The artist Paulo Bruscky refers to the remarkable graphic arts tradition in Recife—in the state of Pernambuco, in northeastern Brazil—as he describes in great detail the drawings produced in this area during the twentieth century. He takes a close look at the work of Vicente do Rego Monteiro in many illustrated magazines, books, and chap books, among which he singles out Renovação magazine. Bruscky mentions the meticulously produced issues of Revista do Norte, which also published books such as the Modernist work Catimbó, by Ascenso Ferreira, illustrated by Joaquim Cardozo—the artist and civil engineer who designed some of Oscar Niemayer’s projects. Bruscky, who is always exploring the work of artists from Recife, highlights Cardozo’s typographic engineering and the impeccable, seamless book by the poet João Cabral de Melo Neto.      

A native of Recife, the artist Paulo Bruscky (b. 1949) started his career in the late 1960s, when he was involved in the international postal art or mail-art movement. He took part in Fluxus exhibitions in various parts of the world, and owns an enormous collection of the movement’s work. More recently he has done performance art and produced works in new media. His work reflects his constant involvement with his city and the art produced there; he was deeply involved in documenting the production of “artist editions.” Most recently, The Bronx Museum of the Arts presented Paulo Bruscky: Art Is Our Last Hope (New York, September 2013–April 2014), his first one-man show in the United States. He uses ephemeral material, such as Xerox copies, faxes, letter-sized sheets of paper, and tracing paper to give shape or form to his critical-political messages. During the height of the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964–85), he achieved a measure of notoriety by performing a violent act—Enterro aquático (1972)—with which he challenged the regime’s repression and its cultural censorship: he wrote the word “ARTE” on a coffin and threw it into the Capibaribe, the river that flows through Recife.       

See the ICAA digital archive for the document referring to Vicente do Rego Monteiro, one of the authors mentioned by Bruscky, written by the sociologist Gilberto Freyre, who visited him in his Paris studio: “Notas a lapis sobre um pintor indiferente” [doc. no. 785071]; and another by the same author that mentions Rego Monteiro’s work at the Revista do Norte, entitled “Os últimos trabalhos de Vicente do Rego Monteiro” [doc. no. 1075374].