouring Surrealism: Tarsila’s
Strauss (Les Belles Lettres, 2010), p. 38.
publication, p. 177.
Abaporu ,” Papers of Surrealism 11 (Spring 2015),
11
Nunes, “Antropofagia ao alcance de todos,” p. 28.
21
pp. 1–39.
12
On April 19, 1923, Tarsila wrote to her parents
even before it was named.” Sônia Salzstein, “A audácia
5
On this foot, and its links with the work of Joan
Oswald, “Manifesto antropófago,” Revista de
“Her painting, in the end, discerned anthropophagy—
from Paris: “I want to be the painter of my country.
de Tarsila,” in Herkenhoff and Pedrosa, XXIV Bienal de
3rd ed. (Editora 34/Editora da Universidade de São
I am so thankful to have spent my whole childhood on
São Paulo , p. 365.
Paulo, 2003), p. 279.
the fazenda. . . . I want to be the country girl from
22
Oswald de Andrade, “Manifesto antropófago,” p. 47.
São Bernardo.” Quoted in Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e
23
As Gonzaga Duque had mournfully observed in
seu tempo, p. 101. The celebrated first line of Oswald’s
a review of the Exposição Nacional of 1908, in Rio de
poem “Atelier” (1925; pl. 94), meanwhile, dedicated to
Janeiro: “But, sirs, a people’s art is not the result of the
to explicate South America’s various local forms of
Tarsila without naming her directly, reads “Caipirinha
will of one group, nor of the attempts of one school.”
Modernism, grouping them by qualities they share while
enfeitada por Poiret.”
Quoted in Zilio, A querela do Brasil, p. 47.
respecting their differences. In “utopic messianism,”
13
modernity is seen as promise (in the Argentine artist
was] the one to meet with the greatest resistance,
I distinguish here between modernity, understood as a
Joaquín Torres-García’s view of the South as a North,
in fact total rejection, having been repressed from the
system of collective advances in which the arts were
for example); “archaeological utopia” refers to the
1920s until the end of the ’60s.” Caetano Veloso,
just one element (“the classic moderns,” in Jameson’s
recuperation of pre-Columbian cultures in Mexico, Peru,
Verdade tropical (Companhia das letras, 2012), p. 246;
words), and Modernism (“the full blown ideology of
Chile, and Uruguay; and “involuntary residuality” and
translated in Veloso, Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and
modernism”). Modernity unfolds as an artistic style, one
“deforming indifference” refer to works that are modern
Revolution in Brazil, ed. Barbara Einzig, trans. Isabel de
that does not identify “models” to follow, where-
yet were not intentionally created as modernizing
Sena (Knopf, 2002), p. 158.
as Modernism, as the artistic ideology of modernity,
projects—to modernities lacking in will to power and
14
therefore indifferent, residual, or distortive in relation to
tempo, the first edition of which dates to 1975.
predecessors in the history of modern art. See Jameson,
their metropolitan parallels. See my essays “Armando
15 S ee
A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the
Reverón: La gruta de los objetos y la escena satírica,”
in Veloso, Tropical Truth, pp. 153–69.
in Armando Reverón: El lugar de los objetos , exh. cat.
16
6
7
See Aracy A. Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo,
Lygia Clark, letter to Hélio Oiticica, July 6, 1974, in
Lygia Clark–Hélio Oiticica: Cartas , p. 223. 8
I refer here to categories that I have used elsewhere
“Of all the modernist contributions, [anthropophagy
The monograph is Amaral’s Tarsila: Sua obra e seu Veloso, Verdade tropical, pp. 236–56; translated
See Carlos Zilio, A querela do Brasil: A questão
24
Following the arguments of Fredric Jameson,
unfolds as a second moment, always referring to earlier
Present (Verso, 2002), pp. 197–200. Neither term is to be confused with the current use in Brazil of the term
Pérez-Oramas
97
Modernismo to classify the work of modern artists
Lévi-Strauss said the same thing), one must learn to
43
linked to the Semana de Arte Moderna of 1922.
count higher than two, and at least to three: for works
Navigating with Many Compasses,” in Herkenhoff
of art, like myths, like man itself, can ‘converse’ among
and Pedrosa, XXIV Bienal de São Paulo, p. 350.
themselves only insofar as they conform to the
44
25
On the parallel between the modern scenes in
Russia and Brazil, see Zilio, A querela do Brasil, p. 75.
Herkenhoff, “Color in Brazilian Modernism—
Ibid.
26
Salzstein, “A audácia de Tarsila,” p. 370.
regimen conditioning all discourse, that of a polar
45 Je an-Claude
27
The fact that Brazilian modernity was not initially
opposition and regulated exchange of positions
dans la répétition,” in La Variation (Association des
a matter of literature has been extensively discussed,
of enunciation, in which reference to a third party is
Conférences, I.A.V., 1998), p. 81.
beginning with Mário Pedrosa’s crystal-clear analysis
obligatory (I, You, He).” See also Lévi-Strauss, La
46
of the Semana de Arte Moderna: “The starting point is
Voie des masques (Plon, 1979), p. 144.
p. 36.
not literary. The holy fire did not come from readings,
33
Damisch, The Origin of Perspective, p. 286.
47
but from a direct experience between the naïve young
34
I refer here generally to the psychoanalytical theory
“Uma análise da exposição de Tarsila,” Diário da
barbarian Brazilian and the magical powers of expression
of Nachträglichkeit —“afterwardness”—developed
Noite , Sept. 16, 1929; Maria José Justino, O Banquete
and aggression of hitherto ignored pictorial forms.”
by the French psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche out of a
canibal: A modernidade em Tarsila do Amaral (1886–
Pedrosa, “Modern Art Week,” in Mário Pedrosa:
series of letters between Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm
1973) , Série Pesquisa 62 (Editora UFPR, 2002), p. 160;
Primary Documents, ed. Glória Ferreira and Paulo
Fliess, and taking as his point of departure Lacan’s
Greet, “Devouring Surrealism”; and Aracy A. Amaral,
Herkenhoff (Museum of Modern Art, 2015), p. 178.
use of the term après-coup, meaning the realization of
“O Surreal em Tarsila,” Mirante das artes 3 (May–
an event after a period of time needed for “under-
June 1967), pp. 23–25.
—of the authorized discourses of Anthropophagy
standing.” This theory has been widely applied to art
48
(Oswald’s “Manifesto antropófago” and “Manifesto da
history and anthropological arguments in recent years,
déco,’” in Arte e meio artístico: Entre a feijoada e o
Poesia Pau-Brasil”)—see Beatriz Azevedo, Antropofagia:
from Damisch to Daniel Arasse, Carlo Ginzburg, Salva-
x-burguer (Editora Nobel, 1983), p. 59. For a discussion
Palimpsesto selvagem (Cosac Naify, 2016).
tore Settis, and others. The classic understanding of
of four Latin American women artists in Paris during
Nachträglichkeit involves the repression of a traumatic
these years, including Tarsila and Anita Malfatti, see
memory that then becomes the object of a belated
Greet, “‘Exhilarating Exile’: Four Latin American
return, caused by a different experience at a different
Women Exhibit in Paris,” Artelogie 5 (October 2013),
foundational modern painting for Brazil should depict a
time. As applied in this argument, and following authors
http://cral.in2p3.fr/artelogie/spip.php?article262.
black woman. This fact reflects both the racial issues
such as Herkenhoff, Salzstein, and Zilio, the definitive
49
embedded in all societies in the Americas and a
significance of Tarsila’s work for modern Brazilian society
e meio artístico , p. 63.
singul ar difference between racial issues in Brazil and
was only realized when its potential for friction—its
50
in North America. It is commonly understood that
traumatic dimension—eventually became “digestible”
des débats politiques et littéraires, June 20, 1926,
Brazilian culture structurally institutes the primacy of
for the Brazilian social body.
p. 3.
the mother figure, to the point where it has been called
35
a “matricentric society.” It is additionally significant,
que não terminou (Companhia das Letras, 2012),
June 22, 1926, p. 3.
then—even revelatory—that Tarsila should represent
p. 79.
52
the central maternal figure in Brazil through the figure
36
of a black woman.
dro, “A Negra, Abaporu , and Tarsila’s Anthropophagy.”
53
The essay discusses issues of dating related to this
Chantelou, April 28, 1639, in Nicolas Poussin: Lettres
manuscript is reproduced in Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra
photograph and includes a quotation in which Tarsila
et propos sur l’art, ed. Anthony Blunt (Hermann,
e seu tempo, p. 213.
remembers a woman, formerly enslaved, whom she
1989), p. 45.
had known as a child on her family’s rural estate;
54
must be analyzed together and diachronically, Tarsila’s
see p. 49.
whether through its transformation or its absence—has
three most important paintings—A Negra (1923),
37
Abaporu (1928), and Antropofagia (1929)—are best
pp. 44–45.
approached as a triptych or unified group.” Jorge
38
Schwartz, “Tarsila and Oswald in the Wise Laziness of
Dada 7 (March 1920); and Cannibale 1 and 2 (Au Sans
responded to the Second Industrial Revolution in
the Sun,” in Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral , p. 101.
Pareil, 1920).
Latin America,” in Making Art Concrete: Works from
The link between these three paintings is obvious and
39
Nunes, “Antropofagia ao alcance de todos,” p. 29.
Argentina and Brazil in the Colección Patricia Phelps
a commonplace in interpretations of Tarsila’s work,
40
Veloso, Verdade tropical, pp. 240–42; translated
de Cisneros, exh. cat. (Getty Publications, 2017).
an issue addressed by Stephanie D’Alessandro at the
in Veloso, Tropical Truth, p. 156.
end of her essay “A Negra, Abaporu , and Tarsila’s
41
Anthropophagy” in this publication, pp. 38–55. On the
coup (Presses Universitaires de France, 2006), p. 53.
idea of the series of transformations, see Hubert
42
Damisch, The Origin of Perspective, trans. John Goodman
estrutural,” in Tarsila: 50 anos de pintura, exh. cat.
56 Spyros
(MIT Press, 1994), pp. 284–85: “And with regard to
(Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, 1969),
Inorganic: Art, Architecture and the Extension of Life
structure, as [Jacques] Lacan liked to point out (and
pp. 35–37.
(University of Chicago Press, 2012), p. 64.
28
29
For an exhaustive analysis—a genetic microreading
See Pascal Quignard, Sur l’image qui manque à
nos jours (Arléa, 2014). 30
31
32
It is telling, and significant, that a work that is a
Mário de Andrade, “Tarsiwaldo,” 1925. The
“In the same way that Oswald’s two manifestos . . .
See Marcos Augusto Gonçalves, 1922: A semana
For a thorough analysis of A Negra , see D’Alessan-
Nunes, “Antropofagia ao alcance de todos,” Francis Picabia, “Manifeste Cannibale Dada,”
See Jean Laplanche, Problématiques VI: L’Après- Haroldo de Campos, “Tarsila: uma pintura
51
Bonne, “L’Ornement—la différence
De Campos, “Tarsila: uma pintura estrutural,” On Tarsila and Surrealism, see Flávio de Carvalho,
Aracy A. Amaral, “O modernismo à luz do ‘art
See Aracy A. Amaral, “Tarsila Revisited,” in Arte Paul Fierens, “Les Petites expositions,” Journal
Gaston de Pawlowski, “Tarsila,” Le Journal, Maurice Raynal, “Les Arts,” L’Intransigeant,
June 13, 1926, p. 2. See Nicolas Poussin, letter to Paul Fréart de
The issue of the frame as a formal supplement—
been a determining factor in the history of the Brazilian (and Argentinian) constructive project. See Aleca Le Blanc, “The Material of Form: How Concrete Artists
55
See Ernst Gombrich, The Sense of Order: A Study
in the Psychology of Decorative Arts (Cornell University Press, 1979); and Hans Belting, The Invisible Master- piece (Reaktion, 2001). Papapetros, On the Animation of the
Jacques Derrida, “Parergon,” in La Vérité en (Flammarion, 1986), p. 63; for an English translation, see The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 54. 58 Such is the hypothesis, evidently speculative, proposed by Amaral in Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo, p. 231, and in “Tarsila Revisited,” p. 63. But the artist’s acceptance of Blaise Cendrars’s catalogue essay and Pierre Legrain’s frames is the equivalent of an authorial decision. 59 What does exist is the check, in Tarsila’s hand, with the relevant sum paid to Legrain; repr. in Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo , p. 294. 60 Derrida, The Truth in Painting, pp. 57, 59. 61 On this large issue, see Papapetros, On the 57
peinture
Animation of the Inorganic.
Aracy A. Amaral, “Novas reflexões sobre Tarsila: 1. A fórmula e o mágico intuitivo,” in Arte e meio artístico, p. 88. 63 The nonneutral framing of major works of modern art was not uncommon during these years, as is illustrated by Jacques Doucet’s commission of a Legrain frame for Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907; The Museum of Modern Art, New York). Legrain also designed elaborate frames for a series of works by Francis Picabia. See George Baker, “Leather and Lace,” October 131 (Winter 2010), pp. 116–49. 64 See Zilio, A querela do Brasil, p. 45: “After studying in São Paulo with Pedro Alexandrino and George Elpons, Tarsila completed the second phase of that traditional recorrido, moving into an encounter with French academicism in Émile Renard’s atelier and at the Académie Julian. Her experiences with modern art until 1922 were limited to seeing and disliking Anita’s exhibition in 1917, and visiting the 1920 Salon d’Automne in Paris, which left her somewhere between perplexed and confused.” On Tarsila’s reaction to the 1922 Salon d’Automne in Paris, documented in a letter to Anita Malfatti from October 19 of that year, see Juan Manuel Bonet, “A Quest for Tarsila,” in Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral, p. 70. 65 On the rich panorama of Latin American artists in Paris in the 1920s, see José Antonio Navarrete, “Respondiendo a una encuesta imaginada: la vanguardia artística latinoamericana en París,” in Maria Clara Bernal, ed., Redes intelectuales: Arte y política en América Latina (Universidad de los Andes, 2015), p. 307. 66 See Petrine Archer-Straw, Negrophilia: Avant-Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s (Thames & Hudson, 2000). 67 Paulo Herkenhoff, “Color in Brazilian Modernism,” p. 338. 62
Maria Gough, for example, has discussed the aestheticization of Russian Constructivism in Paris in the mid-1920s, visible in the use of materials without patinas, such as Plexiglas and aluminum, in the work of such artists as Antoine Pevsner. Gough, presentation at the symposium “Joaquín Torres-García: The Arcadian Modern,” Museum of Modern Art, New York, January 28, 2016, www.youtube.com/ watch?v=wWeYsb8i7qo&t=9536s. 69 Pedrosa, “Modern Art Week,” p. 184. 70 Michel de Montaigne, “Essais, Livre I, Chap. 32,” in Oeuvres complètes (Seuil, 1967), p. 101; for an English translation, see “Chapter XXX—Of Cannibals,” Essays of Michel de Montaigne, ed. William Carew Hazlitt, trans. Charles Cotton, Project Gutenberg EBook #3600, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600h/3600-h.htm. 71 See Plato, The Critias, Or Atlanticus (Pantheon, 1944), 121 b, c; and Giordano Bruno, Des Liens (Allia, 2001), p. 86. 68
55 The Bull , 1928 (cat. 57)
101
56 The Lake , 1928 (cat. 59)
102
57
Sleep , c. 1928 (cat. 62)
103
58
104
Urutu Viper , 1928 (cat. 60)
59 Distance , 1928 (cat. 58)
105
60
Landscape with Five Palm
Trees I , c. 1928 (cat. 61)
106
61
Forest , 1929 (cat. 68)
62
Anthropophagic Landscape I ,
c. 1929 (cat. 74)
108
63
Anthropophagic Landscape II ,
c. 1929 (cat. 75)
109
64
Anthropophagic Landscape III ,
c. 1929 (cat. 76)
65
66
Anthropophagic Landscape V ,
c. 1929 (cat. 78)
Anthropophagic Landscape IV ,
c. 1929 (cat. 77)
111
67
Landscape with Creature and
Palm Trees , 1929 (cat. 70) 68
Hanging Palm Tree II , 1929
(cat. 69)
112
69
Setting Sun, 1929 (cat. 72)
113
70
City (The Street ) , 1929 (cat. 67)
71
Landscape with Anthropophagic
Animal III , c. 1930 (cat. 83) 72
Anthropophagic Drawing of
Saci-Pererê I, 1929 (cat. 65)
115
73
Animal with Triangle , 1930
(cat. 79)
116
74 Calmness II ,
1929 (cat. 66)
117
75
Anthropophagy I , 1929 (cat. 64)
76
Anthropophagic Figure in the
Landscape , c. 1929 (cat. 73)
118
77
Anthropophagy , 1929 (cat. 63)
119
78
Study for Composition
(Lonely Figure) II , 1930 (cat. 81) 79
Study for Composition
(Lonely Figure) III , 1930 (cat. 82)
120
80
Composition (Lonely Figure ),
1930 (cat. 80)
121
81 Postcard , 1929 (cat. 71)
122
82 Workers , 1933 (cat. 84)
123
CHRONOLOGY
1886
September 1
Tarsila do Amaral is born in Capivari, São Paulo, to Lydia Dias de Aguiar and José Estanislau do Amaral Filho, the owner of a large coffee plantation. As a girl, she will spend much of her time at the fazendas São Bernardo, in the municipality of Rafard, and Santa Teresa do Alto, in Itupeva.
copying. ‘It is always good to keep things. You might need them someday.’”1 The artist builds her own studio—one of the first in São Paulo—on Rua Vitório, where Alexandrino gives her lessons. 1919
Studies painting with George Elpons, a German artist based in São Paulo.
1888
1920
The Golden Law abolishes slavery in Brazil.
June 3
1889
Proclamation of the Republic of Brazil. 1891
The first constitution of the Republic of Brazil is ratified, combining elements of presidential, federal, democratic, and republican forms of government. 1898
Studies at the Colégio Santana, São Paulo.
Embarks for Europe with Dulce, whom she enrolls at a boarding school in London. She will settle in Paris and study at the Académie Julian and later with the painter and engraver Émile Renard. October 26
From Paris, writes to her friend and fellow artist Anita Malfatti, “Look, Anita, almost all of it runs to Cubism or Futurism. Lots of impressionist and Dadaist landscapes.”2 Confides that she does “not approve of exaggerated Cubism and Futurism.”
Aranha, which is reproduced as a supplement for Klaxon, the first publication of the Brazilian vanguard (see pl. 89). September 7
Exhibits The Spanish Woman (1922; private collection, Brasilia) in the 1a Exposição geral de belas artes (General Exhibition of Fine Arts ), which opens at the Palácio das Indústrias in São Paulo; the exhibition runs through July 2, 1923. December
Returns to Europe. 1923
January
Oswald joins Tarsila in Paris; together they travel to Spain and Portugal. February
Tarsila rents an apartment at 9, rue Hégésippe Tarsila Moreau, which she believes is the former studio of painter Paul Cézanne; this serves as her Paris home until January 1925.
1901
February
1922
March
Begins boarding school at the Colégio Sion, São Paulo.
February 11
Works in the studio of painter André Lhote, where she will stay for three months. In her 1952 essay “Recordações de Paris” (Recollectionss of Paris), she describes (Recollection Lhote as “the bridge between classicism and Modernism.”3
1902
Travels to Europe for the first time with her parents and sister, Cecília. 1904
Returns to Brazil and marries André Tei Teixeira xeira Pinto, a physician. On their honeymoon, the couple travels through Argentina and Chile. 1906
Tarsila’s daughter, Dulce, is born. The family Tarsila’s moves to Fazenda Sertão, which is owned by Tarsila’s parents.
The Semana de Arte Moderna (Modern Art Week) is held at the Municipal Theater in São Paulo; it runs through February 18. This series of events, concerts, poetry readings, and exhibitions constitutes one in a series of steps toward Modernism and a rejection of Brazil’s prevailing national tradition and culture. Key participants include Malfatti; the painter Emiliano Di Cavalcanti; sculptor Victor Brecheret; writers and poets Mário de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade, Graça Aranha, Sérgio Milliet, and Menotti del Picchia; and composers Guiomar Novaes and Heitor Villa-Lobos. April 30
1913
Separates from Pinto and moves to São Paulo. 1916
Begins to work in the studio of William Zadig, a Swedish sculptor based in São Paulo. She also studies with the Italian-Brazilian sculptor Oreste Mantovani.
The 135th Salon of the Société des Artistes Français opens at the Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées, Champs-Ély sées, Paris; it runs through June 30. Tarsila exhibits Portrait of a Woman (p. 39, fig. 1), which she later calls Passport , since it gained her entry to the Salon. June
1917
Returns to São Paulo and forms the Grupo dos Cinco (Group of Five) with Mário, Oswald, Malfatti, and del Picchia.
Studies drawing and painting under the instruction of Pedro Alexandrino, who recommends that she carry a notebook to, as she later recalled him saying, “preserve the lines of certain drawings by means of
Paints portraits of Oswald and Mário; her work shows Malfatti’s influence in its expressive brushwork and a newly vibrant palette. She also creates a portrait of
April 19
Writes to her parents, “I feel increasingly Brazilian: I want to be the painter of my country.”4 May (?)
Meets Pablo Picasso and visits his studio, where she sees works by Henri Rousseau, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and other artists. Years later, publishes the article “Um mestre da pintura moderna” (A Master of Modern Painting) in Diário de São Paulo , in which she recounts her first visit. May 3
Tarsila and Oswald attend a dinner organized by the Brazilian ambassador, Luis Martins de Souza Dantas, in honor of the aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont. They also spend time with Brazilian modernists, including Di Cavalcanti, Malfatti, and Milliet, as well as writer Paulo Prado, poet Ronald de Carvalho, painter Vicente do Rego Monteiro, and patron Olívia Guedes Penteado. The pair accompanies Penteado to exhibitions of modern art and the studios of modern artists.
125
May 11 In a lecture at the Sorbonne, Oswald identifies
Starts lessons with Léger, which will
October 8
After February 6 Together with Oswal d and Penteado, Tar Tarsila sila
Tarsila Tar sila and other Brazilian artists as “laying
continue for some weeks.
travels to Rio de Janeiro to experience
Week of October 21 The dealer Léonce Rosenberg visits Tarsila’s
quick drawings and notes that she will later (pl. 24) and Carnival in Madureira (pl. (pl. 21).
the foundations of a style of painting that is genuinely Brazilian and up-to-date.” up-to-date.”5
Carnival with Cendrars. She will make many
May 28
studio and offers her an exhibition when
Tarsila and Oswald meet the Swiss poet
she is ready, which she excitedly reports to
Blaise Cendrars, who gives her a small
her family.8
painting of the Eiffel To Tower wer (1913; Pinacoteca
use for paintings such as Hills of the Favela
February 23 Writes to her daughter, Dulce, about a new
São Paulo) and dedicates it to her. Cendrars
November 1
will introduce the couple to his circle of
The Salon d’Automne opens; it will close
painting: “I am painting some truly Brazilian pictures that have been very well received.
friends, including artists Constantin Brancusi,
on December 16. There, Penteado will
Now I’ve done one called A Cuca [pl. 44].
Albert Gleizes, and Fernand Léger; writer
purchase a sculpture by Victor Brecheret,
It is a strange animal, in the forest with
Jean Cocteau; composer Erik Satie; and art
which she orders for her family tomb in São
a frog, an armadillo and another invented
dealer Ambroise Vollard.
Paulo. Through Rosenberg, she buys works
animal.”11
May 29 Exhibition for the inauguration of the Maison
Tsuguharu Tsuguhar u Foujita; these, along with those
March 14
acquired by Tarsila and Prado, will become
Exposition d’Art Américain-Latin (Exhibition
de l’Amérique Latine opens in Paris at 9,
the first examples of international modern
of Latin American Art) Art ) opens at the Musée
rue de Presbourg. Tarsila’s Tarsila’s Portrait of Mário
art to be brought to Brazil. Around this time,
Galliera under the auspices of the Maison
de Andrade (p. (p. 39, fig. 2) is included.
Tarsila Tar sila also acquires Robert Delaunay’s
de l’Amérique Latin and the Académie
Champs de Mars: The Red Tow Tower er (1911/23;
Internationale Internationa le des Beaux-Arts; it will close
by Brancusi, Léger, Lhote, Picasso, and
After May Makes Vollard’s acquaintance and sees his
Art Institute of Chicago).
collection, including paintings by Renoir and
American art” as a distinct category.
Cézanne. In 1936 the artist will share mem-
November 15 Mário, writing from São Paulo, implores the
ories of the visit in the Diário de São Paulo .
artist,“Tarsila, artist,“Ta rsila, Tarsila, return back into yourself. Abandon Gris and Lhote, impresarios of
March 18 Oswald publishes “Manifesto Pau-Brasil”
decrepit criticism and decadent aesthesias!
in the Correio da Manhã . .
June Studies with Gleizes for about a month and a half. She will later describe the artist as “the
on April 15. Tarsila’s work is not included. This undertaking is the first to classify “Latin
Abandon Paris! Tarsila! Tarsila! Come to the virgin forest, where there is no black art,
Cubist pontiff” and his school as “based on
where there are no gentle streams ei ther.
spiritualist concepts of aesthetic theories.” 6
There is VIRGIN FOREST. I have created
Week of April 13 Tarsila, Oswald and his son Nonê, Cendrars, and Penteado undertake a twenty-day trip to
virgin-forestism. I am a virgin-forester. That
historic cities in the southeastern Brazilian
is what the world, art, Brazil, and my dearest
state of Minas Gerais. Joining them are Mário,
Tarsila Tar sila need. ”9
politician Gofredo da Silva Telles, and
December 23 or 24 Returns to Brazil, arriving in Rio de Janeiro.
is impressed by the work of the colonial
colors I loved as a child. Later, I was taught
like to stay in the northeastern state of Bahia,
December 25 The Rio de Janeiro newspaper Correio da Manhã features features an interview with Ta Tarsila rsila on
where she could find “precious documents
the current state of the arts in Europe. She
later, I took my revenge on that oppression,
of the [type of] Brazilian art that is my
talks about the freedom and inventiveness of
transferring them to my canvases: purest blue,
present direction.”7 She also mentions a
Cubism while also affirming her intentions:
violet pink, vivid yellow, strident green.”12
July 3 Meets Brancusi in his studio; in 1936 Tarsila writes about the encounter for the Diário de São Paulo .
August 5 Writes to her family that when she returns to Brazil at the end of the year, she would
possible exhibition of her work.
lawyer and writer René Thiollier. The group architect and sculptor Aleijadinho. Tarsila will later recall, “In Minas I found the that they were ugly and caipira caipira [countrifie [countrified]. d]. I followed the hum of refined taste . . . But
“I am profoundly Brazilian and will study the taste and the art of our caipiras . In the
During her visits, Tarsila will make over one
August 12
hinterlands, I hope to learn from those who
hundred drawings, including Ouro Preto
Tarsila Tar sila and Oswald travel to Italy and visit
have not been corrupted by the academies.”10
and Padre Faria (Front of Sabará of Sabará )) (pl. 26), Study of Mountains (Front of Study of
Santa Margherita, Siena, Pisa, Rome, Capri, Naples, Milan, Verona, and Venice. They
1924
Landscape ) (pl. 25), and Train Station (pl.
return to Paris in early September.
Oswald’s Memorias sentimentais de João
16), as well as studies, sketches, and notes.
Miramar (Sentimental (Sentimental Memoirs of John
Some will lead to such canvases as Lagoa as Lagoa
Seaborne ) is published with a cover by Tarsila.
Santa (pl. (pl. 48) as well as the illustrations for
October 6 Visits Léger’s studio with some of her most recent work. He especially likes A Negra (pl. 13) and hopes that his students will have a chance to see the canvas, too.
126
Tarsila do Amaral
books of poems inspired by the trip written
February 6 Cendrars travels to São Paulo, invited by Prado.
by both Oswald and Cendrars.
July 5–27 The Paulista Rebellion challenges the existing political order in Brazil. Tog Together ether
April 10 Rosenberg writes to Oswald about organizing an exhibition at Galerie Percier.
The government approves a law permitting
May Tarsila, Oswald, and Penteado travel
August Tarsila and Oswald travel to Salvador, Bahia, Tarsila
to Rome.
to meet Mário, Dulce, and Penteado and
repression of communist activities and trade unions.
with Oswald, Tarsila escapes with her family to Fazenda Sertão and visits Penteado at Fazenda Santo Antônio in Araras.
her niece Margarida.
September Returns to Paris.
November
June 7 Tarsila, the Tarsila, the artist’s first solo exhibition, opens at Galerie Percier; it closes on June 23.
O Primeiro caderno do alumno de poesia
Oswald joins Tarsila in Paris.
In addition to drawings and watercolors,
Oswald de Andrade (First Notebook of the
she shows seventeen paintings, all framed by
Poetry Student Oswald de Andrade ) (pl. 101). It is a collection of work from his Pau-Brasil
Oswald publishes his second book of poems,
December
Legrain, including A Cuca (pl. (pl. 44), A 44), A Negra
Cendrars publishes Feuilles de route (Road
(pl. 13) as Négresse , Hills of the Favela
period illustrated with his own drawings;
Maps ), Maps ), illustrated by Tarsila and featuring
(pl. 24), Lagoa 24), Lagoa Santa (pl. (pl. 48), and The Railway
the book’s cover bears an illustration
a drawing of A Negra on its cover (pl. 93).
Station (pl. 14). She donates A Cuca to to
by Tarsila.
the Grenoble Museum with the assistance of art critic Maximilien Gauthier.
1928
August 15 Returns to Brazil with Oswald, arriving in
Tarsila Tar sila gives Oswald the painting Abaporu
March Following Oswald’s advice, Tarsila leaves
Rio de Janeiro.
friend,, poet Raul Bopp, are “shaken” and friend
Paris for Brazil with the goal of making
August 17 The Rio de Janeiro newspaper O Jornal
they consult a Tupi-Guarani dictionary to find
publishes an interview with Tars Tarsila ila along
a title, settling on the combination of aba,
Mid-December Oswald asks Tarsila to marry him. 1925
paintings in São Paulo for a future exhibition.
August 22 Oswald returns to Brazil and brings copies
January 11 (pl. 54) as a birthday present; Oswald and a conclude “that an important intellectual
with a self-portrait.
movement could come of this.”13 Together
meaning “person,” and poru, poru, signifying signifying “who eats.”
of his recently published book Pau Brasil
August 21
(pl. 92), which features a cover and illustrations
The magazine Para magazine Para Todos publishes a photo
by Tarsila.
of the artist (see pl. 98) at the opening of
February 16 Tarsila announces her 1928 exhibition in
her Galerie Percier exhibition.
an interview in the São Paulo newspaper Diário da Noite.
December 7 Mário writes the poem “Tarsiwaldo” in honor of the couple.
September 1 Vogue Paris features features an illustrated article on Tarsila.
March Tarsila Tar sila travels to Europe wi th Oswald.
1926
January From Brazil, Cendrars sends poems that will constitute the preface of Ta Tarsila’s rsila’s catalogue
October 22 Tarsila’s work is included in the Salon du Franc; the exhibition closes on October 31.
for her eventual Galerie Percier exhibition.
April Bopp writes Cobra writes Cobra Norato (Black (Black Snake ), ), which he dedicates to Tarsila; the poem will be published in 1931 (pl. 105).
October 30 Tarsila and Oswald marry; they will divide Tarsila
May
their time between the city of São Paulo
Inspired by Tar Tarsila’s sila’s painting Abaporu , the
and the Fazenda Santa Teresa do Alto.
periodical Revista de Antropofagia (Journal “Manifesto antropófago” (Manifesto of
and visit southern Italy, Greece, Lebanon,
November 17 Brancusi’s work is shown at the Brummer
Cyprus, Israel, and Egypt. Tarsila will make
Gallery, New York, York, until December 15. The
illustrated with a drawing of Abaporu by by
about one hundred sketches and studies.
artist sends a catalogue to Tar Tarsila sila and Oswald,
Tarsila Tar sila (pl. 104).
January 13 Tarsila, Oswald, Nonê, Dulce, writer Cláudio de Sousa, and the former president of the
of Anthropophagy) Anthropophagy ) is launched. Oswald’s
state of São Paulo, Altino Arantes, travel to the Middle East. They depart from Marseilles
Anthropophagy) appears in its first issue,
annotating a drawing of The Kis s (1916;
Mid-February
Philadelphia Museum of Art) with a dedication
Tarsila Tar sila commissions the Art Deco designer
to the “newlyweds” (pl. 100).
June 18 The artist’s second solo exhibition, again titled Tarsila, opens Tarsila, opens at Galerie Percier; it closes
and bookbinder Pierre Legrain to make frames for the paintings she will show at
1927
her exhibition.
Tarsila Tar sila and Oswald host many friends at
with frames by Legrain. Abaporu is is listed as
Santa Teresa do Alto, including Mário, Prado,
Nu (Nude ). Other paintings include The Bull
journalist Antônio de Alcântara Machado,
(pl. 55), The Lake (pl. (pl. 56), Manacá (pl. (pl. 50),
and poet Manuel Bandeira.
Sleep (pl. (pl. 57), and Urutu Viper (pl. (pl. 58).
on July 2. The show features twelve works
Chronology
127
by the “great collective effort,” she wrote,
October 8
March 26
The first exhibition of the Association
The exhibition of the Casa Modernista, São
Artistique des Vrais Indépendants opens;
Paulo, designed by Gregori Warchavchik,
myself with a good Marxist library, and do
it runs through November 26 at Versailles;
opens. Five of Tarsila’s paintings, including
a lot of studying.”
Tarsila shows four works, including
Postcard (pl. 81) and Hills of the Favela
A Negra (pl. 13) and Manacá (pl. 50).
(pl. 24), decorate the house’s interior rooms,
July 1
along with works by Malfatti, Di Cavalcanti,
In Paris, Tarsila participates in the
“When I get to Paris I’m going to provide
December 9
Victor Brecheret, and Cícero Dias. The
Fortifications project, in which Sonia and
The newspaper O Jornal interviews Tarsila.
show closes in April.
Robert Delaunay and their friends build
1929
June 6
March
Tarsila is included in the group show
October 23
The magazine Movimento brasileiro
Exposition d’art moderne: l’École de Paris (Exhibiton of Modern Art: The School of Paris ) at the Palacete Glória, organized by
Tarsila participates in the Salon des
houses for artists.
announces Tarsila’s upcoming solo exhibitions in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Surindépendants; the exhibition closes on November 22.
the poet Géo-Charles and the artist Vicente July 10
do Rego Monteiro. She shows works from
Tarsila, the artist’s first-ever solo exhibition
the 1920s, including
in Brazil, opens at the Palace Hotel, Rio de
(pl. 24); the exhibition closes on June 20.
Hills of the Favela
December Tarsila returns to Brazil. 1932
Janeiro; it closes on July 30 and then travels to the Prédio Glória in São Paulo, where it
October 11
July
runs from September 17 to 24. The works
The First Representative Collection of Paintings by Contemporary Brazilian Artists
The Constitutional Revolution takes place
exhibited at both venues are the same (thirty-six paintings and an unstated number
opens at the International Art Center of the
of drawings), except City (The Street) (pl. 70),
Roerich Museum, New York; it closes on
As a consequence of her trip to the USSR
which was added to the São Paulo presen-
October 30. This is the first time that Tarsila’s
and participation in leftist group meetings,
tation. For the catalogue, Geraldo Ferraz
work is exhibited in the Unites States;
Tarsila is arrested and held for almost
collects previous reviews of Tarsila’s Paris
three paintings, including Hills of the Favela
one month at the Presídio do Paraíso in
exhibitions in 1926 and 1928, as well as
(pl. 24), are shown.
São Paulo. 1933
against the Vargas government.
texts written about Tarsila in Brazil. The last two days of the São Paulo exhibition
October 24
include work from her private collection
Getúlio Vargas, who lost Brazil’s 1930
March
acquired in Paris.
presidential election, organizes a bloodless
Tarsila presents the lecture “A Mulher na
coup known as the Revolution of 1930.
luta contra a guerra” (Woman in the Fight
July 27
Vargas will hold sole power until July 17,
against the War) at the Continental Anti-
Crítica
1934, when he is elected president by the
War Committee in Montevideo, Uruguay.
publishes an interview with Tarsila .
constituent assembly.
While there, she holds a conference on
Fall
1931
Modernos (Modern Artists Club), presenting
Tarsila and Oswald separat e.
Tarsila meets Osório César, a young doctor
posters she brought back from her trip.
dedicated to the artistic expression of
She meets the Mexican social realist painter
patients in psychiatric hospitals. A leftist
David Alfaro Siqueiros and the writer Blanca
The Salon des Surindépendants opens
intellectual, César dreams of visiting the
Luz Brum. Paints two of her greatest socialist
at the Parc des Expositions, Porte
Soviet Union. Tarsila will finance their trip
paintings, Workers (pl. 82) and
de Versailles.
by selling some of the paintings from her
Class (p. 21, fig.10).
The Rio de Janeiro newspaper
Soviet poster art at the Clube dos Artistas
October 26
Second
private collection. October 29
October
The United States stock market crashes,
March
Holds her first retrospective exhibition
causing a drop in coffee prices, on which
Travels to Paris and, through the introduction
at the Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro.
the Brazilian econom y (and Tarsila’s family)
of Russian critic Serge Romoff, journeys
She presents sixty-seven paintings and
rely heavily.
to Moscow.
106 drawings. 1934
1930
June 10
Facing financial difficulties, Tarsila takes a
The solo exhibition Tarsila do
position at the Pinacoteca do Estado de
at the Museum of Western Art, Moscow.
Amaral opens
Tarsila’s granddaughter, Beatriz, is born. Vargas is elected president. A new
São Paulo. She will organize a catalogue of
constitution grants the central govern-
the collection but lose her post when the
June 27
government is overthrown in the Revolution
Tarsila writes from Moscow to her mother,
ment greater authority and provides
of 1930.
“Now I am seeing what Russia is. How many
for universal suffrage.
fantasies I’ve had about it.”14 Impressed
128
Tarsila do Amaral
1936
1950
1964
Begins to write articles for the Diário de
December
April 1
São Paulo, especially about her experiences
The Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo,
A military revolt deposes the democratically
in Paris.
holds the large-scale retrospective Tarsila:
elected president João Goulart and instates
50 anos de pintura . Organized by Milliet,
an authoritarian dictatorship that will rule
1937
the exhibition closes in January 1951. Tarsila
Brazil until 1985. This period is marked by
Exhibits in the Salão de Maio in São Paulo.
contributes the essay “Confissão geral”
great political repression.
(Full Confession) to the catalogue. November 10
June 20
Vargas, responding to a perceived communist
1951
The twenty-second Venice Biennial
threat, declares a state of emergency,
January 1
includes a special gallery of Tarsila’s work;
enacts a new constitution, and dissolves
Vargas returns to politics as the candidate
the exhibition closes on October 18.
congress. The new administration, known as
of the Brazilian Labor Party and wins
the Estado Novo (New State), abolishes
the presidential election; he will serve
1966
political parties and centralizes power; it also
until 1954.
Tarsila’s daughter, Dulce, dies.
extensive educational reforms, and enacts
October 20
1969
a minimum wage for workers.
Tarsila is chosen to take part in the first
April
diversifies the agricultural sector, introduces
São Paulo Biennial at the Museu de Arte
A major retrospective exhibition, Tarsila:
1938
Moderna; the exhibition closes on
50 anos de pintura (Tarsila: Fifty Years of
Exhibits in the Salão de Maio.
December 23. She submits three paintings,
Painting ), is organized by Aracy Amaral at
including The Lake (pl. 56).
the Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro;
1939
the exhibition closes in May. It later travels
Exhibits in the Salão de Maio and shows
1952
to the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da
two paintings, including A Negra (pl. 13).
Participates in an exhibition to commemo-
Universidade de São Paulo.
Publishes “Pintura Pau-Brasil e Antropofagia”
rate the Semana de Arte Moderna of 1922
in the journal RASM—Revista anual do
at the Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo.
1970
Salão de Maio.
Writes the essay “Recordações de Paris”
May
(Recollections of Paris) for Habitat—Revista
A retrospective of Tarsila’s drawings is held
1940
das artes no Brasil .
at the Museu de Arte da Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte; the exhibition closes in June.
November A special issue of the journal Revista
1954
Acadêmica is dedicated to Tarsila.
Finishes the mural Procession of the
1941
1973
Blessed Sacrament for the History Pavilion
January 17
in Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo.
Tarsila dies in São Paulo.
Illustrates Milliet’s Duas cartas no meu destino (Two Letters in My Destiny ).
1956
Juscelino Kubitschek is elected president of 1944
Brazil. He will encourage a nationalistic
Takes part in the Exposição de arte moderna
spirit and undertake ambitious programs to
in the city of Belo Horizonte and in a group
construct highways and expand iron, steel,
exhibition of Brazilian artists at the Royal
petroleum, and coal production; he serves
Academy of Arts, London, in order to raise
until 1961.
funds for the Royal Air Force. Later that
NOTES
Special thanks to Katja Rivera for her work on this section of the catalogue. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are by Stephen Berg.
year, she also exhibits work in the Exposição
1960
1 Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo , p. 44n7.
de pintores norte-americanos e brasileiros
April 21
2 Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral , p. 236.
in São Paulo; the exhibition travels to
Kubitscheck inaugurates Brasilia, the new
3 Tarsila, “Recollections of Paris,” p. 171 in this
the Museu Nacional de Belas-Artes in Rio
federal capital.
publication. 4 Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral , p. 238.
de Janeiro. 1961
5 Oswald de Andrade “L’Effort intellectuel du Brésil
contemporain,” Revue del’Amérique latine 20
1945
Sells her farm and moves permanently to
October 29
São Paulo. Invited by the artist Pola
6 Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral , pp. 208–209.
Vargas is overthrown by a military-led
Rezende, she holds a retrospective in the
7 Amaral, Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo , pp. 115–16.
coup d’etat; he continues to retain popular
Casa do Artista Plástico.
8 Ibid., p. 130. 9 Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral , p. 23.
support. A new democratic constitution is passed.
(July 1, 1923), p. 206.
1963
September 28
10 Tarsila, “O estado actual das artes na Europa,”
p. 155 in this publication. 11 Amaral et al., Tarsila do Amaral , p. 98.
1949
Tarsila is honored with a special gallery
Beatriz, Tarsila’s granddaughter, drowns
at the seventh São Paulo Biennial;
13 Ibid.
at the age of fifteen.
the exhibition closes on December 22.
14 Ibid., p. 247.
12 Ibid., p. 31, and p. 167 in this publication.
Chronology
129
PHOTOGRAPHS AND DOCUMENTS
83
Portrait of Tarsila do Amaral,
c. 1921 (cat. 87)
131
84 Sketchbook I , 1919–20 (cat. 1)
85 Sketchbook II , 1921 (cat. 2)
132
86
Exhibition catalogue for Semana
de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, with cover illustrated by Emiliano Di Cavalcanti (Brazilian, 1897–1976), 1922 (cat. 88) 87
Program for Semana de Arte
Moderna, São Paulo, 1922 (cat. 94)
133
88 Mário de Andrade (Brazilian,
89 Klaxon: Mensario de Arte
1893–1945), Paulicea desvairada ,
Moderna , no. 4, 1922 (cat. 92)
1922 (cat. 93)
134
90
Scene from Minas Gerais trip with
drawing by Tarsila do Amaral, 1924 (cat. 98) 91
Tarsila do Amaral at Fazenda Santo
Antônio, 1924 (cat. 99)
135
92
Oswald de Andrade with cover
and illustrations by Tarsila do Amaral, Pau Brasil ,
136
1925 (cats. 101–102)
93
Blaise Cendrars (Swiss,
1887–1961) with cover and illustrations by Tarsila do Amaral, Feuilles de route (Road Maps ), 1924 (cats. 96– 97)
138
of fire / Tarsila / the great Futurist
96
draft of the poem “Atelier,” c. 1925
paulista (pauliste) poet Oswald de
1910–1995), Portrait of Tarsila do
(cat. 103); the text reads, “Caipirinha
Andrade known as the Kid / 15 grams
Amaral ,
dressed by Poiret / Your eyes saw
of wire [illegible]”
94
Oswald de Andrade, letter with
neither / Paris nor Piccadilly nor Toledo /
97
Portrait of Tarsila do Amaral in
Nor the exclamations of men / At
95
your passage / Between earrings /
profile, mid-1920s (cat. 86)
Benedito Duarte (Brazilian, 1926 (cat. 107)
Exhibition catalogue for Tarsila ,
Galerie Percier, Paris, 1926 (cats. 105–106)
[Doope berepra?] / [Doña Mapcuuna?] / Betita, allied queen daughter of iron, /
98
Tarsila do Amaral at Galerie Percier,
Paris, July 1926 (cat. 108)
141
99 Tarsila do Amaral, Travel Album,
1922–at least 1926 (cat. 95)
142
100
Constantin Brancusi (French,
101
Oswald de Andrade with cover
born Romania, 1876–1957),
by Tarsila do Amaral, Primeiro caderno
annotated exhibition catalogue for
do alumno de poesia Oswald de
Brancusi , Brummer Gallery, New York,
Andrade (First Notebook of the Poetry
with an inscription to Tarsila do
Student Oswald de Andrade ), 1927
Amaral and Oswald de Andrade, 1926
(cat. 109)
(cat. 104); the text reads, “To the newlyweds who came up from Paris [like seducers]”
146
102
Tarsila do Amaral and Oswald de
Andrade, “Minha terra tem palmares” (My Land Has Palm Trees), 1928 (cat. 114); the text reads, “My land has palm trees / Where the sea trills / The little birds here / Do not sing like the ones over there / Oswald (Pau Brasil)” 103
Indaiatuba Landscape, 1928
(cat. 112)
147
104
Oswald de Andrade with a
105
Raul Bopp (Brazilian, 1898–1984)
drawing by Tarsila do Amaral,
with cover by Flávio de Carvalho
“Manifesto antropófago” (Manifesto
(Brazilian, 1899–1973), Cobra Norato ,
of Anthropophagy), 1928 (cat. 113)
1931 (cat. 121) 106
Carolina Silva Telles, Clóvis
Camargo, Tarsila do Amaral, Olívia Guedes Penteado, Oswald de Andrade, and Maria Penteado Camargo in São Paulo, 1928 (cat. 110)
148
from Oswald, who sends his regards
108
de Andrade, letter to Guilherme de
to Marco Aurélio / Baby / Not even
de Andrade, letter to Olívia Guedes
Almeida, May 19, 1928 (cat. 116); the
you yourself could know how much
Penteado, May 19, 1928 (cat. 115);
text reads, “Guy / The ship (actually
you are missed on a trip / Tarsila”
the text reads, “Aboard the Alcântara
107
Tarsila do Amaral and Oswald
Tarsila do Amaral and Oswald
a motor vessel) misses you both
May 19 ‘28 / Long live our beautiful
enormously. Promise me immediately
Our Lady of Brasil! / With Tarsila‘s
we’ll all be together on the next trip!
most beautiful longings / A Tupy
If not, we will bring back the oriental
nostalgia / from Tupana’s devotee /
carpet. / The greatest of all embraces
Oswald the great [in Tupy]”
149
109
Exhibition catalogue for Tarsila ,
Galerie Percier, Paris, 1928 (cat. 111) 110
Note from Oswald de Andrade
with drawing by Tarsila do Amaral, 1920s (cat. 85); the text reads, “Where are you, / Dona Santa? / Where have you been? / Who have you been with? / On what paths? / The inspector of holiness, / Oswald”
150
111
Exhibition catalogue for Tarsila ,
Palace Hotel, Rio de Janeiro, 1929 (cat. 117) 112
Exhibition catalogue for Tarsila ,
Prédio Glória, São Paulo, 1929 (cat. 118)
151
113 Tarsila do Amaral in her home,
c. 1930 (cat. 120)
152
114
Tarsila do Amaral with
Anthropophagy , 1940s (cat. 122)
153
HISTORICAL TEXTS
“THE CURRENT STATE OF THE ARTS IN EUROPE: THE FASCINATING BRAZILIAN ARTIST TARSILA DO AMARAL GIVES US HER IMPRESSIONS”
— And has Cubism created interesting things? — Yes. It has had a triumphant trajectory and been accepted by great, already established, celebrated artists. I refer particularly to this recognition as a defense against those who say that Cubism is only a path for those who never got anywhere with so-called serious art, that is, realism. I ask them: have you seen the realist portraits of Picasso, of Léger, of Gleizes?
— Cubism is a movement based on past arts. It doesn’t destroy the old schools; instead, it rejects the continuation of those very schools in a century in which they no longer have any reason for being. It was born with the fragmentation of form and was, Correio da Manhã ,
therefore, the continuation of Impressionism—the fragmentation
December 25, 1923, p. 2
of color. The early Cubists were destroyers. Hence, the age of
Translated by Stephen Berg
destruction. This was followed by a search for pure materials, integral Cubism, geometric reaction, and volume. Now it focuses A curious figure from any perspective, the fascinating, brilliant
openly and frankly on construction and on form.
Brazilian artist Tarsila Amaral passed through here yesterday on her way back from Europe to Santos. Sensible and modern in
— But that’s a step backward. — Never. It is a new classicism. We are the primitives of a great
temperament, she could not help being what she has become—
century who have nothing to do with past classicisms.
an important part of the great movement that has revolutionized art in general (from painting to poetry) throughout these last few
— Are you a Cubist? — Completely so. I am associated with this movement that has
years, designating a wondrous new period in the mental activity
produced an effect on industry; in furniture, in fashion, in toys,
of all educated peoples. This is why she proclaims herself to us
in the four thousand exhibitors at the Salon d’Automne and the
as frankly and positively Cubist and why she expounds her ideas
Indépendents.
on the modernizing movement to us with such ease and clarity.
— But why is there such a strong reaction against Cubism? — The reaction is largely that of minor artists who are perplexed
She began her studies in São Paulo and later frequented the French
at the victory of the new spirit and do not take the time to find out
art scene, where she studied under the curious André Lhote,
what is really going on. Ill will reinforced by artistic prejudice enters
who quite recently scandalized the bourgeois critics of the Salon
into this. Like all modern movements, Cubism is a movement that
d’Automne with his Cubist football match. Tarsila belongs to
invents rather than one that copies. Only an elite could afford
the group descended from the illustrious Cézanne, one that the
the responsibilities it brings with it. Minds shaped by the ancient
contemporary art world has agreed to call “the extreme left,”
formulas rebel, unable to see the more or less realistic repre-
consisting of Lhote, Goerg, Olga Sacharoff, and, to a [lesser] degree,
sentation of objects in a painting; recognizing something they have
Kvapil, Genelvée, Marny, Llerow, Brabo, and Harboc.
1
become accustomed to. For them, painting must be forcibly objective; it must represent something. They do not remember
We found her aboard the Orânia, thrilled to be under the sun of beautiful Guanabara, all of it as green as a large emerald.
that the artist has the right to create his painting, to bestow upon it an organism of its own, a life of its own.
— Is it the intention of Cubists or Futurists to make art for And we chatted:
the future?
— What is the current state of the arts in Europe? — I will refer primarily to France, which is where I am coming
— Cubists are laying the foundations for an art of the future. Although they are merely artists of their time, they seem futuristic
from. It is the best possible. In this great time we are witnessing
to the ordinary gaze.
a formidable rebirth of writing and art. The twentieth century searches the arts for a form of expression that corresponds to the
— What about Brazilian artists in Paris? — We have a group that follows a fine modern orientation.
scientific discoveries and tumult of our large modern cities.
The sculptor Brecheret (whose name the papers drew attention
— Do you think contemporary artists have already discovered
to this year) has just had a triumph at the Salon d’Automne.2 The
anything in that sense?
composer Villa-Lobos is a huge success. After being invited to
— I do. Paris in 1908 was the setting for a strong, ever expanding
compete with one hundred and some important pianists, Sousa
reaction against the imitative decadence of t he visual arts. This
Lima was unanimously elected first soloist of the Concerts Colonne
reaction was called Cubism just as among us we call everything
a short while ago.3 In painting, beyond Anita Malfatti, who
that reacts against past formulas Futurism. The Expressionism
brought us the first elements of modern art in 1916, we have Di
of the north of Europe and Futurism in Italy correspond to it.
Cavalcanti and Rego Monteiro. 4 Paulo Prado, Oswald de Andrade
— And who was the first Cubist? — Hard to say. “It was in the air.” The path cleared by Cézanne
(with his lecture at the Sorbonne) and Sérgio Milliet are the
had its followers in Picasso and Braque who, in turn, formed
almost daily contact with the great French poet Blaise Cendrars,
equivalent of a veritable Brazilian propaganda mission.5 Out of their
a chain later to be linked with Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger,
with Jean Cocteau, Jules Romain, Jules Supervielle, Paul Morand,
Metzinger, Le Fauconnier, and a large number of practitioners.
and others an interest in Brazilian art is being born in Paris.
Historical Texts
155
Our country is already spoken of in the way that Russia was talked about fifteen years ago. It is common knowledge that Russian art is imposing itself more and more each day. — Do you intend to show your work? — Above all, I intend to work. I am profoundly Brazilian and will study the taste and art of our caipiras . In the hinterlands, I hope to learn from those who have not yet been corrupted by the academies. Painting Brazilian landscapes and caboclos doesn’t make one a Brazilian artist, just as one who paints machines realistically and distorts the human figure is not necessarily a modern artist.6 — Who are the great artists of today? — In the visual arts, Léger, Gleizes, Picasso, Brancusi, Gris, Lhote, Lipchitz, and others. — But is it convenient for Brazil to investigate what is going on outside [the country]? — Certainly. Why ignore what is going on in the field of art when daily telegrams put us in contact with the most distant nations? — But that would mean falling once again into an imitation of Europe. — No. Cubism is liberating because it has the advantage of being a school of invention. — But if it is a school, it must enslave. — No. There are general laws from which we cannot escape. These persist. As an example of Cubist freedom, I would draw attention to two names: Fernand Léger and Albert Gleizes. While submitting themselves to general laws, these artists nonetheless follow utterly different paths. Cubism is military exercise. All artists must experience it to become strong. And she said goodbye to us with a handshake.
Among the artists mentioned here are Olga Nicolaevna Sacharoff (Spanish, born Georgia, 1889–1967); Édouard-Joseph Goerg (French, 1893–1969); Charles Kvapil (Belgian, 1884–1957); and Albert Brabo (French, 1894–1964). 2 Victor Brecheret (1894–1955) was a Brazilian sculptor who was born in Italy, studied in Paris, and made his career in São Paulo. He exhibited at the Semana de Arte Moderna and is best known for his large-scale Monument to the Banderas at the entrance of São Paulo’s Ibirapuera Park. 3 João de Sousa Lima (1898–1982) was a Brazilian pianist, composer, conductor, and teacher. 4 Emiliano Augusto Cavalcanti de Albuquerque Melo (Brazilian, 1897–1976), known as Di Cavalcanti, was a painter engaged in a form of Brasilidade; he was involved in the Semana de Arte Moderna and produced the cover for its well-known exhibition program. Vicente do Rego Monteiro (Brazilian, 1899–1970) was a painter born in Recife, who, like Tarsila, studied in Paris. His work was greatly inspired by the indigenous cultures of the Amazon. 5 Paulo Prado (Brazilian, 1869–1943) was a businessman, writer, and patron of the arts. Sérgio Milliet (Brazilian, 1898–1966) was a writer, painter, and critic. 6 Caipiras translates to “country bumpkins.” In Brazilian Portuguese, the term caboclo technically refers to a person of mixed indigenous and Caucasian descent but is also used as a generic label for the rural poor.
“MODERN PAINTING AS SEEN BY AN EXTREMELY MODERN ARTIST: TARSILA DO AMARAL SPEAKS TO O JORNAL ON HER WAY THROUGH RIO”
O Jornal, August 17, 1926, p. 2
Translated by Stephen Berg
Fresh from the extraordinary success of a Paris exhibition of her canvases—news of which made it all the way here by way of French newspapers—Tarsila do Amaral passed t hrough Rio Sunday en route to Santos. A passenger on the Lutetia , she disembarked on Saturday afternoon but, because her voyage was to be continued in the early evening of the following day, she did not have time for anything much beyond seeing friends and taking a quick tour of the city. We spoke to her in Mr. Geraldo Rocha’s mansion in the hills of Santa Alexandrina. 1 At O Jornal’s request, the fetching artist had scheduled our interview for Sunday at 11. Punctually, there we were. Informed of our presence, Tarsila do Amaral quickly emerged to greet us with a friendly smile, and, after introducing her fiancé, the writer Oswald de Andrade, sat down to give us her travel impressions of Paris and her favorite artists and told us she had been to the Teatro Rialto on Saturday evening to attend a performance by the black theater ensemble.
1
— I really enjoyed the show and, in particular, the cunning work
of the black female performers—Tarsila adds—the only thing I found to be deplorable was the interference, in such a typically Brazilian company, of an artist of color with the abominable name of De Chocolat.2 Wouldn’t it be much more interesting if they didn’t strike such a foreign note? It compromises the troupe’s authenticity. The subject changed. Mr. Oswald de Andrade referred to Tarsila’s success in Paris and, apropos of that, showed us a printed reproduction of a painting of hers in a Carioca newspaper. The lecture then moved on to her exquisitely original art, filled with bold and daring color compositions. Intentionally, we reminded the artist that such was not the original style of her paintbrush. — And yet it isn’t hard for me to explain—she replied promptly
and brightly—the transition my art has undergone over these last few years, after my exposure to the French masters and the triumph of modern painting. On the contrary, this transition may be most easily explained. My restless temperament was never satisfied by my early academic paintings; rather, my most spontaneous impulses were suppressed by a series of petty rules and truly humiliating aesthetic prejudices. So I allowed myself to be seduced by the modern school. However, I must confess that, initially, painting in accordance with the new methods seemed
156
Tarsila do Amaral
extremely easy. Ignorant as I was with regard to the technique of
have been that incapable, and it is for this very reason that I may
the new school, I also believed [mistakenly] that Cubist painting
speak as forthrightly and perhaps as crudely as I do. [Such work]
consisted of randomly arranged color tones.
represents everything that the artist feels and wishes to convey. Let me give you an example. Prior to beginning a work, I meditate
I made a few such paintings before showing them to a few
at length, imagining its thousands of details. No one has an inkling
connoisseurs, at which point I realized the works were of no
of what my paintings cost me in terms of effort. Oswald just
consequence. I learned that Cubism was not, as I had judged
showed you a photograph of a painting I made in one of Rio’s
it, some mad, disoriented school in which color and line had
morning papers. In this regard, I conceived the figures you see
no real, discernible meaning. Later, in Paris, as I visited the art
in it as having innocent features, the depiction of which were the
galleries, I was able to more carefully (and in a more fortuitous
result of a mighty struggle and very hard work in order that they
state of mind) admire paintings by the French masters of the
might have been reproduced on canvas. The untrained gaze sees
moment. It was then I began to feel that Cubism best suited my
in it only figures that do not resemble men they are used to see-
temperament and that, in it, my restless mind would have greater
ing; upon [closer] examination, however, [the viewer] will feel the
freedom. Having finally penetrated the secret behind the beauty
aesthetic emotion that it suggests or understand the difficulty that
of those original forms, I soon allowed myself to become excited
the artist overcame. Therefore, the modern school is not some-
and devote myself to the study of the new school. I diligently
thing disorganized or devoid of method. It has its own procedures.
attended Prof. Loti’s course. Loti is a great artist, a painter whose
It’s just that these procedures are much broader, allowing artists
process wavers between classical academicism and contempo-
a greater freedom of action.
3
rary Cubism. It is, so to speak, a spirit of conciliation between past and modern trends, set in that p erfect middle ground that
Tarsila do Amaral made a pause. Mr. Oswald de Andrade remarked
comprises the mystery of the harmonious French gesture.
upon some of the paintings in the Salon that were also reproduced
Later, I had other teachers.
in the previously mentioned newspaper, finding them lacking and unexpressive. She accuses the Bernardelli brothers—two “artistic
Yet my spirit did not rest even after I had finally identified with
monsters,” to use her expression—of being fatal to Brazilian art
Cubism. I began to want to create a more personal art and,
and of having interfered with the spontaneity and originality of
thus, perfect the methods I had learned, accommodating them
several generations of Brazilian artists.4
my way and in keeping with my temperament. This is why my Cu bist masters may not see me as one who is very faithful
Bringing our interview to a close, we asked Tarsila do Amaral
to the school . . .
whether she intends to show her work in Brazil.
— Tarsila is not, as has been said and repeated insistently—
— I don’t know yet. Perhaps. In any event, I didn’t bring back the
Mr. Oswald de Andrade intervenes—a Futurist artist. Futurism
pictures I painted in Paris. The ones I didn’t sell at the exhibition
is an Italian school that has passed, even though its chief is
were entrusted to an Englishman for consignment to a number
still around—that would be Marinetti. In Brazil anything that strays
of galleries.
from the classical models is labeled Futurism. Therefore, it is an incorrect designation. Tarsila do Amaral continues:
Futurism is actually a regional
Italian school that has ended. For the rest, the Italian modernist
1
This reference is to the journalist Antônio Geraldo Rocha (Brazilian, 1881–1959).
2
In the early 1920s, João Cândido Ferreira, a Brazilian of African descent, was in
Paris performing at various variety shows. Initially called “Jocanfer,” he soon established the Companhia Negra, which premiered in Rio de Janeiro on July 31,
movement strikes me as artificial and false. And she explains:
1926. For more on Ferreira, see Jeferson Bacelar, “Corações de Chocolat: A história
Italians are ultimately influenced by an extremely heavy tradition
da Companhia Negra de Revistas (1926–1927),” Revista de Antropologia 50, 1
that does not allow them to free themselves for a single minute
(Jan.–June 2007), pp. 437–43.
to think and imagine freely. Futurism does not consist only of free, original form. One may be futuristic in a sonnet, just as one
3
This reference is to André Lhote, one of Tarsila’s teachers in 1923, whom she
would often identify for his blend of classicism and Modernism (Cubism). 4
Henrique, Félix, and Rodolfo Bernardelli were all painters; Henrique was also
may be loathsomely passéiste [old-fashioned] in free verse without
a sculptor and Félix an art teacher. Although all were noted for their artistic
meter or rhyme. This is the reason why I feel that the global
conservatism, the most well known of the three was Rodolfo (1852–1931).
hub of the modern spirit lies in Paris. The spiritual guidance of the world always came from Paris. France continues to retai n its hegemony. It preserves it still, and brilliantly so. The success of the moment unquestionably belongs to the moderns, and the prices fetched by their works are quite significant. Some canvases sell for two or even three hundred thousand francs, which proves beyond doubt that they are no longer purchased solely by collectors of extravagances and curiosities. Only those who are truly able to understand and appreciate it pay three hundred thousand francs for a single painting. Anyone who believes Cubist canvases to be worthless is mistaken by virtue of an inability to understand. I, too,
Historical Texts
157
“TARSILA DO AMARAL SPEAKS OF HER ART AND OF HER TRIUMPHS AND HOPES: A SUCCESS THAT REVERBERATED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, EXCEPT FOR BLESSED BRAZIL”
I just received a telegram from them in which they tell me the gallery is at my disposal. I’ve already set a date for the opening of my new show of paintings—May 19.
— And, D. Tarsila, was your 1926 exhibition the great success we were told it was?
— Absolutely. But only in Europe. In Brazil there wasn’t so much as an echo of my triumph . . . Documentation
Diário da Noite ,
February 10, 1928, p. 1
Translated by Stephen Berg
Important magazines and important newspapers now published articles about my paintings. These included the Contemporânea review—the leading magazine of the modern Portuguese intellectuals . . . In the same issue, the cover of the Contemporânea
It is almost noon. Tarsila do Amaral welcomes the journalist from
carried a reproduction of one of the paintings I showed. In Paris,
the Diário da Noite to her great, manor-like home. The atelier is
the magazines L’Art vivant and Vogue —the important international
filled with beautiful things, dozens of paintings and art objects, a
publication that is also published in London and New York—printed
large table covered with books, magazines, and newspapers. Off
reviews and reproduced my work in their pages as well. My most
to a corner, an impossible bronze of a head of a child, suggesting
prized trophies include articles by G[aston]. de Pawlowski in
any number of things, sits on a sideboard-table. It is a fine environ-
Le Journal and Severiano de Rezende in La Gazette du Brésil. La
ment for a conversation.
Renaissance, Paris Sud-Amerique, [and] Plus Ultra of Paris also published references to my exhibition.
D[ona]. Tarsila sits on the couch, Oswald de Andrade sinks into a comfortable armchair, and we begin to talk about the painter’s
The pictures I sold in Paris hang in the private collections of the
upcoming Paris exhibition at the Galerie Percier on the rue
French writer Jules Supervielle; of Mme. Errázuriz, a lady of
la Boétie . . .
great standing in Parisian art ci rcles; of Mme. Tachard, and of M. Vilonghby.1 The Salon du Franc and the Galerie Percier also
Tarsila do Amaral explains to us that, in Paris, the rue la Boétie is
acquired my paintings. The museums of Moscow and Grenoble
something more than a spot on a map. It currently congregates
also have two canvases. The importance of the Museum of
a series of the great city’s art galleries to which only the most
Grenoble as a storeroom for contemporary painting need not
important artists have access—its great modern artists, to be clear.
be emphasized.
It concentrates shows by painters who carry credentials that document their value. Formerly, artists could be found on many
The Exhibition of May 1928
other streets throughout the Quartier Latin, in all of its galleries.
D. Tarsila do Amaral intends to put twelve canvases on view in
The rue la Boétie began to form the tradition it represents today
her upcoming May exhibition. She showed us a few of them.
some years ago.
Compared to her paintings of days past, Tarsila do Amaral’s current works reveal a new stage in the development of her artistic nature.
The newly rich who visit the city for the first time get lost on the
In fact, all modern painters are moving on to the next manner . . .
boulevards, where they pay exorbitant prices for as many paintings
In his latest works, Braque is almost Cézanne again, albeit with
as they can carry, all foisted upon them by the organizers of the
his own free personality.
galleries established there. They are convinced they are taking with them the most rare masterpieces of Paris. And in vain would they
Cubism’s realist, objective period has passed; it is over. D. Tarsila
visit galleries of modern art, for they would understand nothing of
do Amaral has also moved on to subjectivism. Model: a mysterious
it and end up discovering the obtuseness of their own brains . . .
canvas, redolent of macumba 2 . . .
The Exhibition of 1926
D. Tarsila do Amaral sails to Europe accompanied by her husband
Tarsila tells us about the show she held in 1926, in the same gallery
(the writer Oswald de Andrade) before the end of the month.
that will exhibit her paintings this time around. So the director of the Galerie Percier wanted to see my paintings. He did not know me and did not know if I was worthy of inclusion among the rue la Boétie exhibitors. He was immediately pleased
1 The individuals mentioned here include Jules Supervielle (French, 1884–1960) and
Eugenia Errázuriz (Chilean, 1860–1951); the latter purchased Tarsila’s Lagoa Santa (1925; pl. 48) in 1926. 2 Macumba is a generic denomination for Afro-Brazilian religions that mix traditional
by my seventeen paintings, drawings, and watercolors, and I
African elements with those from Europe, Brazil, and Roman Catholicism; in general,
was enthusiastically received. For the current exhibition, I doubted
the term refers to the two main forms of African spirit worship in Brazil, Candomblé
whether there would be room for me at the Galerie Percier, so I
and Umbanda, but it can also be used as a pejorative term to mean “witchcraft.”
inquired . . . The result could not have been any better than it was.
158
Tarsila do Amaral
“A PAULISTA PAINTER IN PARIS: TARSILA DO AMARAL’S 1 VEHEMENT DEFENSE OF MODERNISM”
They broke with molds that were then in vogue; they destroyed, they were hygienists: they availed themselves of nothing from the stagnation that preceded them. And now they are using new materials to build a healthy art, one that is in keeping with the life of action that currently commands e ducated peoples [and] therefore, in accordance with the modern artist’s very life, which is that of his own century, free from all romantic morbidity. Modern artists are the primitives of a new age that has not yet reached its apex. They understand that man cannot compete with nature by imitating
O Jornal ,
December 9, 1928, p. 3
Translated by Stephen Berg
it. Those who contradict us say: “Nature is our mistress: the more the artist approaches it, the more perfect he will be.” But wouldn’t it be madness to attempt to compete with nature,
Modernism is not the result of a state of insanity—Cubism is
knowing beforehand that we would lose the match? Let us do
the artist’s military service: it should be mandatory.
something else, based on nature, if we like, but let it be frankly our creation, without the pretense of imitation. Let us create
We have begun to lose interest i n exposing reasons for which
humbly, at the boundaries of our intellectual ability. In doing so,
artists may have allowed themselves to be led down the path
we continue only the work of nature. Even Pirandello said: “La
of art that has abandoned all tradition in order to inaugurate the
natura si serve da strumento della fantasia umana per proseguire,
“new” in the visual arts, in writing, or in music. Once these have been
più alta, la sua opera di creazione.”2 And whenever we want
sufficiently understood, the artists find themselves oppressed by
a fine naturalistic picture, we must buy the most perfect photo-
the historical inevitability that leads the styles of an age to emerge,
graph cameras.
at the place in which civilization ended a cycle of its evolution in keeping with the impositions of preceding circumstances.
Even as the Cubists were holding their first public exhibitions, Apollinaire was discovering the forms of the new poetry. As
Thus, our interview now departs from the why of its unflinching
Cézanne had previously done for painting, Debussy paved the
guideline. It grapples with the facts, analyzes our interviewees’
musical path for Stravinsky, Satie, Honegger, and other contem-
words in order to find ou t what they want to be as they create
porary composers and, to the glory of Brazil, our own Villa-Lobos,
their current works and what they see in the groups to which
who is well known in Paris.
they belong. These groups now cling to precious little of what we might call a limitation of boundaries. The art of today reflects a
Dominant Trends in the Visual Ar ts
most brotherly desire to invade foreign lands. And it is just such a
— “The most advanced modern trends in the visual arts are over-
desire that moves across continents and oceans to penetrate
coming the copiers, although Impressionist currents and other
nations and unsettle the entire mesh of the immense task of
survivors of past schools still have their practitioners. These, in a
establishing twentieth century art with its effects; the cardinal
truly distressed state of mind, insist upon saving their idols. The
points of such art are most vigorously defined.
minds of their followers are dominated by the sickly Romanticism of the last century, powerless to destroy inherited perversions.
The above is by way of an interview with São Paulo’s Tarsila do
The modern artist loves life, practices sports, hates whining, and
Amaral, who has just recently held an exhibition in Paris.
is optimistic. New art is healthy, logical, balanced, and highly intelligent. It is only because they are uninformed that laypeople
Although it is of interest because the many things she discusses
deem it to be the product of a state of insanity. Clearly, a layperson
in it stem from direct observation, the interview mentions neither
will find it hard to distinguish so-called modern art from real modern
her exhibition nor the art show she will soon hold in São Paulo
art. Like anything else, this is a matter of education. I know plenty
(in 1929).
of people who cannot tell the difference between old Bordeaux and mulberry wine. In transposing the case to art, how are we
Tarsila do Amaral speaks:
to classify two modern paintings, one good and one bad? Or two dissonant songs? Or two poems written in free verse?
Dawn of a Century
— “We are witnessing a new renaissance in which all artists
Rather, the most powerful opposition to modern art comes from
work together for the glory of this affirmatismo [assertion].
conservatives who will not resign themselves to their own
The arts seek an expression that is equivalent to the progress
defeat or to half-cultures enslaved by artistic prejudice. They are
of science, to the inner life of factories or the machinery of large
unaware that the modern artist respects the past but does not
modern cities. The first Cubists emerged in the visual arts in
continue it.
1908, continuing the evolution of the offensive begun by Cézanne.
Historical Texts
159
Júlio Dantas3 (who declares himself to be above suspicion because
The Paris-Midi speaks: “In the gallery of bold efforts, Mme.
he belongs to the school of the past) recognizes Modernism’s full
Tarsila exhibits the violent colors framed by Legrain6 with an
victory. This is what he said about Menotti del Picchia’s latest book.4
entirely personal whimsy.”
The Principal Names of the Moment
And from Portugal, from the Portugal of today, from contemporary
— “The principal names of the modern Parisian moment are:
Portugal, Fernanda de Castro, the wife of António Ferro, wrote
in sculpture, the great Brancusi, Martell and Lipchitz. In painting,
the following to Tarsila7:
Picasso, Fernand Léger, Chirico, Albert Gleizes, Survage, André Lhote, and Juan Gris, whose paintings are better appreciated after
“Tarsila, many congratulations for the great and well-earned
his death; Miró and Max Ernst, these two being Surrealists.
success of your exhibition. António arrived from Paris quite taken
There are others still. In architecture, Le Corbusier; in literature,
with your paintings, with the e ver more vivid and impressive
Giraudoux, whose recent “Siegfried” revealed a remarkable
colors of your canvases, with the difficult choice of subject matter
playwright; Blaise Cendrars, who was misunderstood ten years
and the simplicity of execution—the most difficult and rare of
ago, is now unanimously respected; Jean Cocteau, always
qualities. I read a review in Comoedia and, through it, I was able
at odds with the intransigence of the Surrealists, the bosses of
to see how you are understood and appreciated there. It is highly
which are Aragon and Breton.”
significant that a Frenchman would say [such things] to a foreigner. There is no need to tell you how sorry I am not to have seen
The Issue of Cubism in Brazil
your exhibition.”
— “The modern movement is global and cannot be otherwise, in an age of omnipresent life. To introduce Cubism in Brazil is to restore freedom [to it] because it is a school of invention
1 A paulista is someone who is born in the state of São Paulo (which is different
and not of copy. Cubism is the artist’s military service. It should
than a paulistano/a , which means a native of the metropolitan area of the city
be mandatory.
of São Paulo). 2 From Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921): “Nature makes use of the instrument of human fantasy to pursue her work of creation on
Our very own nature comes to its aid: intense colors, anti-
a higher level.” Translation from Six Characters in Search of an Author , trans.
Impressionist landscapes devoid of delicate colors. Our green is
Frederick May (Heinemann Educational Books), 1954.
5
bárbaro . A true Brazilian enjoys contrasting colors. As a proper caipira , I declare that I find certain bright color combinations to be beautiful, although I was taught to consider them in bad taste.
3 Júlio Dantas (Portuguese, 1876–1962) was a prominent writer, doctor, politician, and diplomat. 4 The writer Menotti del Picchia (Brazilian, 1892–1988) was a member of the Grupo dos Cinco. Tarsila is likely referring to his Juca Mulato , a book of poetry
Nowadays I spread blue and pink—my favorite colors—across
published in 1917.
my paintings.
5 “Barbarous” or “uncivilized”; the word choice is critical. In his “Manifesto of Pau-Brasil Poetry,” Oswald includes the phrase “bárbaro e nosso” (barbarous and
To those who say Cubism is a matter of fashion and, therefore, fleeting, I ask: if fashion is the externalization of the taste of a given age, which artistic movement can escape it?
ours). See p. 174 in this publication. 6 The reference is to the French designer Pierre Legrain (1889–1929), whom Tarsila commissioned to create frames for the paintings displayed in her 1926 and 1928 solo exhibitions at the Galerie Percier, Paris. 7 Maria Fernanda Teles de Castro e Quadros Ferro (Portuguese, 1900–1994) was
I defend Cubism ardently because I left it a long time ago. But the bad result of our painters is such that they refuse to receive its saving influence, and I deem it my duty to insist upon this. In order to be strong, the artist must experience it. The Tarsila Exhibition of 1928
— “This time around, I placed better than I did in Paris in 1926,” Tarsila tells us, in great fear of talking about herself. And that is all we were able to find out. There can be no doubt that the interview ended badly. Le Temps speaks of Tarsila do Amaral: “Tarsila, who has a refined view of color, makes use of it in preposterous Cubist compositions.” At the Salon des Indépendents the split produced the “Vrais Indépendents,” of which Tarsila is part. Among the most representative names, such as Vines and others, the name of the painter from São Paulo is mentioned as one of the group’s most daring artists in Avenir, Liberté, Paris-Soir, Comoedia, etc.
160
Tarsila do Amaral
a writer; António Joaquim Tavares Ferro (Portuguese, 1895–1956) was a writer, journalist, and politician.
“AN INTERVIEW IN THREE QUESTIONS: THE CURRENT MOMENT IN BRAZILIAN ART AND TARSILA DO AMARAL’S POSITION”
However, I soon freed myself from that discipline, a Swedish movement cure of sorts of no interest beyond creating musculature. Of me, the authoritative voice of Maurice Reynal has said: “Mme. Tarsila brings with her from Brazil the signs of a truly national artistic renewal, early symptoms of the decadence of international academic influence in that great nation that have hitherto obscured its personality.” Speaking last year about possible early influences on my art, Raymond Cogniat declared:
Crítica, July 27, 1929, p. 11
Translated by Stephen Berg
The success that has crowned Tarsila do Amaral’s exhibition is both impressive and significant. A large, enormously elegant public has been flocking to the Palace Hotel, curious to view the great artist’s unsettling, paradoxical art. Ever since last Saturday’s vernissage—an event of large-scale secular repercussion—took place, this show of paintings has been attracting the most educated and select attendance. This fact evinces the degree of interest and curiosity with which the distinguished lady’s initiative to open an exhibition of clearly modern art has been welcomed by Rio de Janeiro’s intellectual circles. CR ÍT ICA sought out Tarsila do Amaral. Her words about the current moment of Brazilian art and its possibilities as well as about the Anthropophagic movement undoubtedly have a heightened importance that stems from the situation of expressive artistic prominence in which the brilliant painter finds herself.
“Such influences are already far enough away to require an occasional effort of memory or observation should one want to locate them in these latest works.” As we can see, what we have here is a lack of knowledge about what is happening in the world of painting. If there is anything good in my art, [it is] that it has retained a spontaneous Brasilidade from 1924 until now, from the period I call Pau Brasil to the most recent Antropophagic period. In terms of an indisputable Brasilidade, I’d be curious to know which painters are currently considered avant-garde . . . the Bernardel li and Visconti, perhaps?2 — Do you think “Antropophagy” will endure as a Brazilian aesthetic, or will it pass amid the tumult of literary currents?
— Antropophagy is a representative movement of the age. It will have a cycle of its own. I believe it to be an indicator of great Brazilian renewal, one that is bound to lead Brazil to the loftiest destinies since it is not a merely literary or colonial movement. — Is the present moment an auspicious one for painting [in Brazil]?
We came up with three questions on this subject, to all of which Tarsila kindly provided extremely interesting answers composed with flair and sharp intuition and not lacking in an amiably playful sense of irony.
— The most auspicious one possible. You can feel a fighting
spirit everywhere. This is just the aperitif. The heralded artisticsocial renewal must awaken those who sleep the sleep of conventional purity.
— Do you believe in the definitive victory of the moderns against cold, conventional academicism?
1 José Fléxa Pinto Ribeiro (1884–1971) was a teacher, critic for many newspapers
— The victory is definitive. Its manifestations are already being
and journals, and historian of Brazilian art. 2 Eliseu d’Angelo Visconti (Brazilian, born Italy, 1866–1944) was a painter and decorative artist.
considered late to the game. When I came to Rio, I thought my exhibition evoked something new, and now I see it is the Escola de Bellas [Belas] Artes that is Futurist, and that it finds my art to be “already old,” to use the words of Mr. Fléxa Ribeiro. 1 Yet such was not the opinion of an enlightened Paris. If my exhibitions of ‘26 and ‘28 were review-worthy, it was precisely because they brought a new tropical art to Europe—one that did not exclude Brazilianism. I am what I am, effortlessly. Even the technique in my clean, sharply outlined painting comes from my childhood; from a time in which I did not know teachers existed. Some of my 1923 canvases bear the strict characteristics of the Cubist school that provided my military service, as I called it.
Historical Texts
161
“INTERVIEW: TARSILA DO AMARAL”
between one subject and another refer to isolated recollections that occur to her on the spur of the moment. Assisted by Dona Anette, her secretary and nurse, who also prepares her canvases, the painter retains a vivacious, ironic, and aristocratic wit that doesn’t sound very modern in today’s world. A grande dame in her day, she is currently an outstanding, charming conversationalist, subtly irreverent toward the Semana’s great figures and the electrifying Paris she once knew. Beginnings in the Studio of a Passéiste Veja: You were in Europe, during the Semana. In spite of this,
Leo Gilson Ribeiro, Veja 181 (February 23, 1972), pp. 3–6
you are considered one of its most important personalities. Why?
Translated by Stephen Berg Tarsila: In spite of the fact that I was in Europe, I like to think I took part in the Semana of 22 because Anita Malfatti told me all “What Could That Thing Be?” This is what she wanted to
about it, in a highly detailed letter. I have no idea where it is now.
know, in Europe, when she read the letter t hat Anita Malfatti
I was surprised at what she told me and at how very rude Monteiro
wrote to her about the Semana de Arte Moderna
Lobato had been when he wrote about her.3 He didn’t understand anything, [he was] very reactionary. Imagine it: Monteiro Lobato
Propped up against a stack of pillows, her restless hands caressing
judging himself a painter! I was very surprised: what could that
tiny canvases that she is painting on commission, Tarsila do
thing be? Anita was hurt and rightfully so, Monteiro Lobato talked
Amaral, age 75, smiles ironically in talking about her pastimes
about her paintings as if they had been made by a donkey with
now that she is confined to bed after a fall that affected her
a brush tied to its tail and, as the flies tormented the donkey he
spine. She lifts the flowered blue sheet that covers two thick books
would produce those brushstrokes on the canvas, right?
upon which she rests her elbows: “I like to read dictionaries. Imagine! Today I learned the exact pronunciation of exegete .”
Veja: But the Semana . . .
A coquette, she prefers not to be photographed in her bedridden state (“Why don’t you print pictures of when I was young?”).
Tarsila: Shortly before I left for Europe, I re nted my studio to a
She is unfamiliar with the music of Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil,
German teacher, Professor Elpons, the only Impressionist in Brazil.
and Chico Buarque: she recognizes their names on the radio but
He was the only one who gave me a taste of Impressionist painting
changes the station, “because I’ve always found popular music
because none of it ever made it to Brazil, except if it was through
so banal, sometimes I like to listen to Debussy—so poetic and
professor Pedro Alexandrino, who spent twenty years in Paris and
coloristic! Serving Brazilian broths to Cocteau in Paris and wines
often visited the great painters—all of whom he knew. Plenty of
from the Tour d’Argent’s cellar to Mário de Andrade in São Paulo,
people told me it was a waste of time to work in Pedro Alexandrino’s
the (absent) “muse” of the Semana of 22 found herself divided
studio, because he is a passéiste ; but he was knowledgeable, so
on the occasion of the “lobster war” between France (a country
if you stop to think about it, it wasn’t a waste of time at all.
1
she adores and whose tongue she speaks with the accent of an aristocratic mademoiselle of the Parisian haute bourgeoisie ) and
Oswald’s Quarrel with Paulo Prado
Brazil, but the nationalist vein prevailed: “The lobsters are ours,
Veja: How did you discover your talent?
after all!” Tarsila: I began to work (in São Paulo) under the direction of Pedro She is not interested in modern art; Calder’s mobiles are not art
Alexandrino, and it did me no harm to see it was old-fashioned
to her: “Do you think that balancing those colored things is art?!”
and academic, he practiced that old fashioned method of copying
She refused to see the plays of her ex-husband Oswald de Andrade
à fusain to exercise the hand. I even made a black man’s head.
because she heard they “were very indecent.” Accused of being
He wanted me to have a very firm hand, so he gave me very large
a woman of many lovers, she disavows this reputation with
sheets of paper upon which to work, didn’t he? He would explain
miffed distress: “Why, I’m a puritan, by Our Lady!”
everything, drawing lines without a ruler, without anything. I started with drawing, I wasn’t a colorist in the beginning, I made
She gave up reading Guimarães Rosa : “A writer who used such
plaster copies, too. And [I learned] shading and [there were]
strange language!” She is undisturbed by the noise of the electric
anatomical things I had to copy, to know well. He used to work
saws in construction work that filters through the closed windows
at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios, and he would bring his models
of São Paulo’s Higienópolis quarter. “The world they are building
along, and it was very good because you learned anatomy and the
is so unlike mine! They tell me even Europe is different today; Paris
proportions, isn’t that so?
2
has changed for the worse, it’s no longer worth visiting. Paris was the city I knew in my youth.”
Veja: Was São Paulo very provincial as far as the arts were concerned?
Tarsila do Amaral is lucid, al though her mind wanders when answering questions. Many of the sentences she intersperses
162
Tarsila do Amaral
Tarsila: Oh, yes, taste ran to landscapes that were as close to
Tarsila: Yes, he fought with him, too. Later on he missed him
lifelike as possible. This was the reign of the still life. The gleam of
and asked me to write a l etter to Mário. Oswald was very temper-
metal copied on canvas . . . so real! It wasn’t prejudicial to me—
amental. I was already married to him and so I wrote, but Mário
it was a preparatory stage. As soon as I arrived in Europe I went
replied that it would be impossible, that Oswald had offended him
straight to the Académie Julian, an academy in which the painting
too much, that he felt deeply resentful, that it wasn’t possible,
of nudes was taught in a large hall. I took my work: the head of an
that things were different with me; he was always my very good
old man rendered in pastels, and a Dutch woman done in oils and
friend, Mário was. Then, when Oswald realized he really wasn’t
the black man, in charcoal. There were many studios, and nudes
going to forgive him, he began to disparage Mário. A pity, that
were all the rage; the model stood before the artist for five minutes,
character trait of Oswald’s . . . And with such a serious body of
and that was it, so he could sketch rapidly. I rather enjoyed the
work, no? I did the illustrations for his books. All of them.
fact that I’d had some practice. Later I went to study with a great— an hors concours teacher, he held exhibitions of his work, and
Veja: So that was the starting point for the famous “Aba-Puru”?
he liked my painting very much. I’ve forgotten his name now. He drew the students’ attention to my work, you know? There were
Tarsila: No. I wanted to make a picture that would startle Oswald,
plenty of them, and he liked me because I worked quickly, and
you know? Something really out of the ordinary. That’s how we
he would remark out loud in the large studio: “ Voyez ce qu’elle
get to the “Aba-Puru.” I myself did not know why I wanted to do
4
fait, comme c’est puissant!” I returned to Brazil shortly after the
this . . . I didn’t find out until later. The “Aba-Puru” was that
Semana, but I didn’t like what Anita Malfatti was doing—it was
monstrous figure you know, isn’t that so? The little head, the skinny
all sort of deformed. But of course I was completely shocked at
little arm supported by an elbow, those enormous long legs and,
and against Monteiro Lobato. Later on, at the end of the year,
next to it, a cactus that looked like a sun, as if it were a flower and
Anita also went to work with Pedro Alexandrino, because Anita’s
the sun at the same time, so when he saw the picture Oswald
mother was very old fashioned, and she was always against her
was extremely startled and asked: “But what is this? What an
daughter and against her innovations in painting, she kept saying
extraordinary thing!” And immediately called Raul Bopp, who was
none of it was any good. Anita was very discouraged because
here, and said: “Come on over right away. You need to see some-
her mother was angry with her for not making recognizable things.
thing!” So Bopp went over to my studio, on rua Barão de Piracicaba,
Her mother didn’t understand anything—[she] was just dreadful!
a very fine mansion that my father had recently bought. Bopp was equally startled and Oswald said: “This is like a thing, like a
Veja: Did you find a hostile environment upon your return?
savage, a forest thing,” and Bopp felt the same way. So I wanted to give the painting a wild name, too, because I had one of the
Tarsila: I arrived in very early June, on a ship, there were no 5
Jesuit priest Montoya’s dictionaries.8 There were definitions
planes then, Gago Coutinho later made the Atlantic crossing. But
for everything in it. For example, in the language of the Indians
the ocean crossing was so peaceful! . . . The liners of the British
“person” was “Abá.” I wanted to say “anthropophagous person,”
Royal Mail were the best. Soon, France also had the Lutèce and
I searched the whole dictionary and couldn’t find it, but there was
6
the Marsília sailing. No, I didn’t return to a hostile environment
a list of names in the last pages, and I saw “Puru,” and then I
when I got back. I received many people, poets, in my studio on
read it and it said “one who eats human flesh,” so I thought, ah,
the rua Vitória. The house belonged to my family.
that sounds good, Aba-Puru. And the name stuck.
Veja: You were a very beautiful woman . . .
Veja: So you were the source of the Anthropophagous movement?
Tarsila: Who? Me? Well, naturally, in those days I was better than I am today. Then I met Oswald de Andrade, who was very
Tarsila: Raul Bopp thought we should build a movement around
extravagant: he derided everyone. Whenever he found something
the picture. He found it extremely strange; he liked it a lot and
amusing, he just had to say it out loud even if it meant offending
later wrote an extremely interesting book about the indigenous
his friends; he would sacrifice anything for a bon mot. Paulo Prado
language of the Amazon. Everybody started saying that Oswald had
once had a fight with him and never spoke to him again, you
made the “Aba-Puru” and created the Anthropophagous move-
know? I didn’t even know why, yet Paulo Prado had written a very
ment. He accepted people saying that he had auth ored it—he
good preface to Oswald’s book Pau Brasil, which was published
found that interesting.
in Paris. Whenever Oswald had something to say, he couldn’t hold back . . . he really couldn’t, and then he talked about Dona
Veja: Was that the point at which he began to date documents
Veridiana Prado and how it was said she wasn’t, well . . . Aryan,
from the year that bishop— Bishop Sardinha—was eaten by
that there was a little mixture there, and Oswald had spoken of
Indians in Bahia?
the “glorious mulatto woman that is Dona Veridiana Prado.” Why, Paulo Prado was very closely related to her, so he never spoke
Tarsila: That’s right, and they made the Anthropophagous move-
to Oswald again.
ment, and then every Wednesday Chateaubriand (pronounced in the French style) offered a page of his newspaper to [the]
7
“Aba-Puru” at the Origin of Anthropophagy
movement. Then Geraldo Ferraz, who was known as “the Butcher,”
Veja: Did he also fight with Mário de Andrade?
came along to talk about art, right?9 Yes, a butcher, because
Historical Texts
163
Antropophagy was meat eating, so he talked about it and distributed
That was the dress I chose to wear at the vernissage of my work
it among the readers. But then, because there was much irrev-
in a vast suite of rooms on rua Barão de Itapetininga, I was standing
erence toward the families who subscribed to the Diário de São
there waiting for the visitors. Then I saw a really large group
Paulo , Chateaubriand found himself forced into asking them to
of young men coming toward me. I was standing at the door, I
stop because he was losing his readership.
asked: “Would you gentlemen like to come in?” It seemed that was what they really wanted, and I welcomed them very cordially, I
Friendship with Léger and the Energy of the Earth
invited them in, little did I know what they wanted to do: they all
Veja: With that deformed, monstrous figure, the “Aba-Puru”
had razors in their pockets to slash everything I had made! But I
seems to be the stuff of nightmares.
think they found it very odd that I was wearing this beautiful dress and didn’t manage to follow through with their plan.
Tarsila: It’s funny you should mention it, I enjoy inventing forms such as things I’ve never seen in life, but I didn’t know why I had
Veja: During your childhood, did you live in São Paulo or
made the “Aba-Puru” in that form. I kept asking myself: “But how
in the interior?
did I make this?” Then a friend who was married to the mayor said to me: “Every time I see ‘Aba-Puru’ I recall some nightmare
Tarsila: When I was small, I li ved on a fazenda, my father adored
I’ve had,” and so I associated one thing to the other, a psychic
everything that had to do with fazendas, he bought lots of land, he
recollection or some such thing and remembered when we were
was a very rich man because his father was also known in paulista
children on the fazenda. There were maids aplenty in those days,
genealogy as José Estanislau do Amaral, the Millionaire. He started
10
black women who worked for us on the fazenda. After dinner
out with nothing, making castor oil, he had one or two slaves
they would gather the children and tell [us] ghost stories. They told
who helped him to make it and later continued to sell, continued
us about a ghost in the wainscoting, I was terrified. We listened,
to improve, bought fazendas, lots of them, he sold coffee in
and they said: in a minute an arm will fall from the opening, then
Santos, too, where he made a lot of money with that. I was raised
a leg . . . But we never waited for the head to fall, we just opened
in the countryside. I think that’s why I’m as strong as I am at my
the door and ran out before the entire ghost came crashing down.
age. Even men have a hard time beating me at arm wrestling
Who knows? Perhaps the “Aba-Puru” is a reflection of that.
[shows her arm], you know?
Veja: Just as the Anthropophagous movement had a relation
The Cubist Portinari, a Disappointment
to so-called primitive cultures, of the Indians, o f Africa, etc.,
Veja: And your painting also contains some of this energy
did Fernand Léger and his subject matter of machines, factories,
of the earth, of the countryside?
and modern society influence your painting as well? Tarsila: Exactly. You know? I was a little girl on the fazenda and Tarsila: I was enormously fond of his work. He was a very good
would see my mother at church with many prayer cards, I already
friend, but I didn’t frequent Léger’s studio. I was a friend of his
liked painting, so much so that I [was] already making the first
wife; even after “they” invented that he had designed earrings
poorly made copies of the saints. I made a Saint Francis Xavier
for me, etc. Imagine! I drew my i nspiration from São Paulo itself,
when I was about four years old. I adored drawing and being
from industrial society. What I did was a novelty then, in Brazil.
surrounded by chickens and little chicks, and I made little drawings
And I was so well received that the state government bought
of every animal I saw. Then they gave me a little white kitten, I
my work, you know—a large painting [Workers, pl. 82], it is in
loved cats, she was called Falena, and she had many husbands,
Campos do Jordão. The upper portion of it imitates a factory. At
and I ended up with forty cats that surrounded me, meowing, in
the time of my exhibition in Rio, I had a friend from [the state of]
the Capivari fazenda. But I also spent time at the fazenda in São
Pernambuco who sent me all the clippi ngs of the reviews of the
Bernardo, which Daddy had already bought at that time. It was a
“Aba-Puru” there, inclusive, there were astonishing fabrications,
very large and beautiful house, and I learned to read by seeing the
they said my studio was like the studio of Renoir, filled with nudes
letters at the entrance to the fazenda. You know, the letters were
and I don’t know what all else and that I’d ordered divans to be
nearly the size of this closet here. My mother used to teach me:
spread around the entire studio covered in purple velvets. Would
“Look, this here is a B , this letter is called B . This letter here is
you believe it? And they mistook me for Anita Malfatti. At the
an A,” and right away I’d memorize something about the shape
time (can you imagine?) a journalist from Rio actually wrote that
of each letter. I didn’t even feel I was being taught to read before
Oswald de Andrade had never even married me! He talked about
entering school. And I used to make grass dolls: out of a kind of
me as if I were a São Paulo monument: you must see Tarsila in
grass that had square stems and flowers, I would weight it and
São Paulo. Why, I became a tourist attraction! And my wedding to
make little sculptures of sorts, with arms and legs and play with
11
Oswald was a luxury wedding—Washington Luís attended! They
them. I grew up on that farm, and because my father had heard that
talked about me, about my many loves! They even called me a
a Belgian family had established itself nearby, they were nobility:
fashion plate. And rightly so, because whenever I came back from
Van Harenberg Valmont, they had an eighteen-year-old daughter
Europe I brought the latest things with me, didn’t I? I once wore
and, because I had younger brothers, Daddy sent someone over
an extremely lovely gown, a sort of checkered silk with bouffant
to ask whether the young lady could come and teach us French,
sleeves and two very large blue bows (Dona Anette shows us a
and she came but she didn’t teach us anything—Mama taught her
copy of Ilustração Brasileira and says it is from 1924), you know?
Portuguese. I learned French because Daddy wanted his children
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Tarsila do Amaral
to be very well educated, so we went to Europe, and no one in
Painting of a Happy Childhood
France ever knew I was not French: they always told me I spoke
Veja: Beyond their religious sentiment, there is a tone of
without an accent étranger, you know?
remembrance in your paintings . . .
Veja: In Paris you met Picasso, Apollinaire, and Breton?
Tarsila: One of the most successful paintings I exhibited in Europe is called A Negra [pl. 13]. Because I have recurring memories of
Tarsila: Oh, I did. Cocteau was a great friend of ours, too. I
having seen one of those old female slaves, when I was five or
prepared many a Brazilian lunch at my studio in Paris, which Paulo
six years old, you know? A female slave who lived on our fazenda,
Prado discovered to have been the studio of Cézanne, on the rue
and she had droopy lips and enormous breasts because (I was
[Hégésippe] Moreau, in a not quite desirable neighborhood, but it
later told) in those days black women used to tie rocks to their
was so hard to get a studio in Paris! There were many American
breasts in order to lengthen them, and then they would sling them
artists, many foreigners, and it was hard to find. Min e was on the
back over their shoulders to breastfeed the children they were
fifth floor, you had to walk up, there was no bathroom, i t was
carrying on their backs. In a picture I painted for the city of São
kind of primitive, and if you really wanted a bath you had to go to
Paulo’s fourth centennial, I painted a procession with a black
the bains publiques. Villa-Lobos was always there and Cocteau
woman in th e foreground and a Baroque church, it was a memory
frequented it, too, it was even said that he was a very good
of that woman from my childhood, I think. I invent everything in
musician. Villa-Lobos improvised on a concert grand piano i n my
my painting. And I stylize whatever it was that I saw or felt, like a
studio, he would play something and Cocteau would respond with
beautiful sunset or that woman.14
a grimace of boredom: “Non. Ce n’est pas quelque chose de neuf!”12 Then Villa-Lobos played something else, and Cocteau
Veja: So your very poetic painting is a tender evocation
would shake his head: “No, that’s not new,” even sitting under
of a happy childhood?
the piano claiming it was pour mieux entendre [to hear better], but never approving of the music of Villa-Lobos, to him, Brazilian
Tarsila: I believe you aren’t far from the truth.
folklore was déjà entendu [already heard]. You can imagine the ensuing quarrels, with the very loud, very exuberant Villa-Lobos . . . As a matter of fact, there was an ongoing climate of debate
1 The musicians Caetano Veloso (Brazilian, born 1942), Gilberto Gil (Brazilian, born
because they belonged to different literary, political, and aesthetic
1942), and Chico Buarque (Brazilian, born 1944), were all active in the Tropicália
parties and, thus, eternally at odds with one another . . .
movement of the 1960s. 2 João Guimarães Rosa (Brazili an, 1908–1967) was a novelist, short-sto ry writer, and diplomat.
Veja: Where do you get so much strength to live? A fall has
3 The artist’s memory is confused here, as Monteiro Lobato’s criticism of Malfatti
left you bedridden for most of the day. Recently, you lost
occurred at the time of her first exhibition in 1917.
your only daughter. Soon after that, your only granddaughter
4 “Look at what she is doing, how powerful it is!”
drowned to death. Are you religious?
5 Carlos Viegas Gago Coutinho (Portuguese, 1869–1959) was a naval officer and aviation pioneer. 6 The ship’s correct name was Lutetia.
Tarsila: Oh, I am, indeed. I am deeply devoted to the Infant Jesus
7 Abaporu (pl. 54).
of Prague, because I received many graces through prayer to him.
8 Antonio Ruiz de Montoya (Peruvian, 1585–1652) was a Jesuit priest, missionary,
It’s a miraculous novena. I know the whole thing by heart: “Oh
and scholar of the Tupi-Guarani languages.
Jesus, who said: Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened,” when I read that it gave
9 Benedito Geraldo Ferraz Gonçalves (Brazilian, 1905–1979) was a writer, journalist, and critic. 10 Fazenda is the Brazilian Portuguese equivalent of the Spanish hacienda in the
me goose bumps, you know? Just imagine that door opening and
sense that it defines a large estate that is also very likely an agricultural property.
opening . . . That inspired me to paint the Infant Jesus with a little
11 Washington Luís Pereira de Sousa (Brazilian, 1869–1957) was a politician who
black boy, who symbolizes the meek; there were Japanese and
served as the thirteenth President of Brazil, the last of the First Brazilian Republic.
Indians in it, too, I gave it to a priest who runs an orphanage for children. I used to copy religious oleographs . . .
12 “No, there’s nothing new about it!” 13 Tiradentes (Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, 1746–1792) was a Brazilian leader of the revolutionary movement aimed at independence from Portugal and the creation of a Brazilian republic. Tiradentes, who was arrested and put to death for his goals,
Veja: Portinari also began by copying saints.
became a national hero i n the nineteenth century. 14 It is noteworthy that Tarsila’s recollection s of childho od were of an idylli c, perfect
Tarsila: Oh, I was very disappointed in Portinari when I met an exegete of Cubism in Paris, and I frequented that great teacher
moment of beauty and “purity” that took place amid actual slaves or at least very newly freed slaves.
for more than six months. And I don’t think Portinari made Cubist paintings. For instance: he was going to paint Tiradentes.13 He used a brush and China ink to draw him, and then he got pieces of paper and glued them onto the drawing. That was never Cubism!
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MÁRIO DE ANDRADE LETTER TO TARSILA
TARSILA
November 15, 1924
Dated December 21, 1927, published in
Translated by Graham Howells, reprinted from Aracy A. Amaral
(Typographia Bancaria, 1929)
et al., Tarsila
Translated by Graham Howells, reprinted from Aracy A. Amaral
do Amaral ,
exh. cat. (Fundación Juan March,
2009), pp. 23–24.
MÁRIO DE ANDRADE
et al., Tarsila
do Amaral ,
Tarsila ,
exh. cat.
exh. cat. (Fundación Juan March,
2009), pp. 223–24. November 15 – Long live the Republic! Tarsila, my dear friend:
In the Brazilian modern art movement, one person who from the beginning adopted an exceptional stance was Mrs. Amaral de
(Now the current letter of the conversation:)
Andrade. A name almost no one knows. . . . Well, the illustrious painter is only known as Tarsila, and that is how she signs
Be careful! Fortify yourselves well with theories and excuses and
her paintings.
things seen in Paris. When you arrive here, there will surely be arguments. Right now, I challenge you all, Tarsila, Oswald, Sérgio,1
Tarsila has one of the strongest personalities that the modern
to a formidable debate. You went to Paris as bourgeois. Ready
artists have revealed to Brazil. It affects the most up-to-date currents
to épaté . And you became Futurists! Ha! Ha! Ha! I weep with
of universal painting, she has reached an absolutely personal
envy. It is true, though, that I think of you all as caipiras in Paris.
solution that has drawn the attention of the big shots of modern
Your Parisianness is skin-deep. That’s horrible! Tarsila, Tarsila,
Parisian painting. From a traditional family, feeling much at ease
return back into yourself. Abandon Gris and Lhote, impresarios
within Brazilian reality, one can say that in the history of our
of decrepit criticism and decadent aesthesias! Abandon Paris!
painting, she was the first who managed to create a work of national
Tarsila! Tarsila! Come to the virgin forest, where there is no black
reality. What distinguishes her from an Almeida Júnior, for ex-
art, where there are no gentle streams either. There is VIRGIN
ample, is that her paintings are not inspired by national themes.
2
FOREST. I have created virgin-forestism. I am a virgin-forester.
Ultimately, in artworks like O Grito do Ipiranga and Carioca, only
That is what the world, art, Brazil, and my dearest Tarsila need.
the subject is Brazilian. Her technique, expression, emotion, art, all of them lead us to far-off places beyond the sea. In Tarsila,
If you are brave, come here, accept my challenge.
as in all true painters, the theme is only another circumstance of the enchantment. What truly produces th at Brazilian quality
And how beautiful it would be to see the beautiful resurgent
immanent in her painting is artistic reality itself; a certain and
figure of Tarsila Amaral in the green frame of the forest. I would
very advantageously used rustic quality of shapes and color; an
arrive silently, confidently, and would kiss your divine hands.
intelligent systematization of bad taste that is in exceptionally good taste; an intimate sentimentality, somewhat tinged with sin,
A hug from your friend Mário.
full of tenderness and strong flavor. I do not clearly know which French painter or critic noted that this
1 Sérgio Milliet, who was then in Paris.
exoticism should be criticized in her. However, nobody censures
2 MATA VI RGE M in the original Portuguese.
the douanier Rousseau for his small monkeys and African jungles. It is not only the subject that makes a painting exotic but the same essential values of that work as art. This French observation, which, by the way, does not have the slightest critical val ue, clearly proves that Tarsila was able to obtain a visual realization so intimately national that foreigners find it has an exotic flavor. I believe this is the principal merit of Tarsila’s painting. What is most surprising in her, however, is that pursuing that national psychology in her technique did not impair in the least the artistic essence that a painting, to be a painting, requires. This is
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Tarsila do Amaral
I believe that, after the Paris exhibition, the great painter felt
TARSILA DO AMARAL PAU�BRASIL AND ANTHROPOPHAGOUS PAINTING
tired. She abandoned the brushes and entered the teatime of her
TARSILA DO AMARAL
extraordinary. With an admirable balance between expression and formal realization, she plainly proves what a creative i magination can do at the service of a critical and intelligent culture.
existence. She traveled, amused herself, studied, but painting, she did not paint anything else. This restlessness brought a dark twilight to the modern festivals here. 8 p.m., 10 p.m., 11 p.m., 12 a.m., 1 a.m., 2 a.m. . . . It is five o’clock and arriving at the Santa Teresa do Alto farm finds a dining room recently decorated by the painter. Tarsila has resumed her work and plans to hold an exhibition here next year. This will be very good because, ultimately, in Brazil, except for the small group of admirers who frequent
RASM—Revista anual do Salão de Maio
the painter’s studio, the rest only have knowledge of her paintings
Translated by Graham Howells, reprinted from Aracy A. Amaral
through highly imperfect reproductions.
et al.,
Tarsila do Amaral ,
1 (1939), n.p.
exh. cat. (Fundación Juan March,
2009), pp. 31–33. Actually, in that dining room the painter restricted herself to improving the naïve paintings that were already there, giving them an artistic value. But those still lifes, which were formerly
On the occasion of Blaise Cendrars’ visit to Brazil in 1924,
of an applied vulgarity, with unworthy colors, now became joyful,
without premeditation, with no desire to form a school, I painted
a delight to the eyes. Bananas, oranges, fat pineapples converted
the picture they called Pau-Brasil.
into fruit from the north, just-picked, in the orchard . . . of imagination. They do not make us want to eat them but rather gently encourage
Impregnated with the theory and practice of Cubism, I only had
conversation. There is sun out there. It smells strongly of soil
eyes for Léger, Gleizes, and Lhote, my teachers in Paris. Having
and flowers. Better to stay right here, chatti ng aimlessly. The
recently returned from Europe, and after giving various interviews
delightful indolence of the farm, where every hour we return to the
to several Brazilian newspapers about the Cubist movement, I felt
table to eat a little something. That is the environment created
dazzled by the folk decorations in the homes of São João del Rei,
by the bananas, oranges, and pineapples that Tarsila has harvested
Tiradentes, Congonhas do Campos, Sabará, Ouro Preto, and
from her imagination.
other small towns in Minas, full of folk poetry. Return to tradition, to simplicity. We went as a group to discover Brazil, led by Dona Olívia Guedes Penteado with her sensitivity, charm, social prestige, and her support of modern artists. Blaise Cendrars, Oswald de Andrade, Mário de Andrade, Gofredo da Silva Telles, René Thiollier, Oswald de Andrade Jr., then a boy, and me. The mural decorations in the modest corridor of a hotel; the room ceilings, made of colored and braided bamboo; the church paintings, simple and moving, made with love and devotion by anonymous artists; Aleijadinho, with his statues and the brilliant lines of his religious architecture. Everything caused us to cry out in admiration. In Minas, I found the colors I loved as a child. Later, I was taught that they were ugly and caipira. I followed the hum of refined taste. . . . But, later, I took my revenge on that oppression, transferring them to my canvases: purest blue, violet pink, vivid yellow, and strident green, all in various grades of strength according to how much white was mixed in. Clean painting above all, without fear of conventional canons. Freedom and sincerity, a certain stylization that adapted it to the modern age. Clean contours that gave a perfect impression of the distance separating one object from another. This led to the success I had at the Galerie Percier on the rue la Boétie in Paris, where I had my first exhibition in 1926. I first had to take an exam. In spite of Cendrars’ introduction, M. Level, the director of the gallery, could not commit himself to showing the work of an unknown artist. The excuse
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was that he had no space. He would, however, go to my studio to see my work. When I showed him Hills of the Favela —black people, black children, animals, clothes drying in the sun, among tropical colors, a painting that today belongs to Francisco da Silva Teles—he asked me: “When would you like to exhibit?” I had passed. I was going to be shown on Paris’s street of avant-garde art. I rejoiced. The Parisian critics, spontaneously (without my having to spend a single franc on advertisements, despite what certain less than benevolent colleagues said), liked me. At the vernissage, the collector Madame Tachard bought Adoration, that painting of the thick-lipped black man with his hands clasped, praying in front of the image of the Divine One, surrounded by blue, pink, and white flowers, with a frame by Pierre Legrain. The little colored wax dove, purchased here in a little provincial town and given to me as a gift by Cendrars, was the model. The rustic angels, with their wings of different colors like devotional flags, which belong today to Júlio Prestes, also had their fans among the critics. Maurice Raynal wrote: “Sra. Tarsila brings from Brazil the first fruits of artistic renewal, the first signs in that great nation of the decay of those international academic influences that until now have stifled its personality. Here we have indigenous or imaginary scenes that are totally Brazilian: landscapes from around São Paulo, families of black people, children in the sanctuary and those angels with their purely animal mysticism.” Etc. André Warnod commented: “Blue, green, pink, everything raw, beautiful colors, like New Year’s Eve parties and images of first communions. Pleasant to look at, full of exuberant content, radiant happiness and smiling cheerfulness.” Etc. The well-known art critics Christian Zervos, Maximilien Gauthier, Louis Vauxcelles, Serge Romoff, Gaston de Pawlowski, and Raymond Cogniat spoke kindly about Pau-Brasil painting, as did António Ferro, Mário de Andrade, Assis Chateaubriand, Plínio Salgado, António de Alcântara Machado, Menotti del Picchia, Manuel Bandeira, Álvaro Moreira, Renato Almeida, Paulo Silveira, Luís Aníbal Falcão, Ascenso Ferreira, and others. Naturally, there were adversaries. Cendrars sent enthusiastic letters to me in Paris: “ Vive votre belle peinture,” 1 and Paulo Prado said it all when he stated that he felt a piece of our homeland upon glimpsing, from a distance, a very Pau-Brasil painting of mine in the window of the Galerie Percier. The reviews I’ve transcribed have one aim: to clarify and confirm with documents that this movement had repercussion in Brazilian painting, just as Oswald de Andrade’s Pau-Brasil poetry had in literature.
— The Anthropophagy movement of 1928 had its origins in my canvas Abaporu , cannibal: a solitary, monstrous figure with immense feet sitting on a green plain, one bent arm resting on its knee, the hand supporting the tiny featherweight head. In the foreground, a cactus bursting into an absurd flower. That canvas was sketched on January 11, 1928. Oswald de Andrade and Raul Bopp—who
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Tarsila do Amaral
wrote the famous poem Cobra Norato —were both shaken when they saw Abaporu and spent a long time looking at it. Both very imaginative, they felt that an important intellectual movement could come of this. Now, a pause: some years later, Sofía Caversassi Villalva, who had an artist’s temperament and radiated beauty and sensitivity, said that my Anthropophagite canvases resembled her dreams. Only then did I understand that I myself had given expression to subconscious images suggested by stories I had heard as a child: the haunted house, the voice that shouted from on high: “I’m falling” and let fall a foot (which seemed enormous to me). “I’m falling,” and another foot fell and then a hand, another hand and the whole body, terrifying the children. The Anthropophagy movement had its pre-Anthropophagy phase before Pau-Brasil painting, in 1923, when I painted in Paris a very controversial picture, A Negra, a seated figure with two robust tree-trunk legs crossed; a heavy breast hanging over her arm; huge, pendulous lips; a proportionally small head. A Negra announced the birth of Anthropophagy. The drawing of that painting served as the cover of the poems of Feuilles de route, which Blaise Cendrars wrote about his trip to Brazil in 1924. As I was saying, Abaporu made a great impression. It suggested a doomed creature tied to the earth by its enormous, heavy feet. A symbol. A movement should be formed around it. It was Brazil concentrated, the “green hell.” The Anthropophagy Club was formed, with a magazine under the direction of Antônio de Alcântara Machado and Raul Bopp. Oswald de Andrade launched his manifesto, and membership grew rapidly. On February 14, 1928, quite some time before the appearance of the first issue of the magazine, which came out in May, Plínio Sal gado was already writing in the Correio Paulistano: “Tarsila do Amaral, whom Blaise Cendrars said would be capable of bringing about a literary movement . . . in Russia. No. Tarsila is capable of bringing about a literary movement in Brazil. . . . She reveals significant traces of those great and elemental forces to which I’m referring. Two of her paintings, in particular, have a deep sense of ‘cosmic center’ and ‘racial truth.’ She has painted them without feeling because the artist never aims to do anything other than fix a thought. And that thought is often a prophetic revelation.” In the first stage (or the “baby-teeth stage”) of the Revista de Antropofagia, contributors, apart from the founders Oswald de Andrade, Raul Bopp, and Antônio de Alcântara Machado, included Mário de Andrade, Osvaldo Costa, Augusto Meyer, Abigoar Bastos, Guilherme de Almeida, Plínio Salgado, Álvaro Moreira, Jorge Fernandes, Rosario Fusco, Yan de Almeida Prado, Marques Rebelo, Manuel Bandeira, Brasil Pinheiro Machado, José Américo de Almeida, Rui Cirne Lima, Maria Clemencia (Buenos Aires), Menotti del Picchia, Abgar Renault, Murilo Mendes, Nicolas Fusco Sansone (Montevideo), Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Pedro Nava, Ascenso Ferreira, Achilles Vivacqua, Mario Gra ciotti, Ascânio Lopes, Jaime Griz, Luís da Camara Cascudo, Anton io Gomide, Henrique de Rezende, Guilhermino Cesar, Alberto Dezon, Peryllo Doliveira, Franklin Nascimento, Azevedo Correa Filho, Sebastião
Dias, A. de Almeida Camargo, A. de Limeira Tejo, Mateus Cavalcante, Josué de Castro, Júlio Paternostro, Ubaldino de Senra, Silvestre Machado, L. Souza Costa, Camilo Soares, Charles Lucifer, F. de San Tiago Dantas, Rubens de Moraes, Nelson Tabajara, Walter Benevides, Emilio Moura, João Domas Filho, Pedro Dantas, and Augusto Schmidt. In Europe, the art critic Waldemar-George, referring to a 1928 paintings exhibition of mine, wrote the essay, “Tarsila et l’Anthropophagie,” commenting on the Brazilian movement’s return to its Indian roots, the lord of the land, where “happiness is the casting out of nines,” as the Manifesto of Anthropophagy stated.
“FULL CONFESSION” TARSILA DO AMARAL
Tarsila 1918–1950, exh. cat. (Museu de Arte Moderna,
São Paulo, 1950)
Krishnamurti sent a greeting from Paris, reproduced in facsimile in issue number 8 of the magazine. Distinguished writers offered their collaboration. Published, also in facsimile, in issue number 6, was the following thought from Max Jacob: “À la Revista de Antropofagia —Les grands hommes sont modestes, c’est la famille qui porte leur orgueil comme des reliques.” 2 The review appeared from May 1928 until February 1929. From March to July of that same year, its official organ was a weekly page in the Diário de São Paulo. In this “permanent teeth” stage, support and contributions came from Oswald de Andrade, Osvaldo Costa, Geraldo Ferraz, Jorge de Lima, Júlio Paternostro, Péret (of the French Surrealist group), Raul Bopp, Barboza Rodrigues, Clovis de Guarniio, Pagu, Álvaro Moreira, Di Cavalcanti, Mário de Andrade, Galeão Coutinho, Jayme Adour da Camara, Augusto Meyer, José Isaac Peres, Heitor Marçal, Achilles Vivaequa, Nelson Foot, Hermes Lima, Edmundo Lys, Junrandyr Manfredini, Cícero Dias, Felippe de Oliveira, Dante Milano, Osvaldo Goeldi, Bruno de Menezes, Eneida, Ernani Vieira, Paulo de Oliveira, Hannibal Machado, Sant’Ana Marques, Campos Ribeiro, Muniz Barreto, Orlando Morais, Garcia de Rezende, João Domas Filho, Ascenco Ferreira, Limeira Tejo, Dolour, Luiz de Castro, Genuino de Castro, Murilo Mendes, and me. The movement excited, scandalized, irritated, enthused, infuriated, and grew in members from northern to southern Brazil, in addition to attracting the sympathy of intellectuals from our neighboring countries. It also had reverberations in Paris, with indignant protests aroused by my painting Anthropophagy . One afternoon, Geraldo Ferraz—the butcher—ran excitedly into the house of Osvaldo Costa to say that the magazine had been suspended by the general manager of the Diário de São Paulo because of the pile of letters written by the newspaper’s readers protesting against that page that was doing away with the whole bourgeois canon. Poor magazine! The Anthropophagy movement died with it. . . .
“Long live your beautiful painting.” “In the Revista de Antropofagia —Great men are modest, it is the family that carries their pride as relics.” 1 2
Translated by Stephen Berg
My artistic career . . . When did it begin? When I was a child, on the day I sketched a basket of flowers and a chicken surrounded by a clutch of chicks. I believe the fairly synthetic basket and its large handle may have been influenced by adult advice or a recollection of some painting from this genre; but the chicken and the little chicks came from my soul, from the affection with which I observed the domestic animals around the house, on the farm in which I grew up like some small, free animal myself, playing with my forty cats. Then came boarding school. The Catholic nuns of my school in Barcelona always praised my copies of saints. I began to draw from life in 1917, with Pedro Alexandrino: plaster models, flowers, fruit, and timid landscapes. The following year I made a small oil painting in which a backyard may be seen along with the entrance to my studio, bathed in the light of— Hélas!—a most un-sunlike sun.1 Three months after the Semana de Arte Moderna, the entire modernist group (including Graça Aranha) 2 later converged on this studio in the Rua Vitória, in 1922. The Grupo dos Cinco was formed there, made up of Mário de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade, Menotti del Picchia, Anita Malfatti, and myself—kooks tearing deliriously and joyfully around in Oswald’s Cadillac, conquering the world in order to renew it. It was Paulicéia desvairada (Hallucinated City) in action. After a two-year stay in Europe, I returned with a paint box full of beautiful colors, many beautiful dresses, and little artistic information. In Paris, at the advice of Pedro Alexandrino, I sought out the Académie Julian and, later, the studio of Émile Renard, whose work had been deemed hors-concours at the Salon des Artistes Français. In São Paulo, prior to that trip to Europe, I attended the painting course of Professor Elpons for about two months in 1920; he was the importer of Impressionism to Brazil and he did me a great favor: it was according to his advice that I abolished Pedro Alexandrino’s earthy colors from my palette. I became more assured in the technique of broad, paint-laden brushstrokes. At the Académie Julian my studies were identified as advanced, a status that is visible in some of the canvases in my retrospective exhibition.
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169
It sounds mendacious . . . but it was in Brazil that I first came
Another movement—the Anthropofagous one—developed from
into contact with modern art (the same thing happened, actually, to
a picture I painted as a gift for Oswald de Andrade on January 11,
Graça Aranha); encouraged by my friends, I enthusiastically painted
1928. When he saw that monstrous figure with its colossal feet
some pictures that reflected a delighted use of violent color. After
planted heavily in the soil, Oswald called in Raul Bopp to share his
six months in Sao Paulo, I returned to Paris, and the year 1923
astonishment. It was in the presence of this painting, which they
was the most important of my artistic career. Still linked to Impres-
named Abaporu —Anthropophagy—that they decided to create
sionism, I sought out André Lhote. A new world unfolded to my
a literary and artistic movement rooted in Brazilian soil. Antônio
restless soul before the Cubist pictures of the rue la Boétie that I
de Alcântara Machado was the first to join.6 The three of them
began to frequent. As I have written, Lhote was the bridge between
founded the Revista de Antropofagia , the repercussion of which
classicism and Modernism. His vigorous, highly contemporary
extended beyond our boundaries. In Paris, the art critic Waldemar-
painting was based on Rembrandt, on Michelangelo, on the past
Georges wrote about Anthropophagy, Max Jacob and Krishnamurti,
masters. That was all I needed for my transition. An amiable joker,
with their greeting, sent autographed facsimiles that were repro-
Lhote nonetheless exercised great influence over his students.
duced in the magazine, in which great names from north to south
Once, for health reasons, when he failed to appear at the studio,
of Brazil collaborated. There were countless allegiances and
he was substituted by María Blanchard, a very congenial, very
demonstrations of sympathy.
intelligent little hunchbacked painter, the author of figurative canvases rich with enchantment and simplicity. Upon seeing a head I had
Previously on view in Paris, my painting s of the Pau-Brasil and
sketched nervously, María Blanchard said to me with the airs and
Anthropophagy periods were shown in Rio and in São Paulo in
3
graces of a master seeking effect: “Vous savez trop!” She wanted
1929. In 1931 I exhibited in Moscow at the Museum of Western
painting to be more unpretentious, naïve, sprung from the heart.
Modern Art, which acquired O pescador (The Fisherman).7 In Rio, two years later, I presented a retrospective of all the canvases
That same year of 1923, I also took lessons from Fernand Léger.
of my artistic career and now, after seventeen years without a solo
I admired the strong, red-haired Breton artist, with his imposing,
exhibition, I am showing my work in São Paulo, a “full confession”
almost coarse, big, stout physique and his uncompromising
of sorts, my work from 1918 until today. In the meantime, I carry
points of view, true to himself from the very beginning of a career
on my pictorial research.
dedicated to the new art. Aligning himself with the Cubists, Léger soon diverged from them to create his own unmistakably 1
personal paintings.
The painting is My Studio (Vitória Street), 1918. Its current location is unknown;
see Maria Eugênia Saturni and Reg ina Teixeira de Barros, eds., Tarsila: Catálogo
Albert Gleizes, the Cubist pontiff whose paintings may then have
raisonné (Base 7 Projetos Culturais/Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 2008), P004. 2
José Pereira da Graça Aranha (Brazilian, 1868–1931) was a writer and diplomat
been called abstract through the total absence of subject matter,
who was involved in the Semana and whose portrait was made by Tarsila and
was also my teacher. From him I received the key to the Cubism I
illustrated in Klaxon (pl. 89).
cultivated with love. When I returned to Brazil, in December of ‘23,
3
“You know too much!”
on the night before Christmas, I g ave an enthusiastic interview
4
Francisco de Assis Chateaubriand Bandeira de Melo (Brazilian, 1892–1968),
about Cubism to Rio’s Correio da Manhã. In it, I said something
nicknamed Chatô, was an attorney, journalist, politician, and diplomat who also acquired a number of works by Tarsila, including Urutu Viper (1928; pl. 58) and
that has often been repeated by others: “Cubism is the artist’s
Two Studies (Academy I and The Model) (1923; pl. 3).
military service. In order to be strong, every artist must be con-
5
For an illustration of Brazilian Religion I, see p. 17, fig. 4 in this publication.
scripted.” In 1924, during a gathering at the home of Dona Olívia
6
Antônio de Alcântara Machado (Brazilian, 1901–1935) was a journalist, politician,
4
Guedes Penteado, Assis Chateaubriand asked me for some explanations about the Cubism I had just imported. In a conversation, he learned the new theories with his prodigious intelligence and, in a full page of O Jornal , several photographs of my canvases launched the new school. The painting they named “Pau-Brasil” had its origins during a trip to the state of Minas Gerais in 1924, with Dona Olívia Guedes Penteado, Blaise Cendrars, Mário de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade, Gofredo da Silva Telles, René Thiollier, Oswald de Andrade, Jr. (who just a boy then), and myself. My contact with that region, imbued as it is with tradition, religious art, and painted houses in the small, essentially Brazilian cities of Minas—Ouro Preto, Sabará, São João del Rey, Tiradentes, Mariana, and others—awakened a sense of Brasilidade in me. My canvases Hills of the Favela [pl. 24], Brazilian Religion date back to this period, along with many others that fit i n with the Pau-Brasil movement created by Oswald de Andrade.5
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Tarsila do Amaral
and writer. 7
The Fisherman, c. 1925, is in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum,
Saint Petersburg; for an illustration of the painting, see Saturni and Teixeira de Barros, Tarsila: Catálogo raisonné, P091.
“RECOLLECTIONS OF PARIS”
glued to the walls as standards for good draftsmanship: Lhote became the bridge between classicism and Modernism. Short in
TARSILA DO AMARAL
stature, with intelligent eyes, always obliging, he explained in his southern accent how it was possible to adapt the technique and the composition methods of past masters to the demands of contemporary art. Later, in the rue Notre-Dame des Champs, came the academy of Fernand Léger, a tall, stout man with red hair, incisive in his assertions, deeply convinced of the victory of his art—although in that time it did not have many practitioners—the man who had
Habitat—Revista das artes no Brasil
the courage to say in a lecture that he preferred an egg beater
6 (1952), pp. 17–25
to the Gioconda’s smile—a statement that exploded in the hetero-
Translated by Stephen Berg
geneous auditorium like an atomic bomb. In his private studio, a vast hall in which canvases and frames were scattered about I was a girl when I saw Paris for the first time. What a disappoint
amid tremendous clutter, the master showed me the photograph
ment! Could this be the much talked about city of wonders? Where
of a classic nude woman alongside the gears of a machine cata-
were the manors surrounded by emerald parks in whose lakes
logue and said to me: “I will only be satisfied when I succeed in
slow-moving banks of swans glided serenely and majestically?
fusing these two things.” Even today, his art continues to radiate
Where were the Donas Sanchas1 covered in gold and silver, re-
unwaveringly from its starting point. Léger is always the same:
splendent in their diamond-studded carriages? Where were the
the great Léger.
streets lined with iridescent palaces inhabited by charming princes and their handsome pageboys dressed in damasks and velvets?
Not content with the new directions, he tried to recruit me to
Little did I know that the seduction of Paris lies precisely in its
the Cubist school: I sought out Albert Gleizes, its exegete, author
intense life, rich in emotion and aesthetic pleasure. Little did I know
of a History of Art and short essays on Cubism, heavy, obscure
its sad, gray buildings housed international celebrities from all
books, leaning toward a philosophical mysticism. Back then he
branches of art and science that I would only later come to know.
had a group of students to whom he gave individual lessons in his own apartment, in which Juliette Roche, his wife, the author
Paris—the real Paris, the one that left indelible impressions on
of eccentric poems with a Dadaist flavor, welcomed her friends
me—was the Paris of 1923. I had been there three years earlier,
in the oriental style, seated on the carpet, her fine Angora in her
had frequented its painting academies, its museums, and its
lap, surrounded by the richest antique objects. Gleizes told me
theaters, but nothing profound had impressed my sensibility. When
how Cubism had been born by chance, from a game of integrated
I left Brazil in 1920, a credulous pupil of Pedro Alexandrino, I fell
lines and volumes, and how its creators discovered that they
right into the pompier of the Parisian milieu. I had never visited a
could take advantage of it. Gleizes’ paintings, classified in that time
modern art gallery. Amid mocking smiles, I heard talk of Picasso,
as Integral Cubism, would fit in today’s abstractionist current.
of the Semana de Arte Moderna of 1922, when all was fervent enthusiasm over the artistic revolution, when Oswald de Andrade,
Paris in 1923! Recollections of it bubble up, pile up, and run over
Mário de Andrade, and Menotti del Picchia—the Three Musketeers
one another. . . . My studio in the rue Hégésippe Moreau, which
of literature of that time—held frenzied discussions of art that
Paulo Prado discovered had been inhabited by Cézanne, was
challenged the whole world. Once again I fell right into a milieu, the
frequented by important characters. Cocteau occasionally attended
opposite of Paris. With Anita Malfatti, we formed the Grupo dos
my typically Brazilian lunches; a causeur [chatterbox], he charmed
Cinco. We were inseparable. Darting madly about in Oswald’s
everyone with his boutades [quips] and expressive gestures; Erik
Cadillac, we flew everywhere with the energy of an Assis Chateau-
Satie, with his sexagenarian youthfulness, believed only in youths
briand to vent the inner fire that so needed an escape valve. My
under the age of twenty, entertaining us with his picturesque way
studio on the Rua Vitória—it is still there, behind the house, a joinery
of speaking and not wanting to talk about Cocteau because the
now, according to what I saw a few days ago, while rambling
latter, in his admiration for the composer, had decided to pay him
nostalgically through my old street—for six months my studio was
public homage. Cocteau did not appear at one of the luncheons
the center toward which the illustrious members of the artistic
especially arranged for their reconciliation. On the appointed day
revolution converged; they included Graça Aranha, the boss of the
he sent me one of his books to which he added to the dedication
Semana, and António Ferro, recently arrived from Portugal. The
an apology for not having showed up, saying that his devoted re-
lesson had been a profitable one. In December of that same year
spect to Satie was so immense that, in spite of not understanding
of 1922, I returned to Paris contaminated by revolutionary ideas.
the master’s attitude, it would be best to continue to admire him
I hurried off to Lhote and found him in the wooden shed in
from afar.
2
Montparnasse, where he held his painting class. There he was, surrounded by students—a large and very congenial family. Every-
Others who frequented my studio included Valery Larbaud, with
thing seemed mysterious. I remember how avidly I would listen
his quiet perspective, a friend of Portugal—the place where he
to his lessons. I can still see the reproductions of Michelangelo
used to spend his vacations; the stocky figure of Jules Romains,
Historical Texts
171
with whom we discussed his Knock and Monsieur Le Trouhadec ;
and Ducasse, to name but a few? 6 The crowd of new music lov-
Giraudoux and his circumspect conversational asides; John
ers ran to the Concerts Wiéner and to the Calvet Quartet. In the
dos Passos, brimming with youthfulness, externalizing his inner
theater,7 Cocteau’s Les mariés de la Tour Eiffel caused delirious
flame with witty remarks; Jules Supervielle and his contagious
enthusiasm and bitter backlash. Under Rolf de Maré’s direction, the
congeniality; Brancusi, with his white-bearded head of Moses;
Ballets Suédois gripped the attention of Paris; after the success
Ambroise Vollard, the collector of magnificent Cézannes and
of Skating Rink, with sets by Léger, came La Création du monde,
Renoirs, which he hid in [such] an instinctive avarice that only to
with a libretto by Blaise Cendrars and music by Darius Milhaud.
congenial friends did he show [them] in his apartment, on given
One can well imagine the effect caused by that avant-garde trio.
days of good humor. Among the Brazilians, Villa-Lobos improvised
Many other ballets were staged for ever more demanding
on the concert Erard, submitting himself to Cocteau’s criticism;
audiences. Still young and engaging, Rolf de Maré convened the
once, as a blague [joke], he sat under the piano because he claimed
most visible artists in his apartment, decorated with exceedingly
he could hear better from that spot. Cocteau did not like the
antique furniture and exceedingly modern paintings. It was there
music Villa-Lobos was writing at that time: he felt it was too similar
that Lhote introduced me to Marie Laurencin; he had warned me
to the music of Debussy and Ravel. Newly arrived in Paris, our
that “Marie Laurencin détestait qu’on allait chez elle.”8
great maestro improvised another piece [in an attempt change Cocteau’s opinion], but Cocteau remained adamant, and a quarrel
I cannot forget the former ambassador of Chile, the beautiful
was narrowly avoided. It was during one of these Brazilian lunches
Eugenia Errázuriz, with her graying head, a great friend to artists,
that Cocteau learned how to roll a straw cigarette. He kept a
an intimate of Picasso, the only artist whose works hung in her
fragrant piece of rope tobacco in his pocket and said: “C’est pour
extremely beautiful and remarkable home. I had the satisfaction
3
épater Stravinski.” At my studio, our assiduous compatriots
of seeing a landscape of Minas (from my 1926 exhibition) be
included the aristocratic writer Paulo Prado; our unforgettable Dona
exceptionally admitted to her environment.9 Where will the en-
Olívia Penteado; Sousa Lima, who was being noticed in Paris
chanting Chilean lady be today? Who will give news of her?
after his first prize at the Conservatory; Oswald de Andrade, who with his antennae wound up being anywhere there was interest
The year of 1926 was also of great importance in my career. Blaise
and refinement; Sérgio Milliet, with his young dreamer poet’s
Cendrars had introduced me to Mr. Level who, in spite of the
figure, of which I made a portrait in blue, which seems to resist
introduction, did not want to commit to an unknown painter. He
criticism to this day; Di Cavalcanti, in his curiosity for the new
protested he had no space but decided to see my paintings
currents, and others.
anyway. Before Hills of the Favela [pl. 24], with its little black boys and its pink, blue, and yellow houses, Mr. Level turned to me
I remember that Cendrars introduced us to the black prince
and asked: “When would you like to show your work?” I had been
Tovalu4—a fetish coveted by all the avant-garde artistic circles.
accepted: imagine my joy. At the vernissage, the collector Madame
A highly perfumed black man with the proper features of the
Tachard purchased Adoration, a black man with a large lower
Aryan race, he dressed with Parisian elegance. He told us that, in
lip and hands clasped before a small wax dove (the Holy Spirit),
Dahomey, where his father reigned, there was a neighborhood
that had served me as a model, and had been offered to me by
called Blesin—a corruption of Brazil—where the descendants of
Cendrars in 1924, on a visit to Pirapora. 10 The critics were entirely
the free slave friends lived, who returned there bringing with them
favorable and spontaneous (without my having had to spend a franc,
a civilization, retaining the names of their masters, the Almeidas,
as none too benevolent colleagues think). I had the satisfaction of
Barros, Camargos, and others.
seeing myself noted by the most conspicuous critics of that time: Maurice Raynal, André Salmon, Christian Zervos, André Warnod,
I also recollect a dinner at the Pen Club, offered to Ramón Gómez de la Serna with the presence of the composer Manuel de Falla.
5
Louis Vauxcelles, Raymond Cogniat, Gaston de Pawlowski, Maximilien Gauthier, Serge Romoff, António Ferro. All of them
Gomez de la Serna spoke poor French. Anticipating the traditional
spoke favorably about Pau-Brasil painting. Later, in 1928, beyond
toast, he hid an empty bottle under his chair and, at the moment
those previously mentioned, Waldemar-George also manifested
of acknowledging the tribute, he mumbled a few ungrammatical
himself about my Anthropophagous painting.
phrases, stuttered and, in order to get himself out of trouble, picked up the bottle, stuck a little Spanish flag in it along with a
Many are my recollections of Paris. My t houghts drift to the art
French one and, his hand held high, shouted: “Vive la France!”
galleries. I see Picasso’s studio in the rue la Boétie, where I first
Imagine the surprise and the laughter. After dinner, when coffee
stood before an extremely fine Rousseau that the master treated
and the uniquely French old Fine were served, Manuel de Falla,
with great care. I see Adrienne Monnier’s bookstore,11 where a
his small figure almost disappearing, went to the modest upright
group of avant-garde intellectuals met almost daily. It was there
piano and set to playing his wonderful compositions. [The writers]
I met [the essayist] Léon-Paul Fargue. In the literary cafés, I was
Benjamin Crémieux, Valery Larbaud, Supervielle, Jules Romains,
introduced to René Maran, who was very close to Cendrars,
and other personalities of the avant-garde were there on that
Breton, and the followers of Surrealism.12
unforgettable night. Robert Delaunay, the painter of the Eiffel Tower, held exhibitions And the theaters? And the ballets? And the first audition concerts
annually, and his wife, Sonia, renowned in Paris as a great decorator,
with [the composers] Paul Dukas, Samazeuils, Honegger, Ferroud,
were great friends of mine. I cannot forget Giorgio de Chirico, the
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Tarsila do Amaral
painter who sparked the Surrealist movement. Intelligent and erudite, with a playful, highly amusing manner, he made friends by virtue of his radiant congeniality. He, too, was an admirable causeur. I met Juan Gris at his first exhibition of Cubist work. Very young, tall, typically Spanish, pleasant [in] appearance, Juan Gris already bore in his eyes the stigma of the tuberculosis that later ravaged him. His drawings are highly personal. And he is considered the great stylist of Cubism. Among the art galleries, I cannot forget that of my good friend Léonce Rosenberg. He took me to the apartment of the widow of Guillaume Apollinaire, where she gave me a gouache she had painted as an amateur. I still have it. I also remember the trouble in which Cendrars left me when he arranged a dinner at my studio, with a congenial couple h e would introduce me to, and ended up bringing seven more people unannounced. It is impossible, in these hurried notes, to recount all the curious scenes I witnessed and the potins [gossip] about artists who were attracting attention. Perhaps one day I will decide to write my memoirs (a thing very much i n fashion) in which I shall have occasion to tell in detail much that is of interest.
“Senhora Dona Sancha” is the name of a Brazilian nursery rhyme that served as
1
inspiration to Brazilian composers in the 1920s, including Waldemar Henrique (who set it to song) and Heitor Villa-Lobos (who named one of his Cirandas after it). In the lyrics to the traditional ditty, the eponymous lady is said to ride through the street “covered in gold and silver.” 2
Tarsila’s equation of Assis Chateaubriand, Brazil’s first great media mogul and a
maker of presidents, with energy—or “dynamism,” as she put it—likely stems from his perceived ubiquity on the Brazilian national scene from the 1920s through 1950s as journalist, entrepreneur, art patron, and politician. 3
“It is to shock Stravinsky.”
4
Kojo Tovalou Houénou (Marc Tovalou Quénum) (Porto-Novo, present-day Benin,
1887–1936), was a well-known African critic of the French colonial empire and related to the king of the Kingdom of Dahomey. He was educated in France, trained as an attorney and doctor, and served in World War I; i n the 1920s, he was part of Parisian society, as witnessed by Tarsila’s recollections. She would also write an article on him that appeared in the Diário de São Paulo on December 8, 1937. 5
Ramón Gómez de la Serna Puig (Spanish, 1888–1963) was a writer and dramatist
who was influenced by the Surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel. Manuel de Falla (Spanish, 1876–1946) was one of Spain’s most influential musicians in the first half of the twentieth century. 6
The correct names of the composers are Gustave Samazeuilh and Jean
Roger-Ducasse. 7
The Concerts Wiéner were the work of composer and pianist Jean Wiéner,
one of the most important proponents of new music in the 1920s. 8
“ Marie Laurencin detested people going to her house.”
9
Tarsila is referring to her painting Lagoa Santa (1925; pl. 48).
10
Pirapora is a city in southeastern Brazil. Adoration (Négre adorant) of 1925 is
lost; for an ill ustration of this canvas, see Maria Eugênia Saturni and Regina Teixeira de Barros, eds., Tarsila: Catálogo raisonné (Base 7 Projetos Cul turais/Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 2008), P081. 11
The bookstore, located in the Latin Quarter, was called La Maison des Amis
des Livres. 12
René Maran (French Guyanese, 1887–1960) was a poet and novelist, and
in 1921, the first writer of African descent to win the Prix Goncourt.
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173
MANIFESTO OF PAU�BRASIL POETRY
Pau-Brasil poetry. Agile and candid. Like a child.
OSWALD DE ANDRADE
in the opposite direction to your destination.
A suggestion of Blaise Cendrars: you have the train loaded, ready to leave. A negro churns the crank of the turn-table beneath you. The slightest carelessness and you will leave
Down with officialdom, the cultivated exercise of life. Engineers instead of legal advisors, lost like the chinese in the genealogy of ideas. Correio da Manhã ,
March 18, 1924, p. 5
Language without archaisms, without erudition. Natural and
Translated by Stella M. de Sá Rego, reprinted from Latin
neologic. The millionaire-contribution of all the errors.
American Literary Review 14, 27 (January–June 1986),
The way we speak. The way we are.
pp. 184–87 There is no conflict in academic vocations. Only ceremonial robes. The Futurists and the others. Poetry exists in the facts. The shacks of saffron and ochre in the green of the Favela, under cabralin blue, are aesthetic facts.
A single struggle—the struggle for the way. Let’s make the division: imported Poetry. And Pau-Brasil Poetry, for exportation.
Carnival in Rio is the religious event of our race. Pau-Brasil. Wagner is submerged before the carnival lines of Botafogo. Barbarous
There has been a phenomenon of aesthetic democratization in
and ours. The rich ethnic formation. Vegetal riches. Ore. Cuisine.
the five enlightened parts of the world. Naturalism was instituted.
Vatapá, gold and dance.
Copy. A picture of sheep that didn’t really give wool was good for nothing. Interpretation, in the oral dictionary of the Schools of
All the pioneering and commercial history of Brazil. The academic
Fine Arts, meant reproduce exactly . . . Then came pyrogravure.
aspect, the side of citations, of well-known authors. Impressive.
Young ladies from every home became artists. The camera appeared.
Rui Barbosa: a top hat in Senegambia. Transforming everything into
And with all the prerogatives of unkempt hair and the mysterious
riches. The richness of balls and of well-turned phrases. Negresses
genius of the upturned eye—the photographic artist.
at the jockey club. Odalisques in Catumbi. Fancy talk. In music, the piano invaded the bare sitting-rooms, calendars The academic side. Misfortune of the first white brought over,
on the wall. All the young ladies became pianists. Then came the
politically dominating the wild wilderness. The alumnus. We can’t
barrel organ, the pianola. The player-piano. And the Slavic irony
help being erudite. Doctors of phi losophy. Country of anonymous
composed for the player-piano. Stravinsky.
ills, of anonymous doctors. The Empire was like that. We made everything erudite. We forgot ingenuity.
Statuary followed behind. The processions issued brand-new from the factories.
Never the exportation of poetry. Poetry went hidden in the malicious vines of learning. In the lianas of academic nostalgia.
The only thing that wasn’t invented was a machine to make verses—the Parnassian poet already existed.
But there was an explosion in our knowledge. The men who knew it all inflated like overblown balloons. They burst.
So, the revolution only indicated that art returned to the elite. And the elite began taking it to pieces. Two stages: 1st)
The return to specialization. Philosophers making philosophy,
deformation through impressionism, fragmentation, voluntary
critics criticism, housewives taking care of the kitchen.
chaos. From Cézanne and Mallarmé, Rodin and Debussy until today. 2nd) lyricism, the presentation in the temple, materials,
Poetry for poets. The happiness of those who don’t know
constructive innocence.
and discover. Brazil profiteur . Brazil doutor . And the coincidence of the first There was an inversion of everything, an invasion of everything:
Brazilian construction in the general movement of reconstruction.
the theatre of ideas and the on-stage struggle between the
Pau-Brasil poetry.
moral and immoral. The thesis should be decided in a battle of sociologists, men of law, fat and gilded like Corpus Juris.
As the age is miraculous, laws were born from the dynamic rotation of destructive factors.
Agile theatre, child of the acrobat. Agile and illogical. Agile novel,
Synthesis
born of invention. Agile poetry.
Equilibrium Automotive finish
174
Tarsila do Amaral
Invention
Elevator-projectiles, sky-scraper cubes and solar indolence’s
Surprise
wise flush. Prayer. Carnival. Intimate energy. The song-thrush.
A new perspective
Hospitality, slightly sensual, affectionate. The yearning for
A new scale
shamans, and the military airfields. Pau-Brasil.
Whatever natural force in this direction will be good.
The labor of the Futurist generation was cyclopean. To reset
Pau-Brasil poetry.
the Imperial watch of national literature.
The reaction against naturalistic detail—through synthesis ; against
This step realized, the problem is other. To be regional and
romantic morbidity—through geometric equilibrium and technical
pure in our time.
finish; against copy, through invention and surprise. The state of innocence replacing the state of grace that can A new perspective.
be an attitude of the spirit.
The other, Paolo Ucello’s, led to the apogee of naturalism.
The counter-weight of native originality to neutralize
It was an optical illusion. The distant objects didn’t diminish.
academic conformity.
It was the law of appearance. Now is the moment of reaction against appearance. Reaction against copy. Replacing visual
Reaction against all the indigestions of erudition. The best
and naturalistic perspective with a perspective of another order:
of our lyric tradition. The best of our modern demonstration.
sentimental, intellectual, ironic, ingenuous. Merely Brazilians of our time. The necessary of chemistry, A new scale:
mechanics, economy and ballistics. Everything assimilated. Without cultural meetings. Practical. Experimental. Poets.
The other, of a world proportioned and catalogued with letters
Without bookish reminiscences. Without supporting comparisons.
in books, children in laps. Advertisements producing letters bigger
Without ontology.
than towers. And new forms of industry, of transportation, of aviation. Gas stations. Gas meters. Railways. Laboratories and
Barbarous, credulous, picturesque and tender. Readers
technical workshops. Voices and tics of wires and waves and
of newspapers. Pau-Brasil. The forest and the school.
flashes. Stars made familiar through photographic negatives. The
The National Museum. Cuisine, ore and dance. Vegetation.
correspondent of physical surprise in art.
Pau-Brasil.
Reaction against the invader subject, unlike finality. The theatre of ideas was a monstrous arrangement. The novel of ideas, a mixture. History painting, an aberration. Eloquent sculpture, a meaningless horror. Our age announces the return to pure meaning . A picture is lines and colors. A statue is volumes under light. Pau-Brasil Poetry is a Sunday dining room with birds singing in the condensed forest of cages, a thin fellow composing a waltz for flute and Mary Lou readi ng the newspaper. The present is all there in the newspaper. No formula for the contemporary expression of the world. See with open eyes . We have a dual and actual base–the forest and the school. The credulous and dualistic race and geometry, algebra and chemistry soon after the baby-bottle and anise tea. A mixture of “sleep little baby or the bogey-man will get you” and equations. A vision to encompass the cylinders of mills, electric turbines, factories, questions of foreign exchange, without losing sight of the National Museum. Pau-Brasil.
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175
MANIFESTO OF ANTHROPOPHAGY
Revolution to Romanticism, to the Bolshevik Revolution, to the surrealist Revolution and Keyserling’s barbaric technicality. We go. We have never been catechized. We live by a somnambulistic right. We made Christ come into the world in Bahia. Or in Belém do Pará.
OSWALD DE ANDRADE
But we never admitted’s [sic] appearance among us. Against Father Vieira. Author of our first loan, for profitable commission. The illiterate king had told him: Write that out, however, without great cunning. The loan was settled. The Brazilian sugar became, thus, onerous. Revista de Antropofagia 1, 1 (May 1928), pp. 3, 7.
Vieira left the money in Portugal and brought us the cunning.
Translated by Hélio Oiticica, December 1972, reprinted from Carlos Basualdo, Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture
The spirit refuses to conceive the bodyless [sic] spirit. Anthropo-
(Cosac Naify, 2005), pp. 205–207
morphism. The necessity for the anthropophagous vaccine. For the balance against the meridian religions. And the external inquisitions.
Only anthropophagy unites us. Socially. Economically. Philosophically.
We can only answer the oracular world.
The one and only world principle. Disguised expression of all the
We had justice, codification of revenge. Science codification
individualisms, of all the collectivisms.
of Magic. Anthropophagy. The permanent transformation of Tabu into totem.
Tupi, or not tupi, that is the question. Against the reversible world and objectified ideas. Cadaverized. Against all catechisms. And against the mother of the “Gracos.”
The “stop” to thinking which is dynamic. The individual victim of the system. Source of the classic injustices. Of the romantic
I am only concerned in that [which] is not mine. Man’s law.
injustices. And the oblivion of internal acquisitions.
The law of the anthropophagous. Itineraries. Itineraries. We are tired of all the dramatized suspicious catholic husbands.
Itineraries. Itineraries.
Freud put an end to the “woman” enigma and to other scares of printed psychology.
Itineraries. Itineraries. Itineraries.
Clothing was the obstacle to truth, the impervious between the internal and the external worlds.
The [Caraíban] instinct.
Sun’s sons, mother of the living ones. Ferociously discovered and
Life and death of hypotheses. From the equation ego part
loved, with nostalgia’s full hypocrisy, by the immigrated, by the
of the Kosmos to the axiom Kosmos part of ego. Subsistence.
trafficked, and the “touristes.” In the country of the big snake.
Knowledge. Anthropophagy.
That was because we never had grammars, nor collections of worn
Against the vegetal elites. Communicating with the soil.
out vegetables. And we never knew the meaning of urban, suburban, outlandish and continental. Idlers in Brazil’s world map.
We have never been catechized. We really made Carnival. The Indian dressed as an Imperial Senator. Acting as Pitt. Or performing
A participant consciousness, a religious rythmics [sic].
Alencar’s operas full of noble Portuguese sentiments.
Against all importers of canned consciousness. Life’s palpable
We already had Communism. We already had the Surrealist
existence. And the pre-logical mentality for Mr. Levi Bruhl’s study.
language. The golden age.
We want the [Caraíban] revolution. Greater than the French
Catiti Catiti
Revolution. The unification of all the efficient revolts towards man.
Imara Notiá
Without us Europe wouldn’t even have its poor declaration of
Notiá Imara
man’s rights.
Ipejú.
The golden age proclaimed by America. The golden age. And all the girls.
Magic and life. We had the description and distribution of physical, moral and condescended virtues. And we knew how to transpose
Filiation. The contact with [Caraíban] Brazil. Où Villegaignon print terre. Montaigne. The natural man. Rousseau. From the French
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Tarsila do Amaral
mystery and death with the help of some grammatical forms.
I asked a man what was Law. He answered me it was the
We are concretists. The ideas take over, react, burn people in
guarantee for the exercise of possibility. This man was called
public squares. Let us abolish the ideas and other paralisies [sic].
Galli Matias. I ate him.
But the itineraries. To trust the signals, to trust the instruments and the stars.
Determinism can only be inexistent where there is mystery.
Against Goethe, the mother of the “Gracos,” and the Court
But what have we to do with this?
of D. João VI.
Against the tales of man, which originate at the Finisterre
Joy is the decisive test.
Cape. The undated world. Not rubricated. Without Napoleon. Without Caesar.
The struggle between what could be called the Uncreated and the learned-Creature by the permanent contradiction of man and
The settling of progress by means and catalogues and television
his Tabu. Quotidian love and the capitalist modus vivendi. Anthro-
apparatuses. Only machinery. And the blood transufers [sic].
pophagy. Absorption of the sacred enemy. To be transformed into totem. Human adventure. Earthly finality. Only the pure elites
Against antagonistic sublimations. Brought in caravelles.
though, managed to carry on carnal anthropophagy, which bears in itself the highest aims of life, and avoids all the evils identified
Against the truth of the missionary peoples, defined by the
by Freud, catechistic evils. What happens is not a sublimation of
sagacity of an anthropophagus, the Viscount of Cairu: It is a lie
the sexual instinct. It is the thermo-metrical scale of the anthropo-
many times repeated.
phagous instinct. From carnal it becomes elective and creates friendship. Affective, love. Speculative, science. It deviates from
But crusaders were the ones who came. They were fugitives
itself and transfers itself. We end up in abasement. Low anthro-
from a civilization being eaten by us, because we are strong
pophagy assembled in the sins of catechism-envy, usury, slander,
and vengeful as a Jaboti.
murder. Pest of the so-called cultured and Christianized peoples, it is against it we are acting. Anthropophagi.
If God is the consciousness of the Uncreated Universe, Guaraci is the mother of the living ones. Jaci is the mother of the vegetables.
Against Anchieta singing the eleven thousand heavenly virgins in the land of Iracema – João Ramalho, the patriarch, founder
We did not have speculation. But we had divination. We had
of São Paulo.
Politics which is the science of distribution. And a socialplanetary system.
Our independence hasn’t yet been proclaimed. A characteristic statement by Don João VI: – My son, put this crown on your head,
The migrations. The flight from tedious states. Against urban
before some adventurer will do it! We expelled the dynasty. It is
sclerosis. Against the Conservatories, and speculative tediousness.
necessary to expel the spirit of Bragança, the ordinances and the
From William James to Voronoff.
rapp(e)es of Mary of the Fountain.
The transfiguration of Tabu in totem. Anthropophagy.
Against the oppressive and equipped social reality registered by Freud – reality void of complexes, of insanity, without prostitutions
The family man and the creation of the Moral of the Stork: real
or penitentiaries of the matriarchy of Pindorama.
ignorance of facts + lack of imagination + authorianism [sic] before the pro-curious.
At Piratininga Year 374 of the Deglution of bishop Sardinha.
It is necessary to start from a profound atheism to attain at the idea of God. But the [Caraíban] did not need it. Because he had Guaraci. The created objective reacts according to the Fallen Angels. Afterwards, Moses divagates. What have we got to do with it? Before the Portuguese discovered Brazil, Brazil had discovered happiness. Against the torch holder Indian. The Indian son of Mary, godson of Catherine de Médicis and son-in-law of D. Antonio de Mariz. Joy is the decisive test. In the matriarchy of Pindorama. Against Memory as a habit-sources. Personal experience renewed.
Historical Texts
177
CHECKLIST
Artworks by
7
Tarsila do Amaral
India ink and graphite on paper
(Brazilian, 1886–1973)
1
Sketchbook I , 1919–20
A Negra III , 1923
14
9
to Minas Gerais Series , 1924
Max Perlingeiro, Pinakotheke
Graphite on paper
Fulvia Leirner Collection,
Cultural, Brazil
23.5 × 32.5 cm (9 1 / 4 × 12 13 / 16 in.)
São Paulo
Max Perlingeiro, Pinakotheke
8
Graphite on paper
The First A Negra,1923
Two Studies (Academy
3
7
17.5 × 22 cm (6 / 8 × 8 / 16 in.)
Piglets II , 1924
Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand,
India ink on paper
Fortaleza
Museu de Arte Moderna,
14 × 13 cm (5 1 / 2 × 5 1 / 8 in.)
Rio de Janeiro
Fulvia Leirner Collection,
9
Tarsilinha do Amaral
of A Negra, undated (c. 1924)
16
Collection, São Paulo
12 × 18 cm (4 3 / 4 × 14 15 / 16 in.)
Oil on canvas
Sketchbook with a Drawing Carnival in Madureira , 1924
22 15
Study of Mountains
76 × 63.5 cm (29 / 16 × 25 in.)
(Front of Study of Landscape ),
Collection, Rio de Janeiro
Acervo da Fundação José
Journey to Minas Gerais
e Paulina Nemirovsky em
Series , 1924
comodato com a Pinacoteca
Graphite on paper
do Estado de São Paulo
25.4 × 19.3 cm (10 × 7 5 / 8 in.)
Graphite and colored pencil
10
on paper
Drawing for Caipirinha, 1923 3
São Paulo
Hecilda and Sérgio Fadel Composition III , 1923
1
Pen with Ox and
Airton Queiroz Collection,
(6 7 / 16 × 3 15 / 16 × 1 / 4 in.)
Colored Study of Cubist
21 11
23 × 18.2 cm (9 / 16 × 7 / 16 in.)
16.4 × 10 × 0.7 cm
3
Cultural, Brazil
No. 1 and The Model) , 1923 Graphite on paper
1
Sketchbook II , 1921
(Front of Sabará ), Journey 7
18 × 24 cm (7 / 16 × 9 / 16 in.)
Tarsilinha do Amaral Collection, São Paulo
Ouro Preto and Padre Faria
(9 1 / 16 × 7 3 / 16 in.)
15
3
20
23 × 18.2 cm
(4 / 16 × 6 / 16 × / 8 in.)
2
Graphite on paper 1
11.2 × 16.6 × 0.9 cm 7
Study of a Hand II , 1923
Sketchbook with Notes and 7
21 × 13.2 cm (8 / 4 × 5 / 16 in.)
30.5 × 19.5 cm (12 × 11 / 16 in.)
Private collection, São Paulo
Pedro Corrêa do Lago
17
Collection, São Paulo
Oil on canvas
por Família Tarsila do
60.5 × 72.5 cm
Amaral, 1973.
4
Cubist Composition
Acervo da Pinacoteca do A Cuca , 1924
Estado de São Paulo, doado
(23 13 / 16 × 28 9 / 16 in.)
(Hands at the Piano) , 1923
11
Graphite and
undated (c. 1923)
Centre National des Arts
23
watercolor on paper
Graphite and watercolor
Plastiques, Paris, France
to Minas Gerais Series , 1924
23 × 25 cm (9 1 / 16 × 9 13 / 16 in.)
on paper
FNAC 9459
Graphite on paper
Sketch of A Negra I ,
3
1
24.2 × 16.7 cm (9 1 / 2 × 6 9 / 16 in.)
Max Perlingeiro, Pinakotheke
23.4 × 18 cm (9 / 16 × 7 / 16 in.)
Cultural, Brazil
Coleção de Artes Visuais do
18
Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros
1924
da Universidade de São Paulo
Graphite on paper
5
Cubist Composition II ,
1923 Graphite and colored pencil
12
on paper
1923 1
7
Study (Academy No. 2) ,
Fragment of a Landscape ,
Breno Krasilchik Collection, São Paulo
22 × 14 cm (8 11 / 16 × 5 1 / 2 in.)
24
Michele Behar Collection,
Rio de Janeiro , 1924
São Paulo
Graphite on paper
Mantiqueira Mountains/
25 × 19 cm (9 13 / 16 × 7 1 / 2 in.)
21 × 17.5 cm (8 / 4 × 6 / 8 in.)
Oil on canvas
Private collection
61 × 50 cm (24 × 19 11 / 16 in.)
19
Private collection, Brasília
1924
6
Train Station, Journey
A Negra ,1923
Hills of the Favela,
Daniella Lunardelli Collection, Goiânia
Oil on canvas
Oil on canvas
13 3
100 × 81.3 cm (39 / 8 × 32 in.)
Study for La Tasse, 1923
3
Graphite on paper 3
64.5 × 76 cm
1
15
25–37
Drawings for Feuilles
(25 / 8 × 29 / 16 in.)
de route (Road Maps ), c. 1924
Museu de Arte Contemporânea
23.3 × 18 cm ( 9 / 16 × 7 / 16 in.)
Hecilda and Sérgio Fadel
Ink on paper
da Universidade de
Coleção de Arte da Cidade/
Collection, Rio de Janeiro
Fonds Blaise Cendrars, Archives
São Paulo
DADoC/CCSP/SMC/PMSP
littéraires suisses, Berne
25–31
Chicago only
32–37
New York only
25
42–45
27
Manacá , 1927
61
Oil on canvas
Five Palm Trees I ,
76 × 63.5 cm (29 15 / 16 × 25 in.)
c. 1928
DADoC/CCSP/SMC/PMSP
Private collection, São Paulo
Graphite on paper
0.9 × 18 cm (8 1 / 4 × 7 1 / 16 in.) 1
1
20.9 × 18 cm (8 / 4 × 7 / 16 in.) 5
5
22.7 × 32 cm (8 / 16 × 12 / 8 in.) 5
5
22.7 × 32 cm (8 / 16 × 12 / 8 in.)
Landscape with
Coleção de Arte da Cidade/
22.9 × 16.4 cm (9 × 6 7 / 16 in.) India ink on paper
53
9
5
21.8 × 13.5 cm (8 / 16 × 5 / 16 in.) 43
Graphite and India ink
on paper 28
52
for Pau Brasil , 1925
42 26
Original illustrations
5
1
11.7 × 18 cm (4 / 8 × 7 / 16 in.)
Abaporu , 1928
Coleção de Artes Visuais do
Oil on canvas
Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros
85 × 73 cm (33 7 / 16 × 28 3 / 4 in.)
da Universidade de São Paulo
Colleción MALBA, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de
62
Sleep, c. 1928
Buenos Aires
Oil on canvas, 60.5 × 72.7 cm (23 13 / 16 × 28 5 / 8 in.)
1
3
29
23.2 × 31 cm (9 / 8 × 12 / 16 in.)
30
20.3 × 26.6 cm (8 × 10 1 / 2 in.)
31
1
26.6 × 20.3 cm (10 / 2 × 8 in.)
44
Graphite and India ink
54
Abaporu III , 1928
Private collection,
on paper
India ink on paper
15.5 × 22.6 cm (6 1 / 8 × 8 7 / 8 in.)
26 × 20 cm (10 1 / 4 × 7 7 / 8 in.)
45
India ink on paper
Rio de Janeiro
Claudia and Hélio Ferraz
63
Collection, Rio de Janeiro
Oil on canvas
23 × 15.5 cm (9 1 / 16 × 6 1 / 8 in.) 32
1
1
1
1
20.9 × 18 cm (8 / 4 × 7 / 16 in.)
33
20.9 × 18 cm (8 / 4 × 7 / 16 in.)
Palm Trees , 1925
India ink on paper
Oil on canvas 5
87 × 74.5 cm (34 / 4 × 29 / 16 in.) 26.6 × 20.3 cm (10 1 / 2 × 8 in.)
35
22.7 × 32 cm (8 5 / 16 × 12 5 / 8 in.)
36
22.7 × 32 cm (8 / 16 × 12 / 8 in.)
Oil on canvas 9
65 × 70 cm (25 / 16 × 27 / 16 in.) 37
38
20.3 × 26.6 cm (8 × 10 / 2 in.) Landscape with Railroad
e Paulina Nemirovsky em
Private collection, São Paulo
comodato com a Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo
56
The Papaya Tree , 1925 9
1
27 × 21.5 cm (10 / 8 × 8 / 16 in.)
64 5
1
Anthropophagy I , 1929
24.5 × 18.5 cm (9 / 8 × 7 / 4 in.)
Iron gall ink on paper
Private collection,
23 × 19.5 cm (9 1 / 16 × 7 11 / 16 in.)
Rio de Janeiro
Coleção Gilberto
Coleção de Artes Visuais do
Chateaubriand, Museu de Arte
Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros
57
da Universidade de São Paulo
Oil on canvas
Car , c. 1924
The Bull , 1928
Moderna, Rio de Janeiro
50.4 × 61.2 cm
65
(19 13 / 16 × 24 1 / 16 in.)
of Saci-Pererê I, 1929
Oil on canvas
Acervo do Museu de Arte
Graphite and India ink
84.5 × 65 cm (33 1 / 4 × 25 9 / 16 in.)
Moderna da Bahia, Salvador
on paper
Watercolor and India ink
48
on paper 16 × 16 cm (6 5 / 16 × 6 5 / 16 in.) Rose and Alfredo Setubal
Private collection
The Railway Station, 1925
Collection, São Paulo Saci-Pererê , 1925
Anthropophagic Drawing
22.5 × 34.7 cm (8 7 / 8 × 13 11 / 16 in.) 58
49
Distance , 1928
Coleção de Arte da Cidade/
Oil on canvas
DADoC/CCSP/SMC/PMSP 13
1
Gouache and India ink on paper
65.5 × 75 cm (25 / 16 × 29 / 2 in.)
23.1 × 18 cm (9 1 / 16 × 7 1 / 16 in.)
Acervo da Fundação José
66
13.5 × 17 cm (5 / 16 × 6 / 16 in.)
Fulvia Leirner Collection,
e Paulina Nemirovsky em
Oil on canvas
Ivoncy and Evelyn Ioschpe
São Paulo
comodato com a Pinacoteca
75 × 93 cm (29 1 / 2 × 36 5 / 8 in.)
do Estado de São Paulo
Acervo Artístico-Cultural dos
39
Sertão Farm III , 1924–30
Abaporu V , 1928
India ink on paper 47
5
Acervo da Fundação José 7
Ivoncy and Evelyn Ioschpe Collection, São Paulo
5
(49 5 / 8 × 55 15 / 16 in.)
Abaporu IV , 1928 5
1
34
126 × 142 cm 55
46
Anthropophagy , 1929
Graphite on paper 5
11
Collection, São Paulo 50
Study for Blue Woman
Palácios do Governo do Estado
(Water Spirit) I , 1925
59
1925
Graphite and watercolor
Oil on canvas
Graphite and watercolor
on paper
75.5 × 93 cm
67
on paper
22 × 17 cm (8 11 / 16 × 6 11 / 16 in.)
(29 3 / 4 × 36 5 / 8 in.)
Oil on canvas
23.2 × 15.5 cm (9 1 / 8 × 6 1 / 8 in.)
Lula Buarque and Leticia
Hecilda and Sérgio Fadel
81 × 54 cm (31 7 / 8 × 21 1 / 4 in.)
Private collection, São Paulo
Monte Collection, Rio de Janeiro
Collection, Rio de Janeiro
Collection of Bolsa de Arte
40
41
Animal with Fat Stomach,
Calmness II , 1929
Lagoa Santa , 1925
51
Town with Tram, c. 1925
60
The Lake , 1928
Urutu Viper , 1928
de São Paulo
68
City (The Street) , 1929
Forest , 1929
Oil on canvas
India ink on paper
Oil on canvas
Oil on canvas
50 × 65 cm (19 11 / 16 × 25 9 / 16 in.)
21 × 18 cm (8 1 / 4 × 7 1 / 16 in.)
60 × 72 cm (23 5 / 8 × 28 3 / 8 in.)
63.9 × 76.2 cm (25 3 / 16 × 30 in.)
Private collection,
Coleção de Artes Visuais do
Coleção Gilberto
Museu de Arte Contemporânea
Rio de Janeiro
Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros
Chateaubriand, Museu de
da Universidade de São Paulo
da Universidade de São Paulo
Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro
Checklist
179
69 Hanging Palm Tree II , 1929
77 Anthropophagic
84 Workers , 1933
94 Program for Semana
Ink on paper
Landscape IV , c. 1929
Oil on canvas
de Arte Moderna, São Paulo,
10.6 × 16.3 cm (4 3 / 16 × 6 7 / 16 in.)
India ink on paper
150 × 205 cm
1922
1
Patricia and Waltercio Caldas
18 × 22.9 cm (7 / 16 × 9 in.)
(59 / 16 × 80 / 16 in.)
Arquivo do Instituto de Estudos
Collection, Rio de Janeiro
Coleção de Artes Visuais do
Acervo Artístico-Cultural
Brasileiros da Universidade
Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros
dos Palácios do Governo do
de São Paulo
da Universidade de São Paulo
Estado de São Paulo
70 Landscape with Creature
1
11
95 Tarsila do Amaral
and Palm Trees , 1929 Graphite and India ink on paper
78 Anthropophagic
20 × 23.5 cm (7 7 / 8 × 9 1 / 4 in.)
Landscape V , c. 1929
Private collection
India ink on card
Travel album
3
Photographs
1922–at least 1926
and Documents
Photographs and
1
pasted papers
14.6 × 11.4 cm (5 / 4 × 4 / 2 in.) 71 Postcard , 1929
Coleção de Artes Visuais do
85 Note from Oswald de
4 5 / 8 × 6 11 / 16 in. (33.5 × 22 cm)
Oil on canvas
Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros
Andrade (Brazilian, 1890–1954)
Private Collection, São Paulo
127.5 × 142.5 cm
da Universidade de São Paulo
with a drawing by Tarsila
(50 3 / 16 × 56 1 / 8 in.)
do Amaral, 1920s
96–97 Blaise Cendrars
Private collection,
79 Animal with Triangle,
Paulo Kuczynski Escritório
(Swiss, 1887–1961)
Rio de Janeiro
1930
de Arte
with cover and illustrations
Graphite on paper
by Tarsila do Amaral
72 Setting Sun, 1929
19 × 26 cm (7 1 / 2 × 10 1 / 4 in.)
86 Portrait of Tarsila do
Feuilles de route (Road Maps ),
Oil on canvas
Private collection
Amaral in profile, mid-1920s
1924
54 × 65 cm
Gelatin silver print
(21 1 / 4 × 25 9 / 16 in.)
80 Composition
Pedro Corrêa do Lago
96 The Art Institute
Private collection
(Lonely Figure), 1930
Collection, São Paulo
of Chicago, Ryerson and
Oil on canvas 73 Anthropophagic Figure
Burnham Libraries
83 × 129 cm 11
87 Portrait of Tarsila do 13
Chicago only
in the Landscape , c. 1929
(32 / 16 × 50 / 16 in.)
Amaral, c. 1921
India ink on paper
São Fernando Institute
Gelatin silver print
97 The Museum of
17 × 22 cm
Collection, Rio de Janeiro
Pedro Corrêa do Lago
Modern Art Library,
Collection, São Paulo
New York
(6 11 / 16 × 8 11 / 16 in.) Private collection
81 Study for Composition
(Lonely Figure) II, 1930
88 Exhibition catalogue
98 Scene from Minas Gerais
74 Anthropophagic
Graphite and India ink
for Semana de Arte Moderna,
trip with drawing by Tarsila
Landscape I , c. 1929
on newsprint
São Paulo, with cover illustrated
do Amaral, 1924
Graphite on paper
15.5 × 23.5 cm (6 1 / 8 × 9 1 / 4 in.)
by Emiliano Di Cavalcanti
Arquivo do Instituto de Estudos
Tuneu Collection, São Paulo
(Brazilian, 1897–1976), 1922
Brasileiros da Universidade
Arquivo do Instituto de Estudos
de São Paulo
1
18 × 22.9 cm (7 / 16 × 9 in.) Coleção de Artes Visuais do Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros
82 Study for Composition
Brasileiros da Universidade
da Universidade de São Paulo
(Lonely Figure) III , 1930
de São Paulo
Iron gall ink on paper
99 Tarsila do Amaral at
Fazenda Santo Antônio, 1924
11
75 Anthropophagic
22 × 33 cm (8 / 16 × 13 in.)
89–92 Klaxon: Mensario
Gelatin silver print
Landscape II , c. 1929
The Museum of Modern Art,
de Arte Moderna ,
Arquivo do Instituto de Estudos
India ink on paper
New York. Gift of Max
nos. 1–4, 1922
Brasileiros da Universidade
18 × 22.9 cm (7 / 16 × 9 in.)
Perlingeiro through the Latin
The Museum of Modern
de São Paulo
Coleção de Artes Visuais do
America and Caribbean Fund
Art Library, New York
1
Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros da Universidade de São Paulo
100 Tarsila do Amaral 83 Landscape with
93 Mário de Andrade
Letter to her family,
Anthropophagic Animal III ,
(Brazilian, 1893–1945)
October 12, 1924
76 Anthropophagic
c. 1930
Paulicea desvairada, 1922
Tarsilinha do Amaral Collection,
Landscape III , c. 1929
Colored pencil and pastel
Yale University, General
São Paulo
India ink on paper
on paper
Collection, Beinecke Rare
1
1
1
18 × 22.9 cm (7 / 16 × 9 in.)
18 × 23 cm (7 / 16 × 9 / 16 in.)
Book and Manuscript Library,
101–102 Oswald de Andrade
Coleção de Artes Visuais do
Collection of Marta and
New Haven
with cover and illustrations
Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros
Paulo Kuczynski
Chicago only
by Tarsila do Amaral
da Universidade de São Paulo
180
Tarsila do Amaral
Pau Brasil , 1925
101
Coleção de Artes Visuais
109
Oswald de Andrade with
116
Tarsila do Amaral
do Instituto de Estudos
cover by Tarsila do Amaral
and Oswald de Andrade
Brasileiros da Universidade
Primeiro caderno do
Letter to Guilherme
de São Paulo
alumno de poesia Oswald de
de Almeida,
Andrade (First Notebook
May 19, 1928
of the Poetry Student Oswald
Pedro Corrêa do Lago
Collection, Beinecke Rare
de Andrade ), 1927
Collection, São Paulo
Book and Manuscript Library,
University of California,
New Haven
Berkeley, Bancroft Library
102
Yale University, General
117
Exhibition catalogue
for Tarsila , Palace Hotel,
Chicago only 110
Carolina Silva Telles,
Rio de Janeiro, 1929
Clóvis Camargo, Tarsila do
Pedro Corrêa do Lago
Letter with draft of the poem
Amaral, Olívia Guedes
Collection, São Paulo
“Atelier,” c. 1925
Penteado, Oswald de Andrade,
Tarsilinha do Amaral Collection,
and Maria Penteado Camargo
118
São Paulo
in São Paulo, 1928
for Tarsila , Prédio Glória,
Gelatin silver print
São Paulo, 1929
Pedro Corrêa do Lago
Pedro Corrêa do Lago
Collection, São Paulo
Collection, São Paulo
103
104
Oswald de Andrade
Constantin Brancusi
(French, born Romania,
Exhibition catalogue
1876–1957) Exhibition catalogue
TExhibition catalogue
Annotated exhibition catalogue
111
for Brancusi , Brummer Gallery,
for Tarsila , Galerie Percier,
for The First Representative
New York, with an inscription
Paris, 1928
Collection of Paintings by
to Tarsila do Amaral and
Pedro Corrêa do Lago
Contemporary Brazillian Artists,
Oswald de Andrade, 1926
Collection, São Paulo
Roerich Museum, New York, 1930
Pedro Corrêa do Lago Collection, São Paulo
112
Indaiatuba Landscape,1928
Gelatin silver print 105–106
Exhibition
catalogue for Tarsila ,
São Paulo
Collection, São Paulo 106
Northwestern University,
Museum Library 120
Tarsila do Amaral
in her home, c. 1930 113
Pedro Corrêa do Lago
Special Collections, Brooklyn
Tarsilinha do Amaral Collection,
Galerie Percier, Paris, 1926 105
119
Oswald de Andrade with
Gelatin silver print
a drawing by Tarsila do Amaral
Arquivo do Instituto de Estudos
“Manifesto antropófago,” 1928
Brasileiros da Universidade
The Museum of Modern Art
de São Paulo
Library, New York. Gift of Raul Bopp (Brazilian,
Charles Deering McCormick
Patricia Phelps de Cisneros
121
Library of Special Collections,
through the Latin American
1898–1984) with cover
Evanston
and Caribbean Fund in honor
by Flávio de Carvalho
Chicago only
of Paulo Herkenhoff
(Brazilian, 1899–1973) Cobra Norato , 1931
107
Benedito Duarte
114
Tarsila do Amaral and
Archives and Special
(Brazilian, 1910–1995)
Oswald de Andrade
Collections Library, Vassar
Portrait of Tarsila do Amaral ,
“Minha terra tem palmares”
College, Poughkeepsie, NY
1926
(My Land Has Palm Trees),
Gelatin silver print
1928
122
Pedro Corrêa do Lago
Paulo Kuczynski Escritório
with Anthropophagy , 1940s
Collection, São Paulo
de Arte
Gelatin silver print
Tarsila do Amaral
Pedro Corrêa do Lago 108
Tarsila do Amaral
115
Tarsila do Amaral
at Galerie Percier, Paris,
and Oswald de Andrade
July 1926
Letter to Olívia Guedes
Gelatin silver print
Penteado,
Arquivo do Instituto de Estudos
May 19, 1928
Brasileiros da Universidade
Pedro Corrêa do Lago
de São Paulo
Collection, São Paulo
Collection, São Paulo
Checklist
181
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Catalogue Raisonné
Ribeiro, Leo Gilson. “O que seria aquela
Musée Galliera. Salon du Franc. Exh. cat.
Saturni, Maria Eugênia, and Regina Teixeira
coisa?” Veja 181 (February 23, 1972),
Musée Galliera, 1926.
de Barros, eds. Tarsila: Catálogo raisonné.
pp. 3–6. Palace Hotel. Tarsila: Rio de Janeiro.
3 vols. Base 7 Projetos Culturais/Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 2008.
“Tarsila: A grande dama das artes plásticas
Exh. cat. Typographia Bancaria, 1929.
do Brasil.” O Día, October 22, 1972. Palacete Glória. Grande exposition d’art Published Correspondence
“Tarsila do Amaral, a interessante artista
moderne: L’École de Paris. Exh. cat.
Amaral, Aracy A., ed. Correspondência
brasileira, dá-nos as suas impressões.”
Palacete Glória, 1930.
de Mário de Andrade e Tarsila do Amaral.
Correio da Manhã , December 25, 1923,
Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, 2001.
p. 2.
Martins, Ana Luisa, ed. Aí vai meu
“Tarsila do Amaral fala da sua arte e dos
coraçao: As Cartas de Tarsila do Amaral e Anna Maria Martins para Luís Martins.
seus triunfos e esperanças.” Diário da
Société des Artistes Français. Salon de
Noite , February 10, 1928, p. 1.
la Société des Artistes Français. Exh. cat.
Prédio Glória. Tarsila: São Paulo. Exh. cat. Typographia Bancaria, 1929.
Société des Artistes Français, 1922.
Planeta do Brasil, 2003. “Tarsila, eis novamente a reportagem que Writings by Tarsila
você tanto gostou.” Diário de São Paulo,
Warchavchik, Gregori. Exposição de
January 21, 1973.
uma casa modernista. Exh. cat. Casa
Amaral, Aracy A., ed. Tarsila Cronista.
Modernista, Rua Itápolis, 1930.
Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 2001.
Exhibition Catalogues, 1920 –30 Association Artistique des Vrais
Exhibition Reviews of the 1920s
Brandini, Laura Taddei, ed. Crônicas
Indépendants. Première exposition de
“A arte de Tarsila do Amaral.” Diário
e outros escritos de Tarsila do Amaral.
l’Association Artistique des Vrais Indépendants. Exh. cat. Association
Nacional , September 28, 1929,
Editora da UNICAMP, 2008.
p. 7.
Artistique des Vrais Indépendants, 1928.
“A exposição de pintura de Tarsila do Amaral.” A Noite , July 19, 1929, p. 2.
Interviews with Tarsila “A pintura moderna vista por uma artista
Association Artistique des Surindépendants.
moderníssima.” O Jornal , August 17,
Première Salon des Surindépendants .
“A exposição de Tarsila.” Correio da
1926, p. 2.
Exh. cat. Association Artistique des
Manhã , July 21, 1929, p. 3.
Surindépendants, 1929. “A exposição de Tarsila Amaral.”
Mácia Lagoa, Ana. “Um depoimento inédito de Tarsila do Amaral.” Jornal da
Galerie Percier. Tarsila . With poems
Tarde, January 20, 1973, p. 12.
by Blaise Cendrars. Exh. cat. Galerie Percier, 1926.
A Manhã , July 23, 1929, p. 5. “A exposição de Tarsila do Amaral.”
Correio Paulistano , September 17, 1929,
“Uma entrevista em torno de três perguntas: O momento da arte brasileira
———. Tarsila. Exh. cat. Galerie Percier,
e a attitude de Tarsila do Amaral.”
1928.
Crítica , July 27, 1929, p. 2.
p. 7. “A exposição de Tarsila do Amaral.”
International Art Center of Roerich Museum.
Correio Paulistano , September 18, 1929, p. 2.
modernismo.” O Jornal , December 9,
Exhibition of the First Representative Collection of Paintings by Contemporary Brazilian Artists. Exh. cat. International Art
1928, p. 3.
Center of Roerich Museum, 1930.
“Uma pintora paulista em Paris: Tarsila do Amaral faz vehemente defesa do
182
Tarsila do Amaral
“A exposição de Tarsila do Amaral, no ‘Palace-Hotel,’ do Rio de Janeiro, foi a primeira grande batalha da Antropofagia.” Diário de São Paulo , August 1, 1929, p. 10. “A primeira exposição de Tarsila do Amaral em São Paulo.” Correio Paulistano , September 15, 1929, p. 8. Almeida, Renato. “Num atelier cubista.” O Jornal, February 6, 1924, p. 5.
“Exposição Tarsila do Amaral.” Correio Paulistano , September 28, 1929, p. 6.
Ribeiro, João. “Tarsila,” O Estado de S. Paulo , August 6, 1929, p. 8.
“Exposition Tarsila (Galerie Percier).” Paris-Sud-Amérique 2, 50 (June 20, 1926), p. 16.
Romoff, Serge. “Dans les galleries d’art.” L’Humanité, July 9, 1928, p. 4..
Ferro, António. “Tarsila do Amaral.” Contemporânea 3, 2 (June, 1926), pp. 83–85.
Andrade, Mário de. “Tarsila.” Diário nacional, December 21, 1927, p. 2. Carnet. “Poète et préfacier.” Comoedia , June 7, 1926, p. 3. Charsenol. “Tarsila.” L’Art vivant 2, 50 (June 15, 1926), p. 477. Chateaubriand, Assis. “Como São Paulo está cultivando a arte moderna.” O Jornal , May 30, 1925, pp. 1–2. Cogniat, Raymond. “Deux peintres brésiliens: Mme Tarsila, M. Monteiro.” Revue de l’Amérique latine 16, 80 (August 1, 1928), pp. 157–59. ———. “Exposition Tarsila.” Revue de l’Amérique latine 12, 56 (August 1, 1926), p. 159. Corrêa Júnior. “Registo de arte.” Correio Paulistano , September 29, 1929, p. 4. “Exposição de pintura da sra. Tarsila do Amaral.” O Jornal , July 20, 1929. “Exposição de Tarsila do Amaral.” Movimento brasileiro 1, 23 (March 1929), p. 21. “Exposição Tarsila.” Diário Nacional , September 18, 1929, p. 7.
June 20, 1926, p. 3.
“Tarsila Amaral.” O Estado de S. Paulo , October 13, 1929, p. 2.
Freitas, Bezerra de. “Tarsila,” Crítica , August 1, 1929, p. 1.
“Tarsila do Amaral.” O Estado de S. Paulo , September 27, 1929, p. 5.
“Homenagem a Tarsila do Amaral.” Correio Paulistano , August 7, 1929, p. 1.
“Tarsila do Amaral vai fazer a sua primeira exposição no Rio.” Correio Paulistano , July 18, 1929, p. 4.
“Les Petites expositions.” Journal des , July 2, débats politiques et littéraires 1928, p. 2.
“Tarsila e o espirito modern.” Correio Paulistano , September 20, 1929, p. 1.
Machado, Antônio de Alcântara. “Notas de Arte: Tarsila do Amaral.” Jornal do Comércio, July 3, 1926, p. 4. Magellan. “La Maison de l’Amérique latine.” Revue de l’Amérique latine 20 (July 1, 1923), p. 288. Memmi. “Les Arts.” L’Humanité , June 29, 1926, p. 4. “Na exposição Tarsila.” O Estado de S. Paulo , September 20, 1929, p. 2. Pawlowski, Gaston de. “Les Petites expositions, Tarsila, 38, rue La Boétie.” Le Journal, June 22, 1926, p. 3. “Peinture exotique.” Paris-Midi , June 10, 1926, p. 2. Raynal, Maurice. “Les Arts.” L’Intransigeant , June 13, 1926, p. 2. Remon, Georges. “Galerie Percier.”
“Exposição Tarsila do Amaral.” Correio Paulistano , September 21, 1929, p. 5.
“Uma arte bem Brasileira uma artista bem nossa: Tarsila do Amaral e a sua empolgante exposição de pintura.” O Paiz, July 19, 1929, p. 1. “Uma exposição de pintura moderna.” Jornal do Brasil , July 1929, p. 6. “Uma exposição de Tarsila do Amaral em Paris.” O Jornal , June 26, 1926, p. 3. “Uma singular expressão de arte moderna: A pintura antropophágica de Tarsila de Amaral.” Crítica , July 20, 1929, p. 1. Waldemar-George. “Tarsila et l’anthropophagie.” La Presse , July 5, 1928, p. 2. Warnod, André. “L’Exposition Tarsilla [sic].” Comoedia , June 8, 1926, p. 2. ———. “Tarsilla [sic]-Sculpture-Louis Charlot.” Comoedia , June 24, 1928, p. 2.
La Renaissance de l’art français et des industries de luxe 9, 6 (June 1926),
p. 368. “Exposição Tarsila do Amaral.” Correio Paulistano , September 25, 1929, p. 7.
“Tarsila.” Vogue Paris 7, 9 (September 1, 1926), p. 60.
Fierens, Paul. “Les Petites expositions.” Journal des débats politiques et littéraires ,
Álvarus. “Exposição Tarsila.” A Manhã, July 25, 1929, p. 6.
“Tarsila.” Correio Paulistano, September 17, 1929, p. 2.
Zervos, Christian. “Tarsila (Galerie Percier).” Cahiers d’art 5–6 (1928), p. 262.
Rezende, José Severiano de. “A Pintura brasileira.” Gazette du Brésil , June 17, 1926, pp. 1–2.
Selected Bibliography
183
Works Illustrated by Tarsila
Andrade, Oswald de. “Manifesto antropófago.” Revista de Antropofagia 1, 1 (May 1928), p. 3. ———. Pau Brasil. Au Sans Pareil, 1924. ———. Primeiro caderno do alumno de poesia Oswald de Andrade . 1927. Cendrars, Blaise. Feuilles de route. Au Sans Pareil, 1924.
Primary Sources
Andrade, Mário de. Hallucinated City: Paulicéia Desvairada. Translated by Jack E. Tomlins. Vanderbilt University Press, 1968. ———. Macunaíma. Oficinas graficas de E. Cupolo, 1928. Andrade, Oswald de. “Manifesto of Anthropophagy.” Translated by Hélio Oiticica. In Carlos Basualdo, Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture, pp. 205–207. Cosac Naify, 2005. ———. “Manifesto of Pau-Brasil Poetry.” Translated by Stella M. de Sá Rego. Latin American Literary Review 14, 27 (January–June 1986), pp. 184–87. Bopp, Raul. Cobra Norato. Irmãos Ferraz, 1931. Cendrars, Blaise. Anthologie nègre. Éditions de la Sirène, 1921.
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Ades, Dawn. “Modernism and the Search for Roots.” In Art in Latin America: The Modern Era, 1820–1980, pp. 125–49. Exh. cat. Yale University Press, 1989. Amaral, Aracy A. Arte e meio artístico: Entre a feijoada e o x-burguer . Editora Nobel, 1983.
———. Desenhos de Tarsila. Cultrix, 1971. ———. “Novas reflexões sobre Tarsila: 1. A fórmula e o mágico intuitivo. 2. Fundo de gaveta.” In Amaral, Arte e meio artístico , pp. 84–90. ———. “O modernismo à luz do ‘art déco.’” In Amaral, Arte e meio artístico, pp. 58–65. —––. “O modernismo brasileiro e o contexto cultural dos anos 20.” Revista USP, São Paulo, 94 (June–August 2012), pp. 9–18. ———. “O surreal em Tarsila.” Mirante das artes 3 (May–June 1967), pp. 23–25. ———. Tarsila: 1918–1968 . Exh. cat. Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo,1969. ———. Tarsila do Amaral: Projeto Cultural Artistas do Meroscul . Fundação Finambrás, 1998. ———. Tarsila por Tarsila. Celebris, 2004. ———. Tarsila: Sua obra e seu tempo. 3rd ed. Editora 34/Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 2003. Amaral, Aracy A., Haroldo de Campos, Juan Manuel Bonet, and Jorge Schwartz. Tarsila do Amaral. Exh. cat. Fundación Juan March, 2009. Amaral, Aracy A., and Regina Teixeira de Barros. Tarsila: Viajante, viajera. Exh. cat. Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 2008. Andrade, Carlos Drummond de. “Brasil/ Tarsila.” In As impurezas do branco, 2nd ed., pp. 95–96. Livraria José Olympio, 1974. Andrade, Mário de. O movimento modernista. Casa do Estudante do Brasil, 1942.
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Bercht, Fatima. “Tarsila do Amaral.” In Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century , edited by Waldo Rasmussen, pp. 52–59. Exh. cat. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1993. Boaventura, Maria Eugênia da Gama Alves. Movimento brasileiro: Contribuição ao estudo do modernism. Secretaria da Cultura, Ciência e Tecnologia, Conselho Estadual de Artes e Ciências Humanas, 1978. Brandini, Laura. “Tarsila do Amaral et Paris.” Le Vieux Montmartre 119, 74 (June 2005), pp. 21–24. Cardoso, Rafael. “The Problem of Race in Brazilian Painting, c. 1850–1920.” Art History 38, 3 (June 2015), pp. 499–511. Cardoso, Renata Gomes. “ A Negra de Tarsila do Amaral: Criação, recepção e circulação.” VIS: Revista do Programa de Pós-graduação em Arte da UnB 15, 2 (July–December 2016), pp. 90–110. Crippa, Giulia. “O grotesco como estratégia de afirmação da produção pictorial feminine.” Estudos feministas 11, 1 (January–June 2003), pp. 113–35. Damien, Carol. “Tarsila do Amaral: Art and Environmental Concerns of a Brazilian Modernist.” Woman’s Art Journal 20, 1 (Spring–Summer 1999), pp. 3–7. Diniz, Dilma Castelo Branco. “Os artistas brasileiros em Paris (1922–1932).” O eixo e a roda: Revista de literatura brasileira 18, 2 (2009), pp. 17–33. Eulalio, Alexandre. A Aventura Brasileira de Blaise Cendrars: Ensaio, cronologia, filme, depoimentos, antologia. Edições
Quíron, 1978. Bandeira, Manuel. “O atelier de Tarsiwald.” In I Encontro de crítica textual:
———. Arte para quê: A preocupação 3rd ed. Studio Nobel, 2003.
———. “Tarsila antropófaga.” In Crônicas da província do Brasil, pp. 215–17. Civilização Brasileira, 1937.
Fabre, Gladys. La dona, metamorfosi de la modernitat . Exh. cat. Fundació Juan Miró, 2004. Gabara, Esther. Errant Modernism: The Ethos of Photography in Mexico and Brazil. Duke University Press, 2008.
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———.Tarsila: 191 8–1950. Exh. cat.
11 (Spring 2015), pp. 1–39.
Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo,1950.
———. “‘Exhilarating Exile’: Four Latin
Nunes, Benedito. “Antropofagia ao
American Women Exhibit in Paris.”
alcance de todos.” In Obras completas
Artelogie 5 (October 2013), pp. 1–26.
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———. “Occupying Paris: The First
Secretaria de Estado da Cultura, 1990.
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De la antropofagia a Brasília. Exh. cat. IVAM Centre Julio Gon zález, 2000.
1968. ———, ed. Las vanguardias Marcondes, Marco Antonio, ed. Tarsila. Art Editora, 1991. Meira, Sylvia. “Antropofagia de Tarsila do Amaral.” Connaissance des arts 625 (March 2005), pp. 108–11.
latinoamericanas: Textos programáticos y críticos. Cátedra, 1991. Sneed, Gillian. “Anita Malfatti and Tarsila do Amaral: Gender, ‘Brasilidade’ and the Modernist Landscape.” Woman’s Art Journal 34 (Spring–Summer 2013), pp. 30–39.
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Selected Bibliography
185
INDEX
Page numbers in italics indicate illustrations .
paintings Abaporu (and studies), 17, 25n12,
academic art, 23, 47, 52n8, 95, 99n64, 156, 157, 161, 162, 168 Académie Internationale des Beaux-Arts,
169 Africa/Africans, 48, 52n2, 173n4, 173n13 Afro-Brazilians, 49, 157n2, 158n2
Animal with Fat Stomach, 77 , 179
38–55, 81, 82 , 84–85, 87, 88,
Animal with Triangle , 116 , 180
89–90, 93 , 95, 96, 98n32, 127,
Anthropophagic Drawing of
163, 164, 165n7, 168, 170, 179 A Cuca , 76 , 92, 126, 127, 178 A Negra (and studies), 22, 34 , 35 ,
126 Académie Julian, 38, 99n64, 125, 163,
studies/ other drawings
Saci-Pererê I , 115 , 179 Anthropophagic Figure in the Landscape , 118 , 180
36 , 37 , 38–55, 45 , 87, 88–89,
Anthropophagic Landscape I , 108 , 180
94–95, 98n32, 98n36, 126, 127,
Anthropophagic Landscape II , 109 , 180
128, 129, 165, 168, 178
Anthropophagic Landscape III , 110 , 180
Anthropophagy (and study), cover , 23,
Anthropophagic Landscape IV , 110 , 180
A Negra and, 44, 45, 49, 52n2
38, 43, 51, 54n46, 55n70, 87, 88, 89,
Anthropophagic Landscape V , 111, 180
as inspiration, 42, 48, 53n26, 164, 166
95, 118 , 119 , 153 , 169, 179
Colored Study of Cubist Composition III ,
slaves from, 46, 88, 95
Brazilian Religion I , 17, 17 , 170
Aguiar, Lydia Dias de (Tarsila’s mother), 125
Bull , The , 101, 127, 179
Alcântara Machado, Antônio de, 127, 168,
Calmness II, 117 , 179
170, 170n6 Aleijadinho, 47, 93, 126, 167 Alexandrino, Pedro, 46, 99n64, 125, 162, 169 Amaral, Aracy, 19, 21–22, 24, 42–43, 54n45, 92, 94, 129 Amaral, José Estanislau do (Tarsila’s father), 54n61, 125, 163, 164–65 Amaral, Tarsila do, 42, 125–29, 128 , 131, 140 , 141, 153 Anthropophagy period, 161, 170 as the “caipirinha dressed by Poiret,” 38, 44, 52n1, 86, 97n12, 140 , 141 group exhibitions, 19, 21, 25n3, 128, 129 Indaiatuba Landscape, 92, 147 , 181
27 , 179 Cubist Composition (Hands at the Piano) , 32 , 178
Carnival in Madureira , 63 , 126, 178
Cubist Composition II , 27 , 178
City (The Street) , 22, 53–54n42, 114 ,
Fragment of a Landscape , 68 , 178
128, 179 Composition (Lonely Figure) (and studies), 120 , 121, 180 Distance , 90, 105 , 122 , 179 Forest , 10 , 107 , 180 Fruit Seller , 17 Hills of the Favela , 48, 66 , 126, 127, 128, 168, 170, 172, 178 Lagoa Santa , 78 , 126, 127, 158n1, 173n1, 179
Hanging Palm Tree II , 112 , 180 Mantiqueira Mountains/Rio de Janeiro , 64 , 178 Landscape with Anthropophagic Animal III , 115, 180 Landscape with Creature and Palm Trees , 112 , 180 Landscape with Five Palm Trees I , 106 , 179 Landscape with Railroad Car , 58 , 179
Lake , The , 8 , 98 , 102 , 127, 129, 179
Ouro Preto and Padre Faria , 67 , 126, 178
Manacá , 50, 80 , 127, 128, 179
Pen with Ox and Piglets II , 69 , 178
Model, The (and study), 28 , 29 ,
Saci-Pererê , 76 , 179
170n4, 178
Sertão Farm II , 62 , 179
Palm Trees , 54 , 79 , 179
Sketchbook I , 132 , 178
Papaya Tree , The , 65 , 179
Sketchbook II , 132 , 178
20, 21, 23, 49, 51, 92, 127, 128,
Portrait of a Woman, 38–39, 39 , 125
Sketchbook with a Drawing for
160n6, 170
Portrait of Marío de Andrade , 39,
“Minha terra tem palmares,” 147, 181 monographic/solo exhibitions, 17, 19,
Pau-Brasil period, 91, 161, 167–68, 170, 172 private collection of, 50, 53n33, 54n61, 126, 128 travel album, 87, 89, 142, 180
39 , 126
A Negra, 33 , 178 Sketchbook with Notes and Drawing
Postcard , 122 , 128, 152 , 180
for Caipirinha , 33 , 178
Railway Station, The , 57 , 127, 179
Study (Academy No. 2) , 31, 178
Second Class , 21, 128
Study for Blue Woman (Water Spirit) I ,
Self-Portrait I , 19
77 , 180
Amaral, Tarsila do, works
Setting Sun, 4–5 , 18, 92 , 113 , 180
Study for La Tasse , 30 , 178
illustrations
Sleep , 103 , 127, 179
Study of a Hand II , 33 , 178
Street Market I , The , 17
Study of Mountains , 67 , 126, 178
Urutu Viper , 6–7 , 104 , 127, 170n4, 179
Town with Tram, 73 , 179
Workers , 23, 123 , 128, 164, 180
Train Station, 59 , 126, 178
Feuilles de route , 47, 60 , 61, 69 , 71, 72 , 74 , 75 , 127, 138 , 139 , 179, 180 Pau Brasil , 47, 70 , 127, 136 , 137 , 181
186
Tarsila do Amaral
Two Studies (Academy No. 1 and The Model) , 29 , 170n4, 178
Amaral Pinto, Dulce do (Tarsila’s daughter), 50, 125, 126, 127, 129, 165 Amazon, 50, 156n4, 163 Andrade, Mário de, 22, 44, 46–47, 50, 52n8, 53n33, 54n47, 54n61, 87 , 93 , 94, 125, 126, 127, 162, 163, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171 Grupo dos Cinco and, 39, 94, 94 , 125, 170, 171 “Homenagem aos homens que agem,” 50–51 Macunaíma, 50, 54n64 “Márioswald” and, 50, 55n70 Paulicéia desvairada, 39, 134 “Tarsila,” 166–67 Tarsila’s portrait of, 39, 39 , 125, 126 “Tarsiwaldo,” 21, 53n26, 55n70, 87, 127 Andrade, Nonê de, 47, 126, 127 Andrade, Oswald de, 18–19, 22, 23, 25n4, 39, 40, 42, 42 , 46, 47, 50, 52n8, 54n56, 54n65, 84, 86, 87 , 88, 89, 94–95, 97n18, 125, 126, 127, 128, 146 , 148 , 149 , 150 , 156, 157, 158, 163, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172 “Atelier,” 44, 52n1, 53n36, 97n12, 140 , 141 Grupo dos Cinco and, 39, 94, 94, 125, 169, 171 “Homenagem aos homens que agem,” 50–51 lecture at the Sorbonne, 42, 51, 53n26, 55n71, 126, 155 “Manifesto antropófago,” 20, 25n4, 25n12, 51, 84, 85–86, 87, 88, 89–90, 91, 95, 98n32, 127, 148 , 168, 176–77 “Manifesto da Poesia Pau-Brasil”/and Pau-Brasil poetry, 47, 88, 95, 126, 160n5, 168, 170, 174–75 “Márioswald” and, 50, 55n70 marriage to Tarsila, 18, 20, 39, 42, 84, 125, 127, 128, 156, 158, 162, 163, 164 “Mensagem ao antropófago desconhecido,” 84, 97n17, 98n32 “Minha terra tem palmares,” 147 , 181 O rei da vela , 21, 22 , 89, 90, 90 Pau Brasil , 47, 51, 52n1, 70 , 127, 136 , 163 titling of, and response to Abaporu , 51, 84, 127, 163, 170 Andrade, Oswald de, Jr., 167, 170 Anthropophagy, 38–55 Abaporu and, 25, 38, 51, 84–85, 127, 163, 168, 170 manifestos of, 20, 25n4, 25n12, 51, 84, 85–86, 87, 88, 89–90, 91, 95, 97n17, 98n32, 127, 148 , 168, 176–77 Apollinaire, Guillaume, 159, 165, 173
Arantes, Altino, 127 Arcadia, 23, 41, 43, 49, 51, 53n38 Armory Show, 39 Art Deco, 92, 93, 94, 95, 127 artist-travelers, 47, 50, 51 Association Artistique des Vrai Indépendants, 49, 128 avant-garde, 18, 20, 21, 23, 86, 92, 94–95, 161, 168, 172 Avenir , 160 Bahia, 16, 46, 126, 163, 176 Salvador, 50, 127 Ballets Suèdois, 42, 172 Bandeira, Manuel, 50, 87 , 127, 168 Baroque, 23, 93, 165 Barr, Alfred H. modern art diagram, 18, 18 Barrio, Artur, 90 Bataille, Georges, 25n4, 89 bathers, 40–42, 43–44, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52n15, 53n20, 53n23, 53n38 Beatriz (Tarsila’s granddaughter), 128, 129, 165 Belting, Hans, 93 Bernardelli, Félix, Henrique, and Rodolfo, 157, 157n4, 161 Bethânia, Maria, 96 Blanchard, Maria, 170 Bopp, Raul, 168, 169 Cobra Norato , 127, 148 , 168 response to/titling of Abaporu , 51, 84, 127, 163, 168, 170 Boss, Homer, 86 Brabo, Albert, 155, 156n1 Brancusi, Constantin, 42, 42 , 43, 50, 53n33, 126, 156, 160, 172 Brummer Gallery exhibition, 127, 146 Kiss , The , 42, 127 White Negress , 42, 42 Braque, Georges, 41, 155, 158 Brasilidade, 16, 20, 23, 50, 156n4, 161, 170 Brazil independence of, 39, 165n13, 177 modernism in, 39, 51, 85, 86, 88, 89, 95, 97n24, 125 modernity in, 85, 86–87, 88, 90, 98n27 slavery in, 46, 88, 94, 125, 172 Brecheret, Victor, 50–51, 94, 125, 126, 128, 155, 156n2 Brinton, Christian, 16 Brum, Blanca Luz, 128 Bruno, Giordano, 96 Buarque, Chico, 162, 165n1 caboclo, 46, 54n48, 95, 156, 156n6
Cabral, Pedro Álvares, 47 caipira , 46, 47, 54n48, 126, 156, 156n6, 160, 166, 167 caipirinha , 33, 38, 44, 46, 52n1, 97n12, 140, 141 Caldas, Waltercio, 20, 21, 90 Tarsilas , 20 Camargo, Clóvis, 148 Camargo, Maria Penteado, 148 Campos, Haroldo de, 90–91 Cândido Ferreira, João (De Chocolat), 156, 157n2 cannibalism, 17, 25n4, 38, 50, 51, 55n68, 84–99, 168 artistic/cultural, 17, 38, 50, 90 Caraíban, 176, 177 Carnival, 47–48, 51, 54n53, 63, 93, 126, 174, 175, 176 Carvalho, Flávio de, 148 Carvalho, Ronald de, 125 Casa Modernista, 128 Cavalcanti, Emiliano Di, 125, 128, 155, 156n4, 169, 172 Celso Martinez Corrêa, José, 21, 86, 89, 90 Cendrars, Blaise, 40, 41, 42, 47, 49, 53n22, 53n26, 54n65, 99n58, 126, 127, 155, 160, 167, 168, 172, 173, 174 Anthologie nègre , 40, 42, 53n26 Création du monde and, 42, 172 Feuilles de route , 47, 48, 48 , 49, 54n56, 60 , 61, 69 , 71, 72 , 74 , 75 , 127, 138 , 168 trip to Brazil (1924), 47, 48, 126, 167, 168, 170, 172 César, Osório, 128 Cézanne, Paul, 172, 174 Bathers, 40, 40, 52n15 Large Bathers , The , 40, 40 legacy of, 18, 23, 40–41, 46, 51, 52n11, 53n20, 155, 158, 159, 174 Tarsila’s apartment as the former studio of, 39, 52n11, 125, 165, 171 Vollard as collector of, 40, 52n15, 126, 172 Chateaubriand, Assis, 18, 19, 168, 170, 170n4, 171, 173n2 Chirico, Giorgio de, 160, 173 Clark, Lygia, 20, 21, 84–85, 86, 89 Baba antropofágica , 85, 85 , 86 psychoanalysis of, 84, 97n2 Cocteau, Jean, 126, 155, 160, 162, 165, 171, 172 coffee, 16, 86, 125, 128, 164, 172 Cogniat, Raymond, 161, 168, 172 Colombia, 19 colonialism, 23, 25n4, 47, 48, 50, 52n2, 85, 126, 161, 173n4 Other and, 17, 41
Index
187
Corinth, Lovis, 86 Correio da Manhã
interview with Tarsila, 46, 126, 155–56, 170 “Manifesto of Pau-Brasil Poetry,” 126, 174–75 Costa, Gal, 86 Costa, Osvaldo, 168, 169 Courbet, Gustave, 40 Crémieux, Benjamin, 172 Crítica
interview with Tarsila, 128, 161 Cubism, 23, 38–39, 41, 46, 91, 92, 125, 126, 155, 156, 157, 157n3, 158, 160, 165, 167, 170, 171, 173 as “military service,” 40, 52n16, 156, 159, 160, 170 Tarsila’s “post-Cubism,” 94 Dada, 25n4, 38, 125, 171 Tzara’s naming of, 51, 55n68 Damas Filho, João, 169, 170 Damisch, Hubert, 88, 98n34 Dantas, Júlio, 160, 160n3 David, Jacques-Louis, 40 Debret, Jean-Baptiste, 50, 51 Indian Village in Cantagalo , 48 Delaunay, Robert, 41, 50, 128, 172 Champs de Mars: The Red Tower ,
53n33, 126 Delaunay, Sonia, 128, 172 Derain, André, 41, 42 Derrida, Jacques, 93, 94 Diário da Noite
interview with Tarsila, 127, 158 Diário de São Paulo , 164, 169 Tarsila’s articles in, 40, 41, 53n21, 97n3, 125, 126, 129, 173n4 Dias, Antonio, 20 Dias, Cícero, 128, 169 Duarte, Benedito Portrait of Tarsila do Amaral , 140 Duchamp, Marcel, 24 Dürer, Albrecht Melancholy I , 84, 85 Eckhout, Albert Tapuya Woman, 96
Eichbauer, Hélio, 86 staging of O rei da vela , 21, 22 , 89, 90 Elpons, George, 99n64, 125, 162, 169 Errázuriz, Eugenia, 158, 158n1, 172 Europe Modernism in, 23, 44 Tarsila’s trips to, 125, 127, 158, 165, 169 Exposicão de arte moderna , 129 Exposicão geral de belas artes , 125
188
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Exposition Colonial, Marseilles, 422 Exposition d’Art Américain-Latin, 126 Falla, Manuel de, 172, 173n5 Farkou, Yvette, 42 fazendas, 19, 46, 48, 49, 97n12, 164, 165, 165n10 Santa Teresa do Alto, 50, 125, 127, 167 Santo Antônio, 127, 135 São Bernardo, 46, 86, 97n12, 125, 164 Sertão, 62, 125, 127 Fédida, Pierre, 84, 85, 97n2 Ferraz de Almeida Júnior, José, 50 The Guitar Player , 50 , 54n61 Ferraz Gonçalves, Benedito Geraldo, 128, 163–64, 165n9, 169 Fierens, Paul, 92 Foujita, Tsuguharu, 126 France, 18, 19, 23, 39, 42, 43, 48, 88, 155, 157, 162, 163, 165, 172, 173n4 Futurism, 38–39, 52n8, 125, 141, 155, 157, 161, 166, 174, 175 Gago Coutinho, Carlos Viegas, 163, 165n5 Galerie Dru, 41 Galerie Percier Tarsila’s first exhibition (1926), 18, 49, 54n65, 92, 127, 140 , 141, 158, 160n6, 167–68, 172 Tarsila’s second exhibition (1928), 18, 49, 127, 150, 158 Galerie Pigalle, 52n15 Gauguin, Paul, 41–42, 53n24 Arearea , 41, 53n37 Gauthier, Maximilien, 127, 168, 172 Gazette du Brésil, 49, 158 Géo-Charles, 128 Gil, Gilberto, 86, 89, 162, 165n1 Gleizes, Albert, 53n33, 126, 155, 156, 160, 170, 171 Tarsila’s studies with, 41, 53n22, 91, 126, 167, 170, 171 Goerg, Édouard-Joseph, 155, 156n1 Gombrich, Ernst, 93 Good Neighbor Policy, 16, 25n2 Graça Aranha, José Pereira da, 87 , 125, 169, 170, 170n2, 171 Great Depression, 23 Grenoble Museum, 127, 158 Gris, Juan, 126, 156, 160, 166, 173 Grupo dos Cinco (Group of Five), 39, 94, 94, 125, 160n4, 169, 171 Guimarães Rosa, João, 162, 165n2 Herkenhoff, Paulo, 91, 94–95, 98n34 Houénou, Kojo Tovalou (Marc Tovalou Quénum), 172, 173n4
Impressionism, 23, 38, 125, 155, 159, 160, 162, 169, 170, 174 Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, 40, 41 Italy, 155, 156n2 Tarsila’s trips to, 54n45, 126, 127 Itupeva, 50, 125 Jacob, Max, 169, 170 Jameson, Fredric, 97n24 Journal des débats , 92 Kahlo, Frida, 19 Klaxon, 125, 134 , 170n2 Krishnamurti, 169, 170 Kubitschek, Juscelino, 129 Kvapil, Charles, 155, 156n1 La Création du monde , 42, 43, 172
landscapes anthropophagic, 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 Brazilian, 46, 91, 156, 168 “Impressionist and Dadaist,” 38, 125 Lane, Eileen, 42 Laplanche, Jean, 90, 98n34 Larbaud, Valery, 171, 172 L’Art vivant, 158 Latin America, 16, 18, 19, 21, 25nn2–3, 47, 50, 54n65, 89, 126 Léger, Fernand, 42–43, 50, 53n28, 53n33, 126, 155, 156, 160, 164, 172 La Création du monde and, 42, 43 Still Life , 91 Tarsila’s studies with, 41, 54n45, 84, 91, 97n3, 126, 167, 170, 171 Legrain, Pierre frames for Tarsila’s paintings, 18–19, 92–93, 93, 94, 95, 99nn58–59, 99n63, 127, 160, 160n6, 168 Leirner, Nelson, 20 Le Journal , 92, 158 Le Temps , 160 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 85, 88, 97n10, 98n32 Lhote, André, 42, 53n33, 126, 156, 160, 166, 172 Tarsila’s studies with, 40, 91, 125, 155, 157n3, 167, 170, 171 Lobato, Monteiro, 88, 162, 163, 165n3 Lombroso, Cesare La donna delinquente , 44, 44 Lyotard, Jean-François, 24 macumba , 158, 158n2
Maiolino, Anna Maria, 20, 21, 89 Maison de l’Amérique Latine, 126 Malfatti, Anita, 19, 38, 86, 88, 94, 125, 128, 155, 162, 163, 164, 165n3
Grupo dos Cinco and, 94, 94, 125, 169, 171 Stupid Woman, The , 86 Mantovani, Oreste, 125 Maran, René, 172, 173n13 Maré, Rolf de, 42, 172 Marxism, 20, 23, 86, 128 Matisse, Henri, 4 Mendes, Murilo, 168, 169 Mexico, 19, 97n8 Middle East, 48, 127 Milhaud, Darius, 42, 53n27, 172 Milliet, Sérgio, 21, 125, 129, 155, 156n5, 166n1, 172 Minas Gerais, 47, 51, 126, 135 , 170 Belo Horizonte, 47, 129 Cataguases, 50, 51 Congonhas do Campo, 47, 167 Lagoa Santa, 47, 78, 126, 127, 158n1, 173n1 Ouro Preto, 47, 67, 126, 167, 170 Sabará, 47, 67, 126, 167, 170 São João del Rei, 47, 167 Tiradentes, 47, 167, 170 Miranda, Carmen, 16, 16, 17 Modernism, 17, 24, 38, 40, 86, 87, 93, 97n8, 125, 157n3, 159, 160, 170, 171 Brazilian, 39, 51, 85, 86, 88, 89, 95, 97n24, 125 European, 23, 44 modernity, 23, 42, 84, 85, 86–87, 89, 94–95, 96, 97–98n24, 97n8 Brazilian, 85, 86–87, 88, 90, 98n27 Montaigne, Michel de, 88, 89, 96, 176 Montoya, Antonio Ruiz de, 84, 163, 165n8 Morand, Paul, 155 Moreira, Álvaro, 168, 169 Moscow, 128, 158, 170 Movimento brasileiro , 128 murals, 47, 50, 129, 167 Musée de l’Homme, Paris, 50 Musée Galliera, Paris, 126 Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, 129 Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, 21, 52n4, 129 Museum of Western Art, Moscow, 128 Museu Nacional de Belas-Artes, Rio de Janeiro, 129 New York Times , 17
North America, 16, 83, 98n30 Tarsila’s belated reception in, 16, 17, 19–20, 23 Novaes, Guiomar, 125 Nunes, Benedito, 85, 88, 89 Oiticica, Hélio, 20, 21, 21, 24, 85, 86, 90, 94
O Jornal , 170
article on Tarsila, 19 interviews with/article by Tarsila, 127, 128, 156–57, 159–60 Old Masters, 40 Other, the, 17, 41–42 Palace Hotel Tarsila’s exhibitions at, 128, 151, 161 Palacete Glória, 128 Palácio das Indústrias, 125 Papapetros, Spyros, 93 Pape, Lygia, 20, 21, 24, 25n19, 89 Pará, 50 Para Todos , 127 Paris, 18, 19–20, 23, 40–41, 42, 42 , 43, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52n11, 53n22, 53n33, 54n47, 54n56, 54n65, 84, 86, 91, 96, 97n3, 97n12, 97n16, 99n64, 99n68, 126, 127, 128, 129, 141, 146, 155, 156n2, 156n4, 160, 166, 169, 173n4 A Negra’s completion in, 38, 49, 94, 168 Tarsila’s 1922/23 trip to, 23, 38, 39, 41, 88, 94, 125, 168, 170 Tarsila’s descriptions/recollections of, 125, 129, 156–57, 158, 160, 162–65, 166–67, 169, 171–73 Tarsila’s exhibitions in, 51, 92, 93, 94, 126, 128, 140 , 141, 150, 156, 158, 159, 160, 160n6, 161, 167–68, 170 Tarsila’s first sojourn in (1920), 19–20, 94 Paris-Midi , 160 Paternostro, Júlio, 169 Patou, Jean, 52n1 paulista , 141, 160n1, 164 Paulista Rebellion, 127 Pawlowski, Gaston de, 49, 92, 158, 168, 172 Pedrosa, Mário, 95, 98n27 Pellerin, Auguste, 40 Penteado, Olívia Guedes, 47, 50, 53n33, 54n53, 125, 148, 149, 167, 170 Pereira de Sousa, Washington Luís, 164, 165n11 Picabia, Francis, 25n4, 55n68, 89, 99n63 Picasso, Pablo, 42, 53n33, 99n63, 126, 155, 156, 160, 171, 172 Seated Nude Drying Off Her Foot , 41, 41, 53n22 Tarsila’s visit with (1923), 41, 53nn22–23, 125, 165, 172 Picchia, Menotti del, 125, 160, 160n4, 168, 171 Grupo dos Cinco and, 39, 94, 94 , 125, 160n4, 169 Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 128 Pirapora, 172, 173n10
Plato, 96 poetry Concrete, 90 Pau-Brasil, 168, 174–75 Poiret, Paul, 52n1 Tarsila as the “caipirinha dressed by Poiret,” 38, 44, 52n1, 86, 97n12, 140 , 141 Portugal, 39, 160, 165n13, 171, 176 Tarsila’s trip to, 39, 53n38, 125 Post, Frans Rio São Francisco and Fort Morits , The 91, 92 Post-Impressionism, 23 Poussin, Nicolas, 41, 92 Prado, Paulo, 52n11, 87 , 125, 126, 127, 155, 156n5, 163, 165, 168, 171, 172 Prédio Glória, Tarsila’s exhibition in, 128, 151
primitivism, 23, 41, 42, 43, 44, 55n68 Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre, 41 Quignard, Pascal, 87, 89 Raynal, Maurice, 92, 94, 168, 172 Recife, 50, 156n4 Rego Monteiro, Vicente do, 54n63, 94, 125, 128, 155, 156n4 Remon, Georges, 49 Renard, Émile, 99n64, 125, 169 Renoir, Pierre-Auguste, 52n15, 53n23, 125, 164 Vollard as collector of, 52n15, 126, 172 Reverón, Armando, 19 Revista de Antropofagia , 127, 168, 169, 169n2, 170 “Manifesto of Anthropophagy,” 127, 176–77 Revolution of 1930, 128 Rezende, José Severiano de, 49, 158 Rezende, Pola, 129 Ribeiro, José Fléxa Pinto, 161, 161n1 Ribeiro, Leo Gilson interview with Tarsila, 162–64 Rio de Janeiro, 46, 47, 64 , 126, 127, 128, 129, 157n2, 161 Olympics, 18 Tarsila’s exhibitions in, 20, 21, 49, 128, 129, 151 Rivera, Diego, 19 Rocha, Antônio Geraldo, 156, 157n1 Rodrigues, José Wasth, 50 Roerich Museum, 128 Romain, Jules, 155, 171–72 Romoff, Serge, 128, 168, 172 Roosevelt, Franklin, D., 25n2 Rosenberg, Léonce, 43, 46, 126, 127, 173
Index
189
Rosenberg, Paul, 53nn22–23 Rousseau, Henri, 53n23, 125, 166, 172, 176
Tavares Ferro, António Joaquim, 160, 160n7, 168, 171, 172
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 129
Teatro Municipal, 86
Rugendas, Johann Moritz, 50, 54n61
Teatro Oficina, 21, 22
Praia Rodriguez, near Rio de Janeiro , 49 Russian Constructivism, 99n68 Russian Formalism, 91 Russia/Soviet Union, 18, 86, 156 Tarsila’s trip to (1931), 21, 128
Teatro Rialto, 156 Teles de Castro e Quadros Ferro, Maria Fernanda, 160, 160n7 Thiollier, René, 47, 87, 126, 167, 170 Tiradentes, 165, 165n13 Torres-Garcia, Joaquín, 19, 97n8
Sacharoff, Olga Nicolaevna, 155, 156n1
tourism, 16, 54n53, 176
Salão de Maio, 129
Tropicália, 20, 24, 86, 89, 90, 91, 94, 165n1
Salgado, Plínio, 168
Tunga, 20, 21, 89
Salmon, André, 172
Tupi-Guarani, 51, 84, 127, 165n8
Salon d’Automne, 126, 155
Tzara, Tristan, 25n4, 51, 55n68
Salon de la Société des Artistes Français, 38, 125 Salon des Surindépendants, 128 Salon du Franc, 127, 158 Salzstein, Sônia, 86, 87, 97n21, 98n34
United States, 16, 17, 39 stock market crash, 20, 128 Tarsila’s group exhibitions in, 25n3 Uruguay, 19, 97n8, 128
Santa María, Andrés de, 19 Santos-Dumont, Alberto, 125
Vargas, Getúlio, 23, 128, 129
São Paulo, 18, 21, 23, 39, 46, 48, 49, 50,
Vauxcelles, Louis, 168, 172, 173n11
84, 86, 88, 94, 96, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 155, 156nn2–3, 159, 160, 162–63, 164, 165, 168, 169, 170, 177 Biennial, 21–22, 129 Tarsila’s solo exhibition in (1929), 20, 49, 128, 159, 170 Satie, Erik, 126, 159, 171
Veja Tarsila interview in, 25n12, 162–65 Veloso, Caetano, 21, 24, 86, 89, 90, 96, 97n13, 97n18, 162, 165n1 Venezuela, 19 Venice, 126 Venice Biennial, 129
Segall, Lasar, 86
vernacular art/sources, 16, 23, 46, 50
Semana de Arte Moderna, 23, 43, 48, 86,
Villa-Lobos, Heitor, 50–51, 125, 155,
87, 87 , 88, 90, 98n24, 98n27, 125, 129, 133 , 156n2, 156n4, 162, 169, 171 Tarsila’s absence from, 39, 88, 94 Serna Puig, Ramón Gómez de la, 172, 173n5 Silva Brito, Mário da, 93
159, 165, 172, 173n1 Virgil, 41 Visconti, Eliseu d’Angelo, 161, 161n2 Vogue Paris, 127, 158 Vollard, Ambroise, 40, 42, 52n15, 53n24, 53n37, 126, 172
Silva Teles, Francisco da, 168 Silva Telles, Carolina, 148
Waldemar-George, 169, 170, 172
Silva Telles, Gofredo Teixeira da, 47, 87 ,
Warchavchik, Gregori, 128
126, 167, 170
Warnod, André, 168, 172
Siqueiros, David Alfaro, 128
Wiéner, Jean, 172, 173n7
slaves/slavery, 88, 164
World War I, 41, 173n4
A Negra and, 49, 54n57, 89, 94, 95,
World War II, 87
98n36, 165, 165n14 in Brazil, 46, 88, 94, 125, 172
Zadig, William, 125
social realism, 21, 128
Zervos, Christian, 168, 172
Sousa, Cláudio de, 127
Zilio, Carlos, 86, 94, 97n16, 98n34
Sousa Lima, João de, 155, 156n3, 172 Souza Dantas, Luis Martins de, 125 Spain, 173n5 Tarsila’s trip to (1923), 39, 53n38, 125 Stravinsky, Igor, 159, 172, 173n 3, 174 Supervielle, Jules, 155, 158, 158n1, 172 Surrealism, 25n5, 51, 92, 160, 169, 172, 173, 173n5, 176
190
Tarsila do Amaral
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS
Every effort has been made to identify,
Photography by Jaime Acioli: p. 17, fig. 2;
contact, and acknowledge copyright
pls. 3, 4, 7, 8, 13, 25, 27, 49, 53, 54, 57,
holders for all reproductions; additional
58, 59, 69, 70, 76, 81, 82. Photography by
rights ho lders are encouraged to contact
Diego Bresani: pl. 6. Photography by
the Art Institute of Chicago Department
Rômulo and Valentino Fialdini: p. 17, fig. 4;
of Publishing. The following credits apply
p. 19, fig. 8; p. 21, fig. 10; p. 39, figs. 1–2;
to all images that appear in this catalogue
p. 45, fig. 11; p. 50, fig. 16; p. 87, figs. 4–5;
for which acknowledgment is due.
p. 89, fig. 6; pls. 2, 5, 9, 11–12, 14–17, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 31–33, 35, 46–48, 50,
All works by Tarsila do Amaral are
52, 54–56, 60, 62, 72–75, 77–79, 83–88,
© Tarsila do Amaral Licenciamentos.
91–94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 103, 107–115. Photography by Robert Gerhardt: pl. 79.
© 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New
Photography by Sergio Guerini: p. 17,
York / ADAGP, Paris © CNAC / MNAM /
fig. 3; pls. 1, 51. Photography by Andrew
Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource,
Kemp: pl. 56. Photography by Robert
NY: p. 42, fig. 8. © bpk Bildagen tur /
Lifson and Jonathan Mathias, Department
Museum Berggruen, Nationalgalerie
of Imaging, Art Institute of Chicago: pl. 71.
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Jens Ziehe /
Photography by Gustavo Lowry: pl. 55.
Art Resource, NY: p. 41, fig. 5. © Bridge-
Photography by Eileen Travell: pl. 68.
man Images: p. 40, fig. 4. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY: pls. 89, 93, 104. © Musée de Grenoble: pl. 44. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY, photography by Hervé Lewandowski: p. 41, fig. 6. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY, photography by Georges Meguerditchian: p. 42, fig. 7. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY, photography by Franck Raux: p. 92, fig. 10. Courtesy Professor Marcia Rizzutto, Professor Paulo Costa, and Professor Nemitala Added, Instituto de Física da Universidade de São Paulo: p. 45, fig. 12.
Photography Credits
191
