Some three-quarters of a century ago, my mother-in-law accompanied a friend on a visit to a coffee plantation in the interior of São Paulo. While there, they visited a family she’d never met before, and has never seen since, but has always had good cause to remember. Because their home was filled with paintings by a young nephew named Candido Portinari.
Portinari, the son of immigrant laborers from Veneto, Italy had been born on that very plantation.
He went on to become one of the two leading Brazilian artists of his generation (the other being Di Cavalcanti, five years his senior).
Classified as a neo-realist, the range and scope of Portinari’s work is remarkable.
It includes images of childhood…
…paintings depicting labor…
…refugees fleeing the hardships of Brazil's rural north-east...
…treatments of key events in Brazilian history…
…portraits of members of his family…
…and leading Brazilian intellectuals…
…even book illustrations…
…and decorative tiles.
At the United Nations Building in New York, you can also admire his enormous panels Guerra e Paz (War and Peace).
Not, however, as of this writing, because they happen to be in Brazil for restoration.
Like some other countries proud of their painters (France and the Netherlands come immediately to mind) the government once saw fit to honor him by putting his image on the currency.
And these are the images of him, that Brazilians will most readily recognize.
Of Portinari, it can truly be said he gave his life to his art.
He died in Rio de Janeiro, in 1962, of lead poisoning contracted from his paints.
Wow. He's a remarkably eclectic artist. So many different styles. Did he do them simultaneously, or did he go more through phases, like Picasso?
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