In this text, José Valladares reviews the show of work by Carlos Frederico Bastos held at the Public Library in the city of Salvador, state of Bahia. Valladares points out the diversity of the work on exhibit, which attests to the experimental character of this artist at the beginning of his career. The author asserts that this event is important as one of the first exhibitions with Modern spirit to take place in this region of Brazil. Valladares compares individual works in the exhibition to works by Brazilian Modern artists like Alberto da Veiga Guignard, and by foreign artists like Pablo Picasso and Henry Matisse. Valladares explains that the show consists mainly of drawings and figurative sketches.

In the forties, painter and draftsman Carlos Frederico Bastos (1925–2004)—along with Mário Cravo Jr. and Genaro de Carvalho—was a leading figure in a modernist movement that radically transformed the cultural milieu in the state of Bahia. His production applied Modern art’s techniques and aesthetics to the themes of the landscape and culture of Bahia. Similarly, critic José Valladares was an important figure in Salvador, the capital of Bahia, in the forties and fifties.

Journalist and critic José [Antonio do Prado] Valladares (1917–59) had a background in museology. He was the director of the Museu do Estado da Bahia (1939–43) and gave classes in aesthetics at the Universidade da Bahia, founded under that name in 1946 and later renamed the Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBa). He also wrote reviews in the local press. In some cases, he was the first critic to discuss the work of young artists who were introducing Modern art to the region.

[For other texts by José Valladares, see in the ICAA digital archive “Arte moderna na Bahia” (doc. no. 1110845); “Movimento artístico bahiano” (doc. no. 1110700); “O salão bahiano I: visitantes e instalação” (doc. no. 1110847); “O anjo azul” (doc. no. 1110844); “Realismo e abstracionismo” (doc. no. 1110848); on Mário Cravo Jr., “Surge um escultor” (doc. no. 1110701); and on Poty Lazzarotto, “As gravuras de Poty” (doc. no. 1110846)].