Arte no Brasil: Uma História na Pinacoteca de São Paulo

This long-term exhibition occupies eleven rooms in the second floor of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo with about 500 works from the museum’s collection, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs by fundamental artists for Brazilian art history until the 1930s, such as Debret (1768 – 1848, France), Facchinetti (1824, Italy – 1900, Brazil), Almeida Júnior (1850 – 1899, Brazil), Eliseu Visconti (1866, Italy – 1944, Brazil), Pedro Alexandrino (1856 – 1942, Brazil), Candido Portinari (1903 – 1962, Brazil), Lasar Segall (1891, Lithuania – 1957, Brazil), and others.

Two thematic axes organize the exhibition and are essential for the constitution and understanding of the development of artistic practices in the country. By the one hand, there’s the ensemble of images about Brazil and the senses created by such works; on the other, the formation of a system of arts in the country – teaching, production, market, critique and museums –, which began with the French Artistic Mission and the creation of the Fine Arts Royal Academy. Revolving around these axes, the exhibition Arte no Brasil: Uma História na Pinacoteca de São Paulo [Art in Brazil: A History at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo] aims to offer a comprehensive reading of the constitution of an art system and the formation of an artistic visuality in Brazil from the colonial period until the mid-1930s.