Retrato da Arte Moderna do Brasil (1947) was the first book published by Lourival Gomes Machado (1917–67), and also the first by a member of the group of critics at the magazine Clima, journal about modernism in the city of São Paul (see “Semana de Arte Moderna, 1922” [doc no. 781791]). In the 1940s, with the help of colleagues at the Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras da Universidade de São Paulo, he founded the magazine that became synonymous with the group that was influenced by modernist ideas, and particularly by the critical thinking of Mário de Andrade (1893–1945). Following the publication of Retrato da Arte Moderna do Brasil, Gomes Machado began studying baroque examples and cities in Brazil.
Lourival Gomes Machado was a journalist, art critic, and art historian. In 1941 he joined forces with intellectuals such as Antonio Candido, Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes, and Décio de Almeida Prado to publish Clima (São Paulo), a magazine designed to promote a renewal in the fields of Brazilian literary, cinema, and theater criticism. During that decade he was the art critic at the newspaper Folha da Manhã and covered world politics as a columnist at O Estado de S. Paulo. When the Belgian curator Léon Degand quit his job, Gomes Machado took his place as Director of the MAM/SP (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo) (1949?51). His best-known work, Barroco Mineiro (1969), is a collection of articles on the subject, a project he began in 1953 with Teorias do Barroco.
As complementary reading to this article, see another essay by Gomes Machado in which he analyzes the creation of Brazilian modern art in “O outro cavalo de Troia” [doc. no. 1110724].