Tarsila do Amaral

Widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in Latin American Modern Art, do Amaral was a central force in shaping Brazil’s cultural identity in the 20th century. Her vivid colours, bold compositions and unique fusion of European Modernist styles with Brazilian themes made her a pioneer of the country’s Modernist movement.

Born in Capivari, a rural town in the state of São Paulo, into a wealthy coffee plantation family, her privileged background provided her with opportunities for travel and education that would deeply influence her artistic career. From an early age, she displayed a love for drawing and in 1916 began her formal studies at the Escola de Belas Artes in São Paulo where her training was initially rooted in academic art, but, as she engaged with avant-garde movements abroad, her artistic vision soon expanded.

In the early 1920s, do Amaral traveled to Paris where she absorbed the principles of Cubism and modernist aesthetics while also encountering Surrealist currents. Yet, even as she embraced these European influences, she remained committed to creating an authentically Brazilian voice in Modern art.

In 1920, she moved to Paris and enrolled in the Académie Julien and started producing Post-Impressionist works featuring Parisian landscapes, still lifes and portraits, although, by the end of her stay, her lessons from the Académie Julien would be left behind in favour of Cubist influences. At the centre of European avant-garde, she mingled with and collected the work of leading artists including Constantin Brancusi, Amedeo Modigliani, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, André Lhote and Pablo Picasso.

Returning to Sao Paulo two years later in 1922, do Amaral’s personal collection became one of the first in Brazil to feature European Modernism. That same year do Amaral joined with fellow artists and writers Oswald and Mário de Andrade, Anita Malfatti and Menotti Del Picchia to form the Grupo des Cinco (Group of Five) who, together, changed the face of Brazilian art by successfully synthesising Latin American and European styles into bold, Modernist paintings that carved out a specifically Brazilian visual language that spoke to the country’s population and landscape.

Do Amaral’s art celebrated the complexity of Brazilian identity at a time when the country was seeking to redefine itself amid rapid social and industrial change. Her palette of vibrant greens, pinks and blues reflected the exuberance of Brazil’s natural environment, while her subjects highlighted both rural life and the modern transformations of São Paulo.

In 1929 her first solo exhibition opened at the Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, which was followed by another at the Salon Gloria in São Paulo later that year and several group exhibitions in New York and Paris in 1930.

However, the 1929 Wall Street crash resulted in her family losing their fortune and, unable to sustain her bourgeois lifestyle, do Amaral was forced to sell a large portion of her personal collection and the subjects of her paintings shifted quickly and dramatically. Her once bright, optimistic colours are replaced with the dull tones of despondency; her forms are no longer dynamic nor energised, but lethargic and weary, reflecting the hardship of her fellow Brazilians.

Throughout the 1930s, political and personal upheavals greatly influenced her trajectory. She traveled to the Soviet Union where she engaged with leftist intellectuals, and her later works increasingly took on social themes, reflecting concern for workers and the poor. Despite financial difficulties and health struggles in her later life, she remained a vital presence in Brazilian culture.