Arnaldo Ferrari (São Paulo SP 1906 - Idem 1974)
Arnaldo Ferrari was a painter, draftsman and teacher. Following his father's profession, he acted as a decorative painter, making decorative friezes for residences. He studied Decorative Arts at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios de São Paulo between 1925 and 1935. In 1934, he shared a studio with friends at the Santa Helena Building and, through his friendship with the painter Mario Zanini (1907–1971), approached the other members of the Santa Helena group. Like Alfredo Volpi (1896–1988), he made decorations for palaces, dedicating himself to painting sporadically. He also attended the Free Course in Painting and Drawing at the National School of Fine Arts (ENBA), where he took classes with Enrico Vio (1874–1960), between 1936 and 1938. His initial production bears similarities with that of the painters of the Santa Group. Helena, both in the themes and in the compositions, including landscapes of the surroundings of São Paulo, still lifes and nudes. Between 1950 and 1959, he joined the Guanabara group, alongside Thomaz (1932–2001), Tomie Ohtake (1913), Tikashi Fukushima (1920–2001) and Oswald de Andrade Filho (1914–1972), among others.
In the mid-1950s, he became interested in the work of the Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres-Garcia (1874–1949), starting to dedicate himself to abstract and constructivist painting. In 1975, he had a retrospective of his work presented at Paço das Artes, in São Paulo, accompanied by a catalog with texts by Theon Spanudis (1915–1986), José Geraldo Vieira (1897–1977) and Mário Schenberg (1914–1990), among others.
Critical Comment
Arnaldo Ferrari studies drawing at the Lyceum of Arts and Crafts, between 1925 and 1935. also around 1930, attends the Free Course of Drawing and Painting at the School of Fine Arts of São Paulo, where he is a student of Enrico Vio (1874-1960). Until the 1950s, it accompanies the Santa Helena group, producing still lifes and landscapes of the surroundings of São Paulo, which present great formal simplification and a palette of dark tones. Guanabara Group, also from São Paulo. At that time, he began to paint urban landscapes, mainly facades of houses, whose formal treatment tends more and more to abstraction, such as in houses (1960) and in churches and houses (1962). His painting is linked to geometric constructivism, revealing the appreciation of the work of the Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres-García (1874-1949). A vibrant visual rhythm predominates in his works, given by the frequency of curves and countercurves or by the game of orthogonals, in careful compositions. The paintings reveal a strong internal pulse, also given by the use of the chromatic, dense and deep, more than impacting range. In the opinion of art historian Walter Zanini (1925), in the artist's work there is always a spiritualization in everything that makes up his universe.
Criticism
"Cultural connections cannot, however, influence us in the judgment of considering Arnaldo Ferrari as an artist based on himself. His laborious and purified compositions are no less the fruit of primordial impulses, unconscious or irrational forces. Intuitively he governs his compositions organized according to topological principles. strict but where finally shapes, contours and colors are ordered as if they won the right of their own initiative to find and characterize its most natural dimension. countercurves and the ascending and descending diagonal lines, but also due to the extreme liveliness in the use of primary colors. (...) If there is an undeniable vigor in this clear graphic and plastic organization, it is no less true that the painter's remote emotionality takes him far beyond the fixation on the visual limits of form. Theon Spanudis tells us of his 'mystical message'. I prefer, more generally, to refer to a spiritualization of everything that makes up its dynamic and yet sober and reflected universe".
Walter Zanini
Arnaldo Ferrari. Presentation by Walter Zanini. Text by Daisy Peccinini de Silva. São Paulo: Portal Galeria de Arte, s.d.
"It was in the mid-1950s, stimulated by the knowledge of the ´constructive universalism´ of the Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres García and for the coexistence with the growing predominance of geometric abstraction among us, which Ferrari tried to make more insistently, first to the purification of the real, in landscapes that are architected with few and rarefied elements, and then to the Total discard of the figure, in compositions that are almost always situated at the meeting point of reason with the emotion of geometry with viscerality. (...) It also made our eye never see in its straights and curves the absolute precision of the ruler and compass, providing each encounter with areas with a very strong internal pulse, originating from regions beyond purely mental. He wanted the shapes to unite with each other as if they were in constant movement of systole and diastole. And the color, of a charged nature, gave depth, more than impact. All this revealing the agreement of freedom with the order, synchrony of the emotional with the rational, the conjugation of the intuitive with the constructed, in a painting usually dense, thick and pulsating, fed on earth and not of air. painting that criticism still has as a task to discover and know better".
Roberto Pontual
5 Brazilian masters. Trad. Judith Hodgson. Biezus, Ladi. Roberto Pontual. Rio de Janeiro, Kosmos, 1977.
Collectives
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo - MAC/USP - São Paulo SP
Collection of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo/Brazil - São Paulo SP
Individual exhibitions
1961 - Campinas SP - Individual, at Galeria Aremar
1962 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Clube dos Artistas
1963 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Galeria Astrea
1964 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Galeria La Ruche
1964 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Galeria Novas Trends
1973 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Galeria Portal
1969 - São Paulo SP - Individual, MAC/USP
1969 - Belo Horizonte MG - Individual, at the Belo Horizonte Art Museum
1969 - Juiz de Fora MG - Individual, at UFJF
Collective exhibitions
1944 - São Paulo SP - 9th Salon of the Plastic Artists Union, at the Prestes Maia Gallery
1949 - São Paulo SP - 15th São Paulo Salon of Fine Arts, at the Prestes Maia Gallery
1952 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, At Galeria Prestes Maia - Silver Medal
1954 - Goiânia GO - Exhibition of the National Congress of Intellectuals
1954 - São Paulo SP - 3rd São Paulo Salão de Arte Moderna, at the Prestes Maia Gallery
1955 - São Paulo SP - 4th Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1958 - São Paulo SP - 7th São Paulo Salão de Arte Moderna, at the Prestes Maia Gallery - Small Silver Medal
1959 - São Paulo SP - 8th São Paulo Art Salon Moderna, at Galeria Prestes Maia - Acquisition Award
1960 - São Paulo SP - 9th Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, at the Prestes Maia Gallery
1960 - São Paulo SP - Exposes with Geraldo de Souza, Trindade Leal and Geza Heller, at the Folhas Art Gallery
1961 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 10th National Salon of Modern Art
1961 - São Paulo SP - 10th Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, at Galeria Prestes Maia - Travel Award for the Country
1962 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 11th National Salon of Modern Art
1963 - São Paulo SP - 7th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation
1963 - São Paulo SP - 12th São Paulo Art Salon Moderna, at the Prestes Maia Gallery - Acquisition Award
1965 - São Paulo SP - 8th International Biennial of São Paulo, at the Bienal Foundation
1966 - Brasília DF - 3rd Salão de Arte Modern Art of the Federal District
1966 - Campinas SP - 2nd Salon of Contemporary Art in Campinas
1966 - United States - Traveling Seventeen Latin American Painters of the 8th International Biennial of São Paulo
1966 - Salvador BA - 1st National Biennial of Plastic Arts
1966 - São Paulo SP - 15th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia - Gold Medal
1966 - São Paulo SP - Three premises, at MAB/FAAP
1967 - Campinas SP - 3rd Contemporary Art Salon of Campinas, at MacC
1967 - São Paulo SP - 9th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation
1968 - Santo André SP - 1st Salão de Arte Contemporânea de Santo André, at Paço Municipal
1968 - SÃO PAULO SP - 17th SALÃO PAULISTA DE ART MODERN ART
1969 - SÃO PAULO SP - 10th INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL OF SÃO PAULO, AT FUNDAÇÃO BIENAL 
1971 - SANTO ANDRÉ SP - 1st Contemporary Art Salon - 1st Prize
1971 - São Caetano do Sul SP - 2nd Contemporary Art Salon
1971 - São Paulo SP - 11th International Biennial of São Paulo, at the Biennial
1972 - São Paulo SP - Sesquicentennial Art Exhibition of Independence and Plastic Brazil - 72, at the Bienal Foundation
Postomy Exhibitions
1975 - São Paulo SP - Arnaldo Ferrari: Retrospective, at Paço das Artes
1978 - São Paulo SP - Constructivist and figuratives from the Theon Spanudis Collection, at the Porto Seguro Arts Center
1979 - São Paulo SP - Theon Collection Spanudis, at MAC/USP
1981 - São Paulo SP - Transcendent Art, at MAM/SP
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and rupture: synthesis of Brazilian art and culture, at the Bienal Foundation
1990 - São Paulo SP - Figoftivism/abstractionism: the red in Brazilian painting, at the Itaú Cultural Institute. Informatics and Culture Center
1991 - Belo Horizonte MG - Figoftivism/abstractionism: the red in Brazilian painting, at the Itaú Cultural Institute. Nucleus of Informatics and Culture
1992 - Poços de Caldas MG - Brazilian Modern Art: Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo, at Casa da Cultura
1993 - Campinas SP - Figurativism/abstractionism: the red in Brazilian painting, in the Itaú Cultural Institute. Center for Informatics and Culture II
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século 20, at Fundação Bienal
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Constructive trends in the MAC USP collection: construction, measure and proportion, at CCBB
1996 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art: 50 years of history in the MAC/USP collection: 1920-1970, at MAC/USP
1996 - São Paulo SP - The world of Mário Schenberg, at Casa das Rosas
1998 - São Paulo SP - Constructive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, at MAM/SP
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Constructive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, MAM/RJ
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian art in the Fadel collection: from the restlessness of the modern to the autonomy of language, in the CCBB
2002 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian art in the Fadel collection: from the restlessness of the modern to the autonomy of language, in the CCBB
2003 - Brasília DF - Brazilian art in the Fadel collection: from the restlessness of the modern to the autonomy of language, in the CCBB
2003 - São Paulo SP - MAC USP 40 years: Interfaces Contemporaries, at MAC/USP
2006 - São Paulo SP - Arnaldo Ferrari: 100 years, at Galeria Berenice Arvani
2008 - São Paulo SP - Rupture, front and resonances, at Galeria Berenice Arvani
2009 - São Paulo SP - 50s - 50 works, at the Berenice Arvani Gallery
2010 - São Paulo SP - Black and white: from concrete to contemporary, at Galeria Berenice Arvani
2010 - São Paulo SP - 6th SP-Arte, at Fundação Bienal
2011 - São Paulo SP - 7th SP-Arte, at the Bienal Pavilion
Source: Itaú Cultural
