Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This article, written in the form of a poem, is about the series Excitáveis [Excitables] by the Brazilian artist Sérvulo Esmeraldo. The author, Erwin Leiser, pictures him walking through the back streets of Paris looking for images that will be [...]

This essay by the architect Lina Bo Bardi is about A Mão do Povo Brasileiro, the exhibition she organized and presented at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo. The exhibition reflects her interest in preserving the traditional arts and culture of [...]

This essay, which appeared in the catalogue produced with research support from Gilmar de Carvalho, introduced A Nova Gravura de Juazeiro do Norte, the exhibition curated by Dodora Guimarães at the Centro Cultural da Abolição in Recife (November [...]

Gilberto Freyre’s essay highlights the importance of research into the origins of Brazilian culture and the Brazilian people, as well as their “interpersonal” and interregional relationships, noting that those who interpreted that data were [...]

This is a summary of Gilberto Freyre’s thoughts on the subject of Latin America, with a focus on the cultural anthropological aspects of a hybrid civilization based on a blend of black, American Indian, and European traditions. The author discusses [...]

Gilberto Freyre defends the right of each country in the Americas to have its own form of government, as long as it refrains from causing any kind of violent disturbance elsewhere on the continent. His views are challenged by orthodox supporters of [...]

Poet Cecília Meireles discusses native art; which in her judgment ideally tells “history on a small scale.” She explains that Brazil is not homogeneous, as can be seen through its activities and techniques, which can be difficult to discern [...]

In this tribute published in 1991, the painter and art critic Quirino Campofiorito recalls the work of Bruno Lechowski, done by the Polish painter who was living in Rio de Janeiro in the1930s. The writer believes Lechowski was responsible for [...]

In this essay, the Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre criticizes the exaggerated and mystic academicism of intellectual works produced by Brazilian universities that distance them from the concerns of society as a whole. Describing himself as a [...]

“Engenho e Arte. A Fala dos Gravadores” [Ingenuity and Art: The Speech of the Engravers] is one of seven chapters of a book by Gilmar de Carvalho entitled Madeira Matriz, a subject he developed in a doctoral thesis done at Pontifícia [...]

In this interview with architect Lina Bo Bardi by philosophy students at the Diretório Acadêmico Rocha Pombo do Paraná in Curitiba, Bo Bardi speaks of the need for a true socioeconomic and cultural revolution in Brazil. She discusses the role to [...]

Wall text for the exhibition Formas como escultura, held at the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia (MAMB) in 1960, when Lina Bo Bardi—the possible author of this text—was the director of that institution. The exhibition set out to emphasize the forms [...]

In this article, Gilberto Freyre points out a common trait he sees among the peoples of the Americas and, especially, in the field of inter-American relationships. He refers to areas where he can affirm the people’s natural ability to combine unity [...]

In this book, the artist Lygia Clark writes about her creative development over the course of a decade, from 1954 to 1964. She documents her discovery of the organic line, the inclusion of the frame as part of the painting, her use of modular spaces [...]

Sheila Leirner wrote this article about Marcello Nitsche’s exhibition, Alegres Saudações. The critic reminds us that the artist works in a tradition whose field of action is irreverence, humor and contemplation of the nature of art. That is how [...]

In his book As Raízes do Brasil [Brazilian Roots] (1936), Sérgio Buarque de Holanda discusses the European settlement of the Americas, comparing the distinguishing features of the Spanish colonization from those of the Portuguese. The Spanish [...]

In this letter to the intellectual Paulo Duarte, Mário de Andrade discusses the need for a policy governing the protection of the cultural heritage of Brazil in order to prevent the scourge of contraband and the sale of artwork of historical or [...]

The Brazilian artist Sérvulo Esmeraldo talks about his interest in popular printmaking, and discusses the important effect that this artistic language had on his work during a visit to Carirí, in his home state of Ceará (1954). While there, he [...]

This is a review of “La psychanalyse et l'esthétique dynamiste,” the article that was originally published in French in Cahiers idéalistes, the French magazine, in May 1924. According to Charles Baudouin, the Franco-Swiss psychoanalyst, our own [...]

In Olinda (Pernambuco state), painter José Claudio uses an exceedingly colloquial tone to discuss the significance of artist Sérvulo Esmeraldo’s “return” to his native city (Crato, in the state of Ceará) after having resided in Europe for [...]