Bassano Vaccarini (Milan, Italy 1914 - Altinópolis SP 2002)
Sculptor, painter, teacher, set designer, costume designer, filmmaker.
In Milan, he began studying at the Liceo Artistico in 1929, and in 1932 he entered the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. He continued his studies at the School of Applied Arts in Monza, Italy, in 1934, with Marino Marini (1901 - 1980). During this period, he became associated with the group around the magazine Corrente, which included Renato Guttuso (1912 - 1987), Bruno Cassinari (1912 - 1992) and Ennio Morlotti (1910 - 1992). He took a specialization course in sculpture at the Geneva School of Art, Switzerland, in 1943. In 1946, he settled in São Paulo and worked as set designer, costume designer and technical director for the Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia - TBC, the Cia. de Teatro Bela Vista and the Cia. de Teatro Silveira Sampaio. In 1951, he was hired to teach plastic arts at the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo, FAU/USP, a post he held until 1955. With Bonadei (1906 - 1974), Bruno Giorgi (1905 - 1993), Lothar Charoux (1912 - 1987) and Frans Krajcberg (1921), he formed the group ODA Oficina de Arte. In 1956, he moved to Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, where a year later he took part in founding the Escola de Artes Plásticas. In the 1960s, he taught at the Faculdade de Artes Plásticas of the Universidade da Associação de Ribeirão Preto, where he co-founded the Centro Experimental de Cinema, and he created Atelier 1104. He installed works in public spaces in Ribeirão Preto and other cities in São Paulo state, such as Altinópolis.
Critical Commentary
Bassano Vaccarini has a diversified output. He produced work in set design, painting and sculpture, pieces in scrap metal and plastic resins, as well as experiments in film, photography and architecture. Until the mid-1960s, he devoted himself to abstract compositions. As art historian Teixeira Leite notes, he more recently returned to figuration in his paintings, showing affinities with expressionism. In some of his sculptures, he works with organic, abstract forms combined with figurative elements.
For art historian Tadeu Chiarelli, Vaccarini could be defined as an experimental artist par excellence, dedicated to researching new supports and materials, which he adapts to the needs of his work.
Critiques
"The heaviness, the ponderable quality of Vaccarini's sculpture, also present in many works made with scrap metal, derives from the importance of the masses in the context of each work. In most cases, one could say that the masses show a marked withdrawal, as if the forms were trying to concentrate themselves or were drawn toward a core of the sculpture, in a considerable concentration of matter. In other, rarer cases, there is a sense of abandon, as if the matter were loose, at rest, occupying the maximum of its space. These two aspects, when they appear in the same work, are one of the sources of its drama.
(...) Vaccarini experimented with every technique, every resource, every material. He sculpted by subtraction, by addition and by joining, that is, he used carving, modeling and welding. He used materials such as marble, soapstone, wood and even cement for carving. Wax, clay and as many substitutes as he could find served him for modeling, which he then cast in noble, traditional metals such as bronze, or in lead. Scrap metal was transformed into various forms through welding. He did not reject plastic resins and scraps for creating forms. This whole range of techniques and materials was used to reproduce forms of nature, to suggest, to deform or to develop abstract forms.
(...) among the various techniques used in three dimensions, above and beyond these techniques, two veins emerge. One rare, almost exceptional, linked to slender, almost graphic forms, made with scrap metal and blowtorch. The other broad, abundant, fertile, always present, using the most varied resources and materials, plastic in essence, the result of the play of masses. In this second vein, any difference in the result between the use of modeling or carving disappears. It is here that Vaccarini's most expressive core is found, where his soul and his ancestry lie hidden".
Pedro Emanuel
Emanuel, Pedro. Bassano Vaccarini: os caminhos além do susto, do desencontro, do esmagamento. In: Vaccarini, Bassano. B. Vaccarini. n. p.
Solo Exhibitions
1932 - Italy - First solo exhibition
1948 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Domus
1953 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at MAC/USP
1968 - São Paulo SP - Retrospective, at Auditório Itália
1978 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Salão Portinari da Secretaria de Cultura, Ciência e Tecnologia
1980 - Altinópolis SP - Solo, at the opening of Atelier Bassano Vaccarini
1980 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Solo, at Itaugaleria
1981 - Londrina PR - Solo, at Itaugaleria
1982 - Brasília DF - Solo, at Itaugaleria
1982 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Solo, at Itaugaleria
1986 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Solo, at Itaugaleria
1987 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Solo, at Itaugaleria
1989 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Solo, at Itaugaleria
1996 - Ribeirão Preto SP - The Painter and the Sculptor: Bassano Vaccarini, at Espaço Cultural Unimed
1997 - Sumaré SP - Solo, at Galeria Bassano Vaccarini
Group Exhibitions
1933 - Italy - Art Exhibition - Milanese Futurist Group
1935 - Italy - Exposição e Plástica Rural [Exhibition and Rural Plastic Art] - Genoa Futurist Group
1942 - Venice (Italy) - Venice Biennale
1943 - Italy - Art exhibition with the Milanese Futurist Group
1946 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Contemporary Italian Art: New Artists from Milan
1946 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary Italian Art: New Artists from Milan - 2nd prize in painting
1947 - São Paulo SP - São Paulo State Government Traveling Exhibition - 2nd prize in painting
1947 - São Paulo SP - São Paulo Visual Artists Union Salon - 1st prize in sculpture
1947 - São Paulo SP - São Paulo Fine Arts Salon - 1st prize in sculpture
1949 - São Paulo SP - Clube dos Artistas e Amigos da Arte
1951 - São Paulo SP - 1st Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão do Trianon
1953 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão dos Estados
1955 - São Paulo SP - 3rd Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão das Nações
1955 - São Paulo SP - 4th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1962 - Piracicaba SP - 1st Official Contemporary Art Salon - acquisition prize
1963 - Araraquara SP - 21st Araraquara Fine Arts Salon - 1st prize in painting
1964 - São Paulo SP - 3 from Ribeirão, at Galeria Seta
1965 - Brasília DF - 2nd Federal District Salon of Modern Art
1965 - Campinas SP - 1st Contemporary Art Salon - gold medal
1966 - Campinas SP - 2nd Contemporary Art Salon
1966 - São Paulo SP - 15th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia - silver medal in painting
1967 - São Paulo SP - 9th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1968 - Piracicaba SP - 1st Piracicaba Official Contemporary Art Salon - acquisition prize
1969 - Campinas SP - 5th Contemporary Art Salon
1969 - Curitiba PR - 26th Paraná Salon, at Federação das Indústrias do Estado do Paraná
1969 - Piracicaba SP - 2nd Piracicaba Official Contemporary Art Salon
1974 - Milan (Italy) - 4 from Ribeirão, at Galleria D'Arte Italo-Brasiliana
1975 - Ribeirão Preto SP - 1st Ribeirão Preto Art Salon
1976 - Ribeirão Preto SP - 2nd Ribeirão Preto Art Salon
1977 - Ribeirão Preto SP - 3rd Ribeirão Preto Art Salon
1978 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Group show, at Galeria do Sesc
1978 - Ribeirão Preto SP - 4th Ribeirão Preto Art Salon - City of Ribeirão Preto Prize
1979 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Ten Visual Artists of the City, at Itaugaleria
1980 - Campinas SP - Anachronics of the Small Hours, at MACC
1980 - Ituiutaba MG - Anachronics of the Small Hours
1981 - Altinópolis SP - Anachronics of the Small Hours
1981 - Cravinhos SP - Anachronics of the Small Hours
1981 - Matão SP - Anachronics of the Small Hours
1981 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Group show, at Galeria de Arte Novo Senac
1981 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Anachronics of the Small Hours, at Itaugaleria
1981 - Ribeirão Preto SP - 6th Ribeirão Preto Art Salon, at Casa da Cultura de Ribeirão Preto
1981 - São Carlos SP - Anachronics of the Small Hours, at Itaugaleria
1981 - Tokyo (Japan) - Inaugural Exhibition of the Japan International Artists Society
1982 - Belo Horizonte MG - Anachronics of the Small Hours, at Itaugaleria
1982 - Brasília DF - Anachronics of the Small Hours, at Itaugaleria
1982 - Londrina PR - Anachronics of the Small Hours
1982 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Group show, at Galeria de Arte Novo Senac
1982 - São Paulo SP - One Hundred Years of Sculpture, at Masp
1982 - São Paulo SP - A Century of Sculpture in Brazil, at Masp
1982 - São Carlos SP - Anachronics of the Small Hours
1983 - Catanduva SP - Anachronics of the Small Hours, at Itaugaleria
1983 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Exhibition in Support of the Ribeirão Preto Symphony, at Itaugaleria
1984 - Ribeirão Preto SP - 9th Ribeirão Preto Art Salon
1984 - São Paulo SP - Grupo Ribeirão, at Paço das Artes
1985 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Artists from Ribeirão Preto, at Sesc
1986 - Cravinhos SP - 3rd Cravinhos Contemporary Art Salon
1987 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Eight Sculptors from Ribeirão Preto, at Itaugaleria
1992 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Modernity/Experimentalism: Visual Arts in Ribeirão Preto, at USP. Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto
Source: Itaú Cultural
