This anonymous article reports on the painter Lasar Segall’s second trip to Brazil, when he settled in São Paulo. Segall is described as “a confirmed expressionist” and an “ardent supporter of the modern art movement” which, according to the anonymous author, is “a logical trend for the spirit to pursue.” The writer adds: “The result appears deformed because it conflicts with the reality of things (…), taking from them nothing but the elements required to express what the artist experiences and feels.” 

The Lithuanian painter, printmaker, and sculptor Lasar Segall (1891–1957) was strongly influenced by movements such as impressionism, expressionism, and modernism. His works often portrayed human suffering, war, persecution, and prostitution. On his first visit to Brazil, in 1912, he exhibited his work in São Paulo and in Campinas. He returned in January 1924, when he arrived in Puerto de Santos with his wife, Margarete, and very shortly afterward came in contact with modernist artists in what became his new home. The modernists regularly gathered there, and though Segall continued to live and exhibit in Brazil he also traveled to Europe on occasion, where he also showed his work. He became a Brazilian citizen in 1927 and spent the rest of his life there. His experience in Brazil influenced his main subject matter, and he portrayed the white-slave trade in the red light district of Rio de Janeiro in paintings that were increasingly Cubist in style. His work became controversial as he illustrated sex workers and the suffering of the people.  

This article appeared in Novíssima, a magazine devoted to literature and politics (as seen from a nationalist perspective) that was distributed in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in 1923–24. It was directed by the journalist, poet, and literary critic Cassiano Ricardo (1895–1974) and the journalist, attorney, writer, and poet Francisco Pati (1898–1970).