She Led Latin American Art in a New Direction
Some artists are so iconic, they’re known by only one name: Brancusi, Léger, Tarsila. Wait, who? The painter Tarsila do Amaral is so famous in her native Brazil that forty-three years after her death she helped close out the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, when a projected pattern of red-orange-yellow arcs graced the stadium floor, an homage to her 1929 painting “Setting Sun.” That chimerical landscape—stylized sunset above tubular cacti and a herd of capybaras that shape-shift into boulders—hangs now at moma, in the artist’s first-ever museum exhibition in the U.S., “Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil.” (It’s on view until June 3.)
Introducing New York to the First Brazilian Modernist
Some artists are so iconic, they’re known by only one name: Brancusi, Léger, Tarsila. Wait, who? The painter Tarsila do Amaral is so famous in her native Brazil that forty-three years after her death she helped close out the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, when a projected pattern of red-orange-yellow arcs graced the stadium floor, an homage to her 1929 painting “Setting Sun.” That chimerical landscape—stylized sunset above tubular cacti and a herd of capybaras that shape-shift into boulders—hangs now at moma, in the artist’s first-ever museum exhibition in the U.S., “Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil.” (It’s on view until June 3.)
CBS NEWS
Tarsila, the "Picasso of Brazil"
Now on display in New York after a run in Chicago: the work of a Brazilian artist Faith Salie says North Americans need to know ...
In her native country, Brazil, all you need to say is her first name: Tarsila.
"For Brazilians, her recognition is kind of off the charts," said James Rondeau, the director of the Art Institute of Chicago, recent home to an exhibit of Tarsila's work. "She is the Picasso of Brazil." But in the United States, artist Tarsila do Amaral is virtually unknown. Salie asked, "Why hasn't there been an exhibition devoted to her until now? "It's a difficult question to answer in some ways, right?" Rondeaus aid. "We're facing issues of geography; we're facing issues of gender. So, I think this exhibition aims to be a corrective, both in terms of recognition for Tarsila's work, but also in terms of how we understand the story of modernism."
CAETANO VELOSO
NO MOMA
Join us for an in-depth conversation with legendary performer, writer, and political activist Caetano Veloso about the legacy of Tarsila do Amaral. An internationally renowned Brazilian pop singer, Veloso was a leading figure of Tropicália, a movement that contributed to the rediscovery of do Amaral’s work in the 1970s. The discussion is moderated by Luis Pérez-Oramas, curator of the MoMA exhibition "Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil."
TV GLOBO
“I want to be the painter of my country,” wrote Tarsila do Amaral (1886–1973) in 1923. Born at the end of the 19th century to a family of coffee plantation owners in São Paulo, Tarsila―as she is affectionately known in Brazil―studied piano, sculpture, and drawing before leaving for Paris in 1920 to attend the Académie Julian, the famous art school that drew many international students. During subsequent sojourns in the French capital, she studied with André Lhote, Albert Gleizes, and Fernand Léger, fulfilling what she called her "military service in Cubism," ultimately arriving at her signature style of sensuous, vibrant landscapes and everyday scenes.
All that might change in the coming months thanks to the enchanting, eye-opening new exhibit, “Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil,” which runs through Jan. 7, 2018, at the Art Institute of Chicago and will then move to New York’s Museum of Modern Art in February.
A visit to the Art Institute’s Modern Wing, where the show now brightens the walls with more than 120 paintings, drawings, and historical documents (scrapbooks, photographs, letters, book illustrations) from the 1920s — the artist’s most productive, game-changing period — proves to be both a revelation and a pure smile-inducing pleasure. Credited as the painter who most fully “achieved Brazilian aspirations for nationalistic expression in a modern style,” the artist, who is referred to by her first name, is a brilliant colorist with a wonderfully whimsical turn of mind. And while her work is beloved in her native Brazil, where she is considered a major force in 20th century modernism, it has been all but unknown in North America, at least until now.
