Campos Ayres (Itapetininga SP 1881 - São Paulo SP 1944)
Diógenes de Campos Ayres was a Brazilian painter, draftsman and teacher.
From a family in the interior of São Paulo state, he began painting as a self-taught artist in Avaré, São Paulo. He exhibited for the first time in 1906 at Casa Bevilacqua in São Paulo. In 1909, he became a scholarship holder of the Pensionato Artístico do Estado de São Paulo [São Paulo State Artistic Scholarship Program], regulated in 1912, and traveled to Paris. He studied from 1909 to 1910 at the Académie Julian with Tony Robert-Fleury (1837 - 1912), a painter of portraits and historical compositions and president of the Société des Artistes Français, Paul Albert Laurens (1870 - 1934) and Henri Paul Royer (1869 - 1938), a member of the so-called School of Nancy - interested in representing regional traditions and life outside the large urban centers - who exhibited several times in Brazil. In class, Ayres practiced the usual figure studies, but it was on walks around Paris that he sought landscapes for his paintings. He made frequent visits to the Musée du Louvre, where he observed the 19th-century French landscape painters, especially Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. In 1914, he returned to Brazil and, in May of that year, held a solo show at Casa Mascarani in São Paulo. He exhibited in June 1917 at Casa Verde. In February 1919, he took part in the exhibition Autos at Casa di Franco, a musical instrument store, also in São Paulo, when he caught the attention of Monteiro Lobato (1882 - 1948), who devoted a laudatory article to him in the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.
Critiques
"... His paintings of soft color and exquisite technique preferably capture scenes of the countryside, of our exuberant nature, with its mighty rivers and cascading waters, a genre in which he became a renowned master as one of the greatest national landscape painters".
José de Castro Mendes
CAMPOS Ayres. Texto de José de Castro Mendes. (Curriculum do artista).
Solo Exhibitions
1906 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Casa Bevilacqua
1917 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Casa Verde
1919 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Casa Verde
1929 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Blanchon
1933 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua São Bento, 48
1934 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua da Quitanda, 78
1938 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua João Brícola
1940 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua Barão de Itapetininga, 259
1942 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Rua São Bento, 250
Group Exhibitions
1908 - São Paulo SP - Exposição Nacional [National Exhibition]
1914 - São Paulo SP - Mostra [Exhibition], at Salão Mascarini
1918 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 25ª Exposição Geral de Belas Artes [25th General Exhibition of Fine Arts], at Enba
1919 - São Paulo SP - Exposição Altos Casa Di Franco [Altos Exhibition, Casa Di Franco]
1922 - São Paulo SP - Mostra [Exhibition], at Casa Editora O Livro
1934 - São Paulo SP - 1º Salão Paulista de Belas Artes [1st São Paulo Fine Arts Salon], at Rua 11 de Agosto
1939 - São Paulo SP - 6º Salão Paulista de Belas Artes [6th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon] - 3rd São Paulo City Hall Prize
1940 - São Paulo SP - 7º Salão Paulista de Belas Artes [7th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon], at Salão de Arte Almeida Júnior da Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo - 1st São Paulo City Hall Prize
1940 - São Paulo SP - Exposição Retrospectiva: obras dos grandes mestres da pintura e seus discípulos [Retrospective Exhibition: Works by the Great Masters of Painting and Their Disciples]
1941 - São Paulo SP - Salão Paulista de Belas Artes [São Paulo Fine Arts Salon] - large silver medal
1942 - São Paulo SP - 8º Salão Paulista de Belas Artes [8th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon], at Galeria Prestes Maia
1943 - São Paulo SP - 9º Salão Paulista de Belas Artes [9th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon], at Galeria Prestes Maia
Posthumous Exhibitions
1944 - São Paulo SP - Paisagens de Itapetininga [Landscapes of Itapetininga], at Galeria Benedetti
1945 - São Paulo SP - 11º Salão Paulista de Belas Artes [11th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon], at Galeria Prestes Maia
1956 - São Paulo SP - Exposição Cinquenta Anos de Paisagem Brasileira [Fifty Years of Brazilian Landscape Exhibition], at MAM/SP
1978 - São Paulo SP - A Paisagem na Coleção da Pinacoteca [Landscape in the Pinacoteca Collection], at Pinacoteca do Estado
1980 - São Paulo SP - A Paisagem Brasileira: 1650-1976 [The Brazilian Landscape: 1650-1976], at Paço das Artes
1985 - São Paulo SP - 100 Obras Itaú [100 Itaú Works], at Masp
1986 - São Paulo SP - Dezenovevinte: Uma Virada no Século [Dezenovevinte: A Turn of the Century], at Pinacoteca do Estado
1987 - São Paulo SP - A Trama do Gosto: um outro olhar sobre o cotidiano [The Fabric of Taste: Another Look at Everyday Life], at Fundação Bienal
1989 - São Paulo SP - Pintura Brasil Século XIX e XX: obras do acervo do Banco Itaú [Brazilian Painting of the 19th and 20th Centuries: Works from the Banco Itaú Collection], at Itaugaleria
1991 - São Paulo SP - Imagens Paulistas [São Paulo Images], at Paço das Artes
1995 - Campinas SP - Da Marinha à Natureza Morta [From Seascape to Still Life]
1998 - São Paulo SP - Iconografia Paulistana em Coleções Particulares [São Paulo Iconography in Private Collections], at Museu da Casa Brasileira
Source: Itaú Cultural
