Gravura e Modernidade: A Gravura Brasileira dos Anos 1920 aos Anos 1960

The exhibition presents 201 prints by 54 artists, thus creating a broad panorama of the production of prints during the first years of modernity in Brazil. It is the result of a research that has been developed for years with the collection of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, that comprehends more than three thousand engravings.

The curator Carlos Martins selected works created between the 1920s and 60s, when the new perspectives for the country, symbolized by the inauguration of Brasília, and the multiple paths that modern art proposed caused clashes that went far beyond those between figuration and abstraction. The Modernism from the 1920s and its ulterior developments stimulated the production of engravings, that becomes a usual practice in Brazilian art, not only contributing with the increase of the existing repertoire, but also with the diffusion of visual arts in a moment of increased urbanization and industrialization.

One of the exhibition’s highlights is the presentation of eight images by Oswaldo Goeldi (1895 – 1961) created as illustrations for Jorge Amado’s “Mar Morto”. These post-mortem editions from 1967 come from the last matrix made by the artist. The rewarded engravings by Lívio Abramo (1903 – 1992, Brazil) that “Pelo Sertão”, by Afonso Arinos, are also part of the show. This work granted him the prize Trip Abroad of the Salão Nacional in 1950.

The exhibition is presented at the Gabinete de Gravura [Engraving Cabinet] Guita e José Mindlin, an exclusive space for prints on the third floor of Estação Pinacoteca.