Arthur Luiz Piza: A Gravura de Arthur Luiz Piza

This exhibition presents for the first time a set of 137 prints edited and donated to Pinacoteca by Arthur Luiz Piza (b. 1928, São Paulo), one of the most important names in Brazilian contemporary art.

A Gravura de Arthur Luiz Piza [The Engraving of Arthur Luiz Pisa] establishes a panorama of the artist’s graphical production, starting with his first experimentations from 1952. In the first room, the visitors can find works that explore the use of etching, aquatint and the action of the acids on the copper plates. These pieces are still figurative and make some references to Surrealism. Yet, in other prints from the same period, Piza already combined lines and abstract forms.

The second room holds his abstract production with geometrical forms created from the 1960s onwards, a development influenced by the artistic scenario of that time. Curator Carlos Martins points that, in this phase, the images grow in scale, many times occupying all the surface of the paper. “The use of intense colours and embossed textures, thoroughly engraved, bestows to Piza’s prints a singular and unmistakable vocabulary, which also indicated to the artist possibilities for his work in collage, painting, intaglio and sculpture”. 

The exhibition takes place on the third floor of Estação Pinacoteca, where is also located the Gabinete de Gravura [Engraving Cabinet] Guita e José Mindlin