In this text, Paul Ferdinand Schmidt emphasizes a certain “pessimistic tone” as a constant in the work of Segall. As he sees it, the artist’s “creative fatalism” acquires “a fairly specific expression and transcendent feelings.” The writer acknowledges the “dazzling” chromatic range of the artist’s Brazilian period, noting that even if some happiness emerges in what he paints, Segall’s work is always haunted by an imminent sadness. Regarding his Brazilian core, Schmidt detects an enrichment of his palette with “light, less abstract themes” in his representations of humans and landscapes. In short, Segall creates an equilibrium between “chromatic/Constructivist representation and the fatality that is inherent in feelings.”
Lasar Segall (1891–1957) was an artist born in the Jewish community of Vilnius (Lithuania). He studied at the Berlin School of Applied Arts, and in the early 1900s, he attended the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. In 1912, the artist moved to Brazil to join his brothers, who were already living there; while he was there, the Centro de Ciências e Artes de Campinas (São Paulo) acquired one of his works, Cabeça de menina russa (1908). During World War I, he returned to Europe, where, along with German painters such as Otto Dix, he founded the Dresdner Sezession Gruppe 1919. Starting with an exhibition of Russian art in Hannover (1921), Segall established ties with Kandinsky; then, in 1923, he returned to Brazil. He painted murals on the walls of the Pavilhão de Arte Moderna in 1922, the house of the great promoter of the Semana de Arte Moderna, Dona Olivia Guedes Penteado, which was also a meeting place for intellectuals and artists.
[As supplementary reading, see the following texts by Lasar Segall in the ICAA digital archive: “Existe uma arte judaica?” (doc. no. 783319); “O expressionismo” (doc. no. 783352); Mangue (doc. no. 1110480); Poemas negros (doc. no. 1110581); “O que é a SPAM, que se inaugurou quinta-feira à noite” (doc. no. 783486); and “SPAM (Sociedade Pró-Arte Moderna)–Manifesto” (doc. no. 783455)].