Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Drawn from the content of three chapters in Manuel Quintana Castillo’s book Cuadernos de pintura, this selection, the text “Expresionismo y abstracción” can be found in Chapter III. In it, the writer states that since the achievements of [...]

The author, Juan Ríos, responds to the statement released by the IAC regarding the controversy generated by the opinions offered by critic Juan Acha in the catalogue for the Exposición Homenaje for Sérvulo Gutiérrez. Ríos believes it is “too [...]

This is the communiqué issued by the Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo (IAC) [Institute of Contemporary Art] in Lima on the subject of the disagreement between the writer Juan Ríos and the art critic Juan Acha about the opinions expressed by Acha in [...]

The author, Antonino Espinosa Saldaña, makes aesthetic differentiations among “Art Deco” style plans, which were then innovative in the Peruvian context, in opposition to the prevailing indigenous art trend. He argues that Expressionism is [...]

In this text, Carlos Solari (alias “Don Quijote”) discusses articles on Peruvian painter Sabogal that appeared in the most important Buenos Aires-based newspapers (three of them in particular). The article in La Prensa speaks of the “modern [...]

La poetisa, galerista y crítica de arte Gloria Inés Daza conversa con Leonel Góngora sobre las motivaciones artísticas que desencadenaron su “obra erótica”; la muerte que azota a una sociedad “convencional y pacata” como la colombiana; y [...]

In this text, professor, art historian, and critic Quirino Campofiorito offers an overview of Brazilian sculpture from the 1930s through the 1960s. In passing, he comments on the modernization process undertaken by Brazilian art, generally in open [...]

In this article, the art critic Adalice Araújo reviews the work of Luiz Henrique Schwanke and provides an outline of his career. His work attracted attention in the 1970s because of its links to Conceptual art and its subsequent alignment with the [...]

Interviewed by Vera Pedrosa [Martins de Almeida], sculptor Frans Krajcberg discusses the changes that have occurred in his work since his arrival in Brazil (1947), where he settled. He states he went through a “concrete” phase in the 1950s until [...]

The artist Cícero Dias was the subject of this article that includes a combination of first-hand accounts on his artistic career. The text was originally published due to an exhibition on abstract art by the artist in Recife (Faculdade de Direito) [...]

The second part of a two-part essay published in the Bellas Artes newspaper, this text consists of a lecture given by artist Flávio de Carvalho at the Congrès International d’Esthétique in Paris, and later (in 1937), at the Salão de Maio in Sã [...]

The first part of a two-part essay published in the Bellas Artes newspaper, this text consists of a lecture given by artist Flávio de Carvalho at the Congrès International d’Esthétique in Paris, and later (in 1937), at the Salão de Maio in São [...]

The young Brazilian painter Jorge Guinle discusses the painting produced by internationally recognized artists of the 1980s (such as Philip Guston, Julian Schnabel, and Enzo Cucchi, among others), and compares their work to the legacy of early [...]

Geraldo Ferraz’s text describes the different phases of Lívio Abramo’s engraving, starting with the work he produced in 1933 (based on drawings he created between 1926?27). The type of “Expressionism” out of which those works emerged was [...]

With a brief historical sketch of wood engraving, “the most authentic medium within the visual languages,” the author establishes connections between expressionist art —such as the Brücke [Bridges], Blaue Reiter [Blue Rider], and Sturm [Storm [...]

In this text, José Neistein presents artist Lívio Abramo as a virtuoso of wood engraving within the context of Brazilian art. Characterized with refinement and precision, in the author’s judgment, his work diverged from Expressionism in order to [...]

The introduction in the catalogue for Lívio Abramo’s retrospective, written by Alcídio Mafra de Souza, suggests certain connections between the Brazilian artist’s graphic works and the German Expressionism led by two groups: Die Brücke [The [...]

To the art critic Geraldo Ferraz, Lívio Abramo’s artwork departs from a drawing that then gradually begins to give way to “expressionist manipulations” etched on “bad” wood. Towards the end of the thirties, Abramo, who was a journalist, [...]

The author considers the work of Lívio Abramo—along with that of Oswaldo Goeldi and Lasar Segall—responsible for bringing Brazilian printmaking into the realm of modern Brazilian art. Abramo’s work is discussed in terms of his early [...]

In the view of Brazilian historian Aracy Amaral, the widespread prejudice against art with a “conteudístico” (content-based) approach hinders twentieth-century production from tackling sociopolitical issues. From the thirties through the [...]

Prompted by the exhibition of work by the North American artist Minna Citron at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Waldemar Cordeiro discusses the historical connection between art and society in the United States. In his opinion, when “ [...]

This 82-page issue of Revista Acadêmica is devoted entirely to the painter Lasar Segall. There is a portrait of the artist on the cover of the magazine, and a tribute to him as he approaches the end of his long career. The issue includes articles [...]

This is an interview, complete with editorial comments, that was published in the newspaper El Heraldo de Antioquia on the occasion of the exhibition of works by the Colombian painter Débora Arango in Bogotá in 1940. Arango mentions the reactions [...]

The article “El expresionismo como síntoma de pereza e inhabilidad en el arte” [Expressionism as a Symptom of Laziness and Inability in Art] expresses the opinion held in traditional political circles in Colombia concerning avant-garde modern [...]

While researching feminine strokes in Anita Malfatti’s painting, Mário de Andrade discerns her impetuous nature, the masculine strength of her colors, and the tragic energy of her subjects, though he also glimpses hints of humor and sadness. He [...]

Manuel Pérez Lizano, a Spanish critic who lived in Puerto Rico for awhile, explains that the title of his article, “Fusión sincrónica” [Simultaneous Fusion], is based on his view of all the works exhibited at the Galería M.S.A. (Manifestació [...]

In the text, “Neo Figurativo y Pop-Art” [Neo-figurative and Pop Art], Colombian sculptor Julio Abril presents Pop Art as “fashion’s latest war cry,” a U.S. contribution to the international art scene. In his opinion, Pop Art represents the [...]

In this text, Eduardo Avilés Ramírez responds to the question that the editors of revista de avance posed to their readers: “What should American art be?” He specifically addresses each of the four sub-questions grouped under this larger [...]

This article considers the work produced by the Lithuanian-born painter Lasar Segall as it explores the question of how “Africanism” became part of the local identity in Latin America following the emergence of modernism. Jorge Schwartz [...]

In this article, Damián Bayón focuses on a description of the formal characteristics of the work each of the fourteen Czechoslovakian painters who exhibited at the Asociación Estímulo de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires). He maintains that despite [...]

This [document] by Mário de Andrade is a reply, dated May 20, 1928, to the letter in which Augusto Meyer discussed the former’s controversial activity, conscience, and references to national subject matter. De Andrade outlines his intellectual [...]

This is an excerpt from the text of the lecture given by the Lithuanian-born artist Lasar Segall in June 1924 at the Vila Kyrial in São Paulo, on the occasion of one of the meetings between Senator Freitas Valle and a group of modernist artists and [...]

The exhibition of works by the painter Lasar Segall at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro (1943), under the auspices of the recently-opened Ministério da Educação e Saúde, was the largest show the Lithuanian-born artist had ever [...]

This address by Mário Pedrosa was entitled “Käthe Kollwitz e seu modo vermelho de perceber a vida” [Käthe Kollwitz and her red perception of life]; it was delivered at the CAM (Clube dos Artistas Modernos) in June 1933 during the show [...]

This text appears in the bilingual catalogue (Portuguese/ German) for the “Exposição Alemã de Livros e Artes Gráficas na América do Sul” exhibition, held in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and organized by gallerist Theodor Heuberger. The show [...]

The writer and art critic Mário de Andrade makes an extremely interesting comment about printmaking, noting that prints are not among “collectors’ favorite items.” In his opinion, this is why Brazilian art production suffers, a situation that [...]

This newspaper article about the CAM (Club of Modern Artists) describes the activities of the Teatro da Experiência, the theater company founded by Flávio de Carvalho in 1933. The author explains that the group objectives are “to create [...]

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 [...]

This is a review of the exhibition of drawings and watercolors by Franz Weissmann at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes. Bonfanti detects the influence of Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Pablo Picasso in these pieces, and sees in Weissmann’s work [...]

In this article written in 1917, Anita Malfatti records her impressions of her travels in the United States and Europe. The Brazilian artist enthusiastically describes the protests prompted by the paintings she exhibited on her return to São Paulo. [...]

This letter by José Luis Cuevas, sent from Philadelphia, was published in the newspaper Novedades on February 15, 1958. The missive is a response to an article by Andrés Henestrosa published three weeks earlier. Here, Cuevas defends German [...]

In this short article, Andrés Henestrosa refers to the recent exhibition of German Expressionist painting organized by the Galería Antonio Souza in Mexico City. Starting with the exhibition, the writer analyzes the origins of the movement, [...]

In this book, Margarita Nelken, a Spanish critic based in Mexico, discusses the development of Expressionism in Mexican art. She argues that Mexican Expressionism has a native origin that, with the passage of time, has been enriched by the different [...]

This document is a letter discussing the book Happenings, written by Oscar Masotta in 1967: his need to break with painting, that is not concerned with the specifics of a work, but with coming to an understanding with the natural environment through [...]

This document is a formal commentary in Plástica [Visual Arts] regarding the Joaquín Ezequiel Linares exhibition. Upon analyzing the suburban landscapes of Antonio Berni, Noé states that expressionist realism is the best outlet to social realism. [...]

This is an analytical essay in which Edgar Bayley affirms the autonomy of the pictorial image. Based on that opinion, widely held among his generation, he champions “invention” over symbolism, expressionism, and romanticism [...]