Amelia Toledo (São Paulo 1926, São Paulo 2017)
Amélia Toledo was a sculptor, painter, designer and designer. He attended the studio of Anita Malfatti in São Paulo in the late 1930s. Between 1943 and 1947, she studied with Yoshiya Takaoka and, in 1948, with Waldemar da Costa. That same year, he worked with project design at the office of the architect Vilanova Artigas. In 1958, he attended the London County Council Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. Back in Brazil, in 1960, he studied metal engraving with João Luís Oliveira Chaves, in the studio/engraving. In 1964, he obtained a master's degree from the University of Brasília (UnB).
Since the mid-1960s, he taught at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at Mackenzie University and at the Armando Álvares Penteado College (FAAP), in São Paulo, in addition to the School of Industrial Design (ESDI), in Rio de Janeiro. The artist also dedicated herself to oil and watercolor painting, in addition to jewelry design. He carried out several works for public spaces, such as the Chromatic Project, 1996/1998, for the Arcoverde Station of the Rio de Janeiro Metro. In 1999, a retrospective exhibition of his work was held at Galeria do Sesi, in São Paulo, and, in 2004, the book Amélia Toledo: As Natures do Artificio, by Agnaldo Farias, was published.
Critical Comment
In the early 1960s, Amelia Toledo Part of the study of constructive root sculptural space, and curvatures in regular geometric elements. It also explores the possibilities offered by the mirrored surface of stainless steel. Through the play of reflections, the multiplication of the surfaces is potentiated, and the space unfolds in a game of resonances, approaching the architecture. In a situation tending to infinity (1971), Toledo is based on geometry, using a cube of crystalline shapes that is divided into eight smaller cubes and so on. The work invites manipulation - it can be dismantled and reassembled in various configurations.
Amelia Toledo has presented, since the 1970s, a production based on the forms of nature. It collects and collects materials such as shells and stones, on which it acts minimally. The landscape is also a constant, exemplified in works such as the slices of the horizon (1996), in which bulkheads with steel plates recreate the visual illusion of the horizon line, involving issues such as continuity and discontinuity. The experimental character, the use of an extensive range of materials - of nature and industrial - and the interest in recreating the landscape are, therefore, recurring in the artist's work, which is also dedicated to oil and watercolor painting, in generally monochromatic works, with subtle vibrations. Luminous.
Cervos
Bank Itaú S.A Collection - São Paulo SP
Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo - MAC/USP - São Paulo SP
Critiques
"Restlessness. This word moves the steps and actions of Amelia Toledo. Unlike most plastic artists of her generation, she has never been fascinated solely by the charms of craftsmanship, by the technical issues (...) Lúcida artist, patient researcher And organized, Amelia Toledo works with long, curved shafts, one of those of painting corners of dressers and furniture in order to lose control of the gesture, avoiding mannerism (...) Film, made skin. The color acts in limited fields, the spaces are well defined, with a margin of a few centimeters in which the support appears without treatment, a kind of neutral zone, a place of passage between the luminosity, the artist's interference field and the white, silent and impersonal wall. The wealth of Amelia's work is something close to silence: to understand this production it is necessary to first know that the empty half of a glass is as important as the half full. We can only communicate, because there is emptiness, silence, breathing between one word and another, between one sentence and another. Amélia Toledo invests, and investigates this space, this moment, this passage".
Marcus de Lontra Costa
Costa, Marcus de Lontra. Amélia Toledo, The History of Restlessness Correio Braziliense, Brasília, March 22. 1989.
"Amelia enters and leaves from different artistic domains. Transit from jewelry to object design, from tactile to visual experiences, from three-dimensional to the surface of the paper, from canvas to watercolor, from small landscapes contained in containers to the expansion of large colored cloths that radiate beyond themselves... scope to another. In recent years, it has been pursuing the desire to penetrate the field of rocks. She needs to get in and out of demarcations as well as she needs air. It acts driven by the need for experience and detachment through work, motivated by a poetics of mobility.
from one dimension to another, from one technique to another, nothing is transposed. Everything is transmuted. His work is not guided by a focus. It expands by multiplication or cissiparity. tends to profusion, to the infinite movement of nature."
Ana Maria de Moraes Belluzzo
BELLUZZO, Ana Maria de Moraes. The light and the dark. In: TOLEDO, Amelia. Open. São Paulo: SESI, 1999. P. 5.
"Amelia Toledo maintained an intense performance in important centers in Brazil: Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and São Paulo. All her work is pendular, between formal control and intuition, and, since the 1960s, she has been exploring different expression resources: plastics, foam bubbles, colorful waters, soft and shaped materials that at other times gave way to the rigor of the plates. Steel...
Amelia Toledo played a very active role in the Brazilian scene, also for her didactic activity and for the openness with which she has always lived with artists from different generations. But, unlike some masters who in teaching dilute their own work, it has preserved in its entirety the poetic intensity and a metaphysical obsession that is found, until today, in all its works.
or with the use of organic materials, shells and Caramujos, in the appropriation of the energy of the crystals, in the works where it seeks the alchemical union of the opposites, in the canvas where it proposes a saturation of color and in the vibration of its calligraphic painting, there is fidelity to the same thread of reasoning. In some moments, the work of Amelia Toledo can be aligned with international issues that explore this or that language, but its path has always been extremely internalized and solitary.
The correspondences, when they exist, were a matter of synchronicity and not of specific affiliation. Amelia Toledo is part of the artists who managed to make Brazil let modernism and land in the contemporary world and its performance remains fundamental in the country's artistic scene".
Casimiro Xavier de Mendonça
MENDONÇA, Casimiro Xavier de. Amelia Toledo. In: Art and Plastic Artists in Brazil 2000. São Paulo: Meta, 2000. p. 20.
Testimonies
"(...) made small kinetic objects, in which I worked with mineral formation reflections reflected in a more or less geometric space. It was a geometry that I created to situate this mineral world (...) I think I was taking a dip inside this infinite space contained in these small things.
In 1966, I worked with metal pieces. They were small objects that occupied the space more (...), they were signs that we were setting up. The pieces were not preconceived, they were derived from the construction process (...) and, in this process of growing in space, I created these prismatic spaces and other spaces also derived from the reflection on the curved metal surface (...)". Toledo
TOLEDO, Amélia. Amélia Toledo. In: Alvarado, Daisy Valle Machado Peccinini de (Coord.). Object in Art: Brazil 60's. São Paulo: FAAP, 1978. P. 217.
Individual exhibitions
1957 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at the Ambiente Gallery
1960 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Galeria Ambiente
1961 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, at Galeria Oca
1966 - São Paulo SP - Amelia Toledo: Objects, at Galeria Atrium
1969 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Amelia Toledo: Sculptures, Bonino Gallery
1971 - São Paulo SP - Analogies and dedications, at MAC/USP
1976 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Emergencies, at MAM/RJ
1980 - São Paulo SP - Amelia Toledo: Watercolors, at Augusto Augusta
1982 - São Paulo SP - Amelia Toledo: Seafood, at Paulo Figueiredo Art Gallery
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, Funarte. Sérgio Milliet Gallery
1984 - São Paulo SP - Orders at random, at Galeria Luisa Strina
1985 - São Paulo SP - Painting x Painting, at Galeria Luisa Strina
1986 - Brasília DF - Individual, at Espaço Capital Contemporary Art
1986 - Porto Alegre RS - No Limits of Color, at Margs
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, at Aktuell Art Gallery
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Paintings on paper and Rolling Painting, at GB Art Gallery
1988 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Montesanti Roesler Gallery
1989 - Brasília DF - Amelia Toledo: Painting Sculpture, at Espaço Capital Contemporary Art
1990 - Goiânia GO - Luzango e Paintings, at Casa Grande Art Gallery
1990 - São Paulo SP - Amelia Toledo: Paintings and Watercolors, at Paulo Figueiredo Art Gallery
1991 - Lisbon (Portugal) - The whole in the part, at the Gulbenkian Museum of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - in color/with color, at the IBEU Copacabana gallery
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Cortes in color, at MAM/RJ - Vitae Scholarship Award
1993 - São Paulo SP - Caminhos para o Olhar, at Masp
1994 - São Paulo SP - Amelia Station, at CCSP
1994 - Washington (States United) - Individual, in Baci
1995 - São Paulo SP - Lightweight, at the São Paulo Art Gallery
1996 - Berlin (Germany) - Organicus, at the Galerie Drei
1996 - Dresden (Germany) - Organicus, at the Brazilian Cultural Institute
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Horizontes, at CCBB
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Landscape resonances, at the Imperial Palace
1998 - São Paulo SP - Peles da Cor, at the São Paulo Art Gallery
1999 - São Paulo SP - Enter, the work is open, at the SESI Art Gallery
2001 - São Paulo SP - From the colors from the dark to the clouds: a game, at the Nara Gallery Roesler
2001 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at the Nara Roesler Gallery
2004 - São Paulo SP - Art Aventura, at the Nara Roesler Gallery
2004 - São Paulo SP - Journey to the heart of the article, at the Tomie Institute Ohtake
Collective exhibitions
1959 - London (England) - Collective, at the Central School of Arts and Crafts
1960 - São Paulo SP - Contribution of women to the visual arts in the country, at MAM/SP
1963 - São Paulo SP - 7th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation - Honorable Mention
1964 - Punta del Este (Uruguay) - 1st Bienal de Applied Art - General Electric Award
1965 - São Paulo SP - 8th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Biennial Foundation
1967 - Campinas SP - 3rd Contemporary Art Salon - Campinas City Hall Award
1967 - São Paulo SP - 9th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation - Cosme Velho Award and Petite Galerie Award
1970 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th JB Art Summary, at MAM/RJ - Best Exhibition of the Year Award
1970 - São Paulo SP - Carioca painters, at MAM/SP
1971 - Antwerp (Belgium) - 11th Middelheim Sculpture Biennial
1971 - São Paulo SP - Amelia Toledo, Donato Ferrari, Mira Schendel, at MAC/USP
1972 - São Paulo SP - 6th Young Contemporary Art, at MAC/USP
1972 - São Paulo SP - Art/Brazil/Today. 50 years later, at the gallery of Collectio
1972 - São Paulo SP - Multiples Brasileiros, at the Multiple Art Gallery
1972 - São Paulo SP - Retrospective Waldemar da Costa: Homage to the Master, at MAM/SP
1973 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Multiples, at Petite Galerie
1974 - Amsterdam (Netherlands) - Visual Poetry International
1974 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Brazil 74, At Cayc
1974 - Ferrara (Italy) - Art Systems in Latin America
1974 - London (England) - Art Systems in Latin America, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
1974 - Paris (France) - Art Systems in Latin America, at Espace Pierre Cardim
1974 - Rotterdam (Holland) - Visual Poetry International
1974 - São Paulo SP - Prospective 74, MAC/USP
1975 - São Paulo SP - 7th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1975 - São Paulo SP - Biennial of the Year 2000, at MAC/USP
1975 - Selb (Germany) - Singnale, Nachrichten, Botschaften
1976 - Antwerp (Belgium) - Small Press Festival at Galerie Kontakt
1976 - Montecatini (Italy) - Eighteen Modern Artists from Brazil, at the Galerie Spazio Alternative at Universitá di Padova
1976 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Multimedia, at MAC/USP
1978 - São Paulo SP - Object in Art: Brazil 60's, at MAB/FAAP
1979 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - 1st Latin American Triennale del Grabado, in the national rooms of Exposición
1979 - Mendonza (Argentina) - 1st Trienal Latinoamericana del Grabado, at the Museum of Modern Art
1979 - New York (United States) - Contemporary Brazilian Works on Paper: 49 Artists at Nobé Gallery
1979 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian sculptors, at Galeria Aktuel
1980 - Mexico City (Mexico) - Muestra Del Cine y 16mm, at the Museo de Arte Moderno
1981 - São Paulo SP - 13th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1982 - Belo Horizonte MG - Precariousness and creation, in MAP
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4 sculptors painters, 4 sculptor painters, at the Aktuel Gallery
1983 - São Paulo SP - 17th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Os Papels do Papel, at Funarte
1984 - São Paulo SP - 15th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: Synthesis of Art and Brazilian culture, at the Bienal Foundation
1985 - Brasília DF - Brazilianity and Independence, at the Cláudio Santoro National Theater
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th National Salon of Plastic Arts - Contemporary Attitudes: Art and its Materials, at MAM/RJ
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Calligraphy and Scripture, at Funarte. Sérgio Milliet Gallery
1985 - São Paulo SP - Highlights of Brazilian Contemporary Art, at MAM/SP
1985 - São Paulo SP - Trends of the Artist's Book in Brazil, at the CCSP
1986 - Fortaleza CE - 1st International Exhibition of Ephemeral Sculptures, at Fundação Demócrito Rocha
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Christian Dior Exhibition of Contemporary Art: Painting, at Paço Imperial
1986 - São Paulo SP - 17th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1986 - São Paulo SP - XX-XXI: a turn in the century, at the Pinacoteca do Estado
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Some women, at the Ipanema Art Gallery
1987 - São Paulo SP - 19th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1987 - São Paulo SP - The plot of taste: another look at everyday life, at the Biennial Foundation
1987 - São Paulo SP - Photo/Idea, at MAC/USP
1988 - São Paulo SP - 19th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1988 - São Paulo SP - Juréia, at Sadalla Galeria de Arte
1989 - Brasília DF - Show, at Galeria Espaço Capital
1989 - São Paulo SP - 20th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1990 - São Paulo SP - 21st Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1990 - São Paulo SP - Spiral, at Miriam Mamber Art Gallery
1990 - São Paulo SP - people of fiber, at Sesc Pompéia
1991 - São Paulo SP - the tree of each UM, at the Nara Roesler Gallery
1991 - São Paulo SP - Citizenship: 200 years of the Declaration of Human Rights, at SESC Pompéia
1992 - São Paulo SP - Annual Program for Plastic Arts Exhibition, in the CCSP
1992 - São Paulo SP - The seduction of volumes: The three-dimensional MAC, at MAC/USP
1992 - São Paulo SP - White dominant, at the São Paulo Art Gallery
1992 - São Paulo SP - Young artists, at CCSP
1992 - São Paulo SP - Polarities/Perspectivas, at Paço das Artes
1993 - Brasília DF - A look at Joseph Beuys, at the Athos Bulcão Foundation
1993 - Florence (Italy) - Brazil: Segni d'Art, at the Nationale Centrale Di Firenze
1993 - Milan (Italy) - Brazil: Segni d'Arte, at the Nazionale Library Braidense
1993 - Rome (Italy) - Brazil: Segni d'Arte, at the Center for Brazilian Studies
1993 - Santos SP - 4th Santos National Biennial, at the Patrícia Galvão Cultural Center
1993 - São Paulo SP - 23rd Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1993 - São Paulo SP - Aviation and Art, at the Cultural Space of Congonhas Airport
1993 - Venice (Italy) - Brazil: Segni d'Arte, at Fondazione Scientífica Querini Stampalia
1993 - Washington (United States) - Ultramodern: The Art of Contemporary Brazil, at The National Museum of Women in the Arts
1994 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Object book: The frontier of the voids, in the CCBB
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século 20th, at the Fundação Bienal
1994 - São Paulo SP - Homage to Mário de Andrade, at CCSP
1994 - São Paulo SP - Marinhas, at Galeria Nara Roesler
1994 - São Paulo SP - Senses: a sensitive look at the current art, at Renato Magalhães Gouvêa Art Office
1995 - São Paulo SP - Object book: The frontier of the voids, at MAM/SP
1995 - São Paulo SP - Projeto Contacto, at Galeria Sesc Paulista
1996 - Belo Horizonte MG - Itinerant impressions, at the Palácio das Artes
1996 - Berlin (Germany) - Organicus, at the Brazilian Cultural Institute
1996 - Dresden (Germany) - Organicus, at the Galerie Drei
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Arcos da Lapa do Labortoire Sculpture Urbaine Grenoble Project, in the Arcos da Lapa
1996 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian art. 50 years of history in the MAC/USP collection: 1920-1970, at MAC/USP
1996 - São Paulo SP - ex libris/home page, at the Paço das Artes
1996 - São Paulo SP - Figure Landscape in the MAM collection: Homage to Volpi, at MAM/SP
1996 - São Paulo SP - Women artists in the MAC collection, at MAC/USP
1996 - São Paulo SP - the only, the same, the A-Fundamento, at Valu Oria Art Gallery
1997 - João Pessoa PB - Organicus, at the Tambiá Visual Arts Center
1997 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Organicus, at the Art Museum of Ribeirão Preto Pedro Manuel-Gismondi
1997 - São Paulo SP - 3rd United Artists: Luz, at Casa das Rosas
1997 - São Paulo SP - Organicus, at Valuria Art Gallery
1998 - São Paulo SP - Collection Art Gallery São Paulo, at the São Paulo Art Office
1998 - São Paulo SP - Impressions: the art of Brazilian engraving, at the Banespa Cultural Space
1999 - São Paulo SP - Daily life/art: consumption, at Itaú Cultural
2000 - Curitiba PR - 12th Exhibition of the Engraving of Curitiba. Body marks, Dobras da Alma, at the Cultural Foundation
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Situations: Brazilian Arts 70s, at the Casa França-Brasil Foundation
2000 - São Paulo - Parade of cows
2000 - São Paulo SP - Conceptual Art and Conceptualisms: 70's in the MAC/USP collection, at the SESI Art Gallery
2000 - São Paulo SP - Homage to Guimarães Rosa, at Casa das Rosas
2001 - São Paulo SP - years 70: Trajectories, at Itaú Cultural
2001 - São Paulo SP - Trajectory of Light in Brazilian Art, at Itaú Cultural
2002 - Brasília DF - Fragments to its magnet, in the contemporary cultural space Venâncio
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Caminhos do Contemporânea 1952-2002, at Paço Imperial
2002 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary artists: ABCA Award 2000/2001, at CCBB
2002 - São Paulo SP - Metropolis Collection of Contemporary Art, at the Pinacoteca do Estado
2002 - São Paulo SP - Strategies to dazzle, at the SESI Art Gallery
2002 - São Paulo SP - Multiples Brasileiros 30 years later, at Multipla de Arte
2002 - São Paulo SP - Open Opera: Celebration, at Casa das Rosas
2003 - Rio de Janeiro - BrazilianArt Project, at Almacén Art Gallery
2003 - São Paulo SP - The Subversion of Media, at Itaú Cultural
2003 - São Paulo SP - Meeting Place: Amélia Toledo Entre Nós, at Unicid
2003 - São Paulo SP - MAC USP 40 Years: Contemporary Interfaces, at MAC/USP
2003 - São Paulo SP - Tomie Ohtake in the Spiritual Art of Brazilian Art, at the Tomie Ohtake Institute
2004 - Campinas SP - Metropolis Collection of Contemporary Art, at the Cultural Space CPFL
2004 - Madrid (Spain) - Arco/2004, at Parque Ferial Juan Carlos I
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 90 years of Tomie Ohtake, at MNBA
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Tomie Ohtake in the spiritual plot of Brazilian art, at MNBA
2004 - São Paulo SP - reincarnated painting, at Paço das Artes
2005 - São Paulo SP - O Corpo na Brazilian contemporary art, at Itaú Cultural
Source: Itaú Cultural
