Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this essay the art critic Roberto Pontual discusses xylography, or woodcut printing, describing it as “basic creativity,” a term he considers more appropriate than “folk art.” He notes the lack of studies on the subject and mentions the [...]

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 [...]

This essay, “Cordel - A Novelística Nordestina” by Geová Sobreira, suggests that literatura de cordel—the genre of published writing known as “string literature”—is an expression of an intrinsically novelistic tradition. It is a [...]

This text traces two parallel ways of understanding the prints in João Câmara’s series Cenas da Vida Brasileira [Scenes from Brazilian Life]. The first entails the artist’s passage from wood engraving—traditionally associated with the [...]

This document is an anthology of poetry from the region of Bezerros, in the state of Pernambuco, which includes about 50 poems and stories from the genre known as “literatura de cordel” (string literature). This form of literature consists of [...]

The art critic Ferreira Gullar discusses the work of the printmaker Gilvan Samico, highlighting the uniqueness of his prints. Samico’s figurative work reveals both a regional and an international vocabulary, and confirms the traditional nature of [...]