Life and work of Candido Portinari

The plastic artist Candido Portinari (1903-1962) is a nome essential for Brazilian art.

Candido, also a painter, contributed culturally to the country as a teacher, engraver and illustrator.

He was quite politically deceived, seen through his art, in which he portrayed the mazelas do povo, and tied himself in his political-partisan position, running for deputy and senator.

Portinari has enormous gratitude as an artist to denounce a Brazil cheio of injustices and inequality. In the meantime, he was able to display in his fabrics also lyricism and beauty present in childhood.

Biography of Candido Portirari

Childhood and youth

The artist was beaten as Candido Torquato Portinari. Born in 1903, on the 30th of December, in a coffee plantation not in the interior of São Paulo, in Santa Rosa, near Brodowski.

I come from a humble family of Italian immigrants, Candinho, like him was born in childhood, he has 11 irmãos, filhos of Dominga Torquato and Baptista Portinari.

He had little study, about five years old, not finishing or primary. Candido has demonstrated artistic talent since I ceded, producing 10 years or the first time acknowledged by his authorship, a portrait of Carlos Gomes, an important Brazilian musician.

At 15 years, in 1918, Portinari began to work in Brodowski as assistant of a group of painters and restorers of churches. O young man was quite disciplined and had a great interest in learning everything about or trade.

First years as an artist

In 1919, he moved to Rio de Janeiro and began his studies at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios and, later, at the National School of Fine Arts.

In 1922 he received an honorable mention in his first show. From then on, he began his costume in exhibitions in 1928 and was honored as the Prize of Travel to Europe, or that would become a framework in his career.

Portinari started in 1929 for Paris, a place of intense cultural effervescence. The painter is counted on the preciousness present in his country, making the decision to portray Brazil and his people.

Not this year he meets Uruguayan Maria Victoria Martinelli, how he is getting married.

A consolidation as a painter

At the age of 32 he entered a teaching career, teaching classrooms at the Instituto de Artes da Faculdade do Distrito Federal (RJ), activity that he exercised in 1939, as a date of the University for President Getúlio Vargas.

Portinari dedicated a large part of his life to the production of large frescoes for public works, being recognized not Brazil and abroad.

In 1939, an artist and honoree at the National Museum of Fine Arts with a grandiose exhibition that exhibits 269 works. Subsequently, other important shows are held in Brazil and in other countries.

Portinari political career

Portinari was a homem concerned with the social situation, so much so that he chose to represent the Brazilian in his fabrics through a class cut, which was always in a denouncement.

Assim, aged 42, or artist decides to run for federal deputy with proposals that will value popular participation, indo against or latifúndio in the integralist movements (of fascist order), but not get or charge.

Two years after, in 1947, he was again a candidate, later as a senator for the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB). Eleição é acirrada, e loses by few votes, or that raises a mistrust in respect of fraud at the polls.

Not the same year, due to the growing persecution of communism, Portinari is voluntarily exiled from Uruguay.

Artistic consecration and last years of Portinari

The artist participates in 1951 of the I Biennial of Art of São Paulo and not the following year he received or invited the UN to make two huge murais - entitled War and Peace - to integrate the headquarters of the instituição em Nova Iorque.

In 1953 Portinari went through a bad time and hospitalized with hemorrhage caused by toxic substances present in some inks, being recommended medical hair that was removed from these substances.

In 1955 he participated in the III São Paulo Art Biennial as a special room and in 1956 he gave two paintings War and Peace, considered big first-work of Portinari.

In the following years he continues working and integrating important exhibitions, I said that in 1962, 58 years old, Falece on February 6 due to decorrência do aggravation of his health problem related to or use of inks toxic.

At the death of the artist caused a great commencement and in his wake, several important personalities were present. Na epoch, decreed 3 days of official mourning.

Outstanding works by Candido Portinari

A produção de Candido Portinari has a central theme or human being, more specifically the homens and simple women, or the common individual.

Portinari has an essential role to be a kind of "voice-bearer" of the Brazilian povo, denouncing their living conditions, problematizing injustices but also exposing poetry and love.

He has the influence of European movements such as expressionism and cubism, but he manages to combine the national realities in a brilliant way.

Retirees

Or quadro Retirees, um two most emblematic of Portinari. Made in 1944 with oil ink, it has a dimension of 180 x 190 and is part of the MAM collection (Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo).

A canvas addresses a recurring theme in the artist's work: o Rural exodus Northeast. Here, we see a family that is looking for opportunities in large urban centers.

These people occupy a part of the composition, inserted in a dry and earthy landscape. As human figures are exhibited here in an allegorical and quase theatrical way, as serious olhos fixed and squalid bodies, or which give a very disturbing thing.

We can say that this is a "family portrait" and also a "portrait of the fostered and of inequality" that has affected Brazil since remote times.

To know more about this fabric, read: Quadro Retirantes, by Candido Portinari

Mestiço

This is a work from 1934, made with an oil-on-canvas technique. Nela, Portinari pint or portrait of a typical rural worker, um homem mestiço, mixture between a black and indigenous population.

O artist tinha grande interested in portraying or povo de seu country, pois achava is essential than art Brasilira would value simple people and that são, of fato, a mass of cidadãos that sustains or Brazil.

Or coffee washer

Or coffee washer It was painted in 1934, also with oil ink. A fabric tem 100 x 81 cm and is not MASP (Museum of Modern Art).

A posição do trabalhador, supported by enxada and as huge feet barefoot not only suggests fatigue. Or homem presents a strong body, year we see a ferro trem passing through a huge coffee plantation.

This is a work in which we can strongly perceive influences of expressionist art, avant-garde that was released in Europe not in the beginning of the 20th century.

For more details, read: Analyze Or coffee washerby Portinari

Futebol

To cloth Futebol integrates a set of works that values ​​issues related to childhood. This square has dimensions of 97 x 130 cm and is currently in a private collection.

Here, we see a group of boys jumping with a ball on a clay court. You have animated a cemitério ao founded, showing us that it is a dinner in an inner city.

In these works, Candido was very inspired by his first years of life when he died in Brodowsky. O artist tinha um enormous carinho pelas crianças e certa time disse:

So many children have been made in minha work in balanços, gangorras, and what would be my wish to do so that the fossem launched ao ar a virarem belos anjos ...

Video about the work of Candido Portinari

Attend a program about the painter exhibited in 2010 by Rede Globo. Or video highlights you painéis War e Peace e o Projeto Portinari, idealized by João Portinari, filho de Candido.

Don't stop here, read me too!

• Candido Portinari: the main works analyzed
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• World famous paintings
• Quadro Operários, Tarsila do Amaral