Emeric Marcier (Cluj, Romania 1916 - Paris, France 1990)
Emeric Marcier
Emeric Marcier was one of the most important Brazilian modern painters, recognized for his landscapes, portraits and religious works. He also stood out for his large-scale murals, especially in fresco, building an artistic career marked by sensitivity, technical mastery and a deep connection with Brazilian culture.
At 20, he left Romania to study at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, where he completed his training by defending a thesis on Pablo Picasso. In early 1939, with the rise of fascism in Italy, Marcier, who was of Jewish origin, moved to Paris. He set up his studio at the Cité Falguière, a space previously occupied by his friend Victor Brauner, and deepened his surrealist work. During this period, he associated with important artists of the movement, among them Victor Brauner, Jacques Herold, Arpad Szenes and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. In Paris, he also attended the sculpture course at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
As World War II advanced in France, he moved to Lisbon at the end of 1939, where he was taken in by Arpad Szenes and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. In the Portuguese capital, he worked in the studio of the surrealist painter António da Costa and joined the circle of writers and intellectuals linked to the magazine Presença, one of the most important publications of Portuguese intellectual life at the time.
In 1940, in the face of growing insecurity in Europe, he emigrated to Brazil. He arrived in Rio de Janeiro bearing letters of introduction to Mário de Andrade, José Lins do Rego and Candido Portinari. Through José Lins do Rego, he became close to figures such as Murilo Mendes, Lúcio Cardoso and Jorge de Lima, friendships he would keep for the rest of his life. That same year, he held his first solo exhibition at the traditional Salão do Palace Hotel, filling a slot left by Guignard. The show was very well received by critics, who highlighted the talent of the young European surrealist. In 1942, he held an important exhibition at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes.
Also in 1942, he was invited by the magazine O Cruzeiro to tour the historic towns of Minas Gerais, producing paintings to illustrate a special issue with texts by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Abgar Renault, Aires da Matta Machado and other leading writers. His contact with the Baroque of Minas Gerais profoundly transformed his art, marking the beginning of the landscape phase that would characterize his work until the end of his life. From then on, he portrayed Brazil, its people, customs and landscapes, becoming a true traveling painter, recording scenes from various regions of Brazil and also from Europe.
Besides landscapes and portraits, Marcier stood out for his religious paintings and for the large murals he executed mainly in fresco. In 1946, he painted the frescoes of the Capela Cristo Rei in Mauá, São Paulo. Initially based in Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro, in 1948 he settled at the Sítio Sant'Ana in Barbacena, Minas Gerais, where he produced important large-scale sacred canvases in his studio. From the 1970s, he lived mainly in Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro, spending long periods in Paris, without ever breaking his ties with his country home in Barbacena.
Over his career, he took part in the 2nd and 3rd Bienal de São Paulo and the Salzburg Biennial of Sacred Art, and held numerous solo and group exhibitions in Brazil, France, Romania, the United States, Japan, Italy and other countries. His works are held in major Brazilian collections and museums, confirming his place among the great names of modern art.
Emeric Marcier also left the memoir Deportado para a Vida [Deported to Life], published by Editora Francisco Alves, in which he recounts his personal and artistic journey, marked by displacement, by war and by the building of one of the most significant careers in 20th-century Brazilian painting.
Critiques
"Although portraiture and landscape are constant themes in Emeric Marcier's painting and drawing, there is no doubt that his distinctiveness in Brazilian art stems from a close and consistent connection with religious subject matter. In him, this preference began to take root even before he came to Brazil, when, in the late 1930s, he encountered Italian mural painting of the 13th and 14th centuries. What actually happened, in his very first years among us, was that his naturally inward and mystical inclination found fertile ground for development in the atmosphere of religious vestiges of the old towns of the gold cycle in Minas Gerais. However, despite the silent stimulus of this local religious ambience, in which the mixture of the learned and the popular was always common, Marcier's work does not reveal more explicit links with the Brazilian source on which it also draws. This is perhaps because he never lost interest in the other, older source, more solidly grounded in tradition and atmosphere, in a Europe where art and Christianity were long united - a source that in fact better corresponds to an inviolable inner structure".
Roberto Pontual
PONTUAL, Roberto. Arte brasileira contemporânea: Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand. trad. Tradução de John Knox; Florence Eleanor Irvin. Apresentação de Pereira Carneiro. Rio de Janeiro: Jornal do Brasil, 1976.
"For him, painting is a purgation, in the theological sense as well as in that of Greek tragedy. It must be admitted that there is one art of tragic origin that can lead us to consolation, and another that abandons us to the fear of living. An art that resolves the problems of anguish and another that incites them. An art whose tension educates us in the knowledge of life, and another that oppresses us with the idea of man as too petty and irremediably condemned. That art has no illusions of salvation. It cultivates the feeling of desperate man and finds no other symbol. I think of the dangers and sorrows that pursued the painter Marcier, a fugitive from war, in his struggle against a predestination to anguish. At a time when there is a conspiracy to murder artistic life itself, in the traditional sense of its ways, a personality like that of this painter in his twenties is an example and a strength for our consciences".
Ruben Navarra
LEITE, José Roberto Teixeira. Dicionário crítico da pintura no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Artlivre, 1988.
Solo Exhibitions
1940 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Salão do Artista Brasileiro
1942 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at MNBA
1944 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at IAB/RJ
1952 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Ambiente
1954 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Petite Galerie
1956 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Maison de France
1956 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Tenreiro
1957 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Galeria André Weil
1960 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Petite Galerie
1961 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Relevo
1963 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1965 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Solo, at Galeria do Diário de Notícias
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Relevo
1966 - Rome (Italy) - Solo, at Casa do Brasil
1967 - Tokyo (Japan) - Solo, at Galeria Isogaia
1968 - Bucharest (Romania) - Retrospective, at the Romanian Athenaeum
1968 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria do Ibeu
1969 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Cosme Velho
1980 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Jean Boghici
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1986 - Washington D.C. (United States) - Retrospective, at Museu de Arte Moderna Latino-Americano, celebrating the artist's 50 years of painting
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Jean Boghici
1990 - Belo Horizonte MG - Solo, at MABH
1990 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
Group Exhibitions
1937 - Milan (Italy) - Exhibition, at Galeria Ítalo-Romena
1944 - London (England) - Brazilian Artists, at Burlington House
1944 - London (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Royal Academy of Arts
1944 - Norwich (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Norwich Castle and Museum
1945 - Bath (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Victory Art Gallery
1945 - Bristol (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery
1945 - Edinburgh (Scotland) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at National Gallery
1945 - Glasgow (Scotland) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Kelvingrove Art Gallery
1945 - Manchester (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Manchester Art Gallery
1952 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Exhibition of Brazilian Artists, at MAM/RJ
1953 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4th Still Life Salon, at Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro
1953 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão dos Estados
1954 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary Art: Exhibition of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo Collection, at MAM/SP
1955 - São Paulo SP - 3rd Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão das Nações
1956 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Railway Salon, at Ministério da Educação e Cultura
1957 - South America - Brazilian Artists traveling exhibition
1958 - Mexico City (Mexico) - 1st Inter-American Biennial
1963 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Landscape as Theme, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Nude in Contemporary Art, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1965 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Brazilian Artists, at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
1965 - Paris (France) - Salon Comparaisons
1965 - Prague (Czechoslovakia - now the Czech Republic) - Brazilian Artists
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Self-Portraits, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1966 - Salzburg (Austria) - Sacred Art Biennial
1972 - São Paulo SP - Art/Brazil/Today: 50 Years Later, at Galeria da Collectio
1974 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Sea, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1980 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Tribute to Mário Pedrosa, at Galeria Jean Boghici
1981 - Maceió AL - Brazilian Artists of the First Half of the 20th Century, at Instituto Histórico e Geográfico
1981 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - From the Modern to the Contemporary: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at MAM/RJ
1982 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Brazil 60 Years of Modern Art: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
1982 - Lisbon (Portugal) - From the Modern to the Contemporary: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
1982 - London (England) - Brazil 60 Years of Modern Art: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Barbican Art Gallery
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Football: Interpretations, at Galeria de Arte Banerj
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Universe of Football, at MAM/RJ
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Self-Portraits, at Galeria de Arte Banerj
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Active Brazilian Painting, at Espaço Petrobras
1984 - São Paulo SP - Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection: Portrait and Self-Portrait of Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: A Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - Brasília DF - Active Brazilian Painting, at Fundação Cultural do Distrito Federal
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Six Decades of Modern Art: Roberto Marinho Collection, at Paço Imperial
1985 - São Paulo SP - 18th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Wartime: Hotel Internacional, at Galeria de Arte Banerj
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Wartime: Pensão Mauá, at Galeria de Arte Banerj
1986 - São Paulo SP - Wartime: Pensão Mauá, at Fundação Bienal
1986 - São Paulo SP - Wartime: Hotel Internacional, at Fundação Bienal
1986 - Belo Horizonte MG - Wartime: Hotel Internacional
1986 - Belo Horizonte MG - Wartime: Pensão Mauá
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - To the Collector: Tribute to Gilberto Chateaubriand, at MAM/RJ
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Guignard/Marcier, at Galeria Jean Boghici
1987 - São Paulo SP - The Craft of Art: Painting, at Sesc
1989 - Fortaleza CE - 19th- and 20th-Century Brazilian Art in Ceará Collections: Paintings and Drawings, at Espaço Cultural da Unifor
1989 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Six Decades of Brazilian Modern Art: Roberto Marinho Collection, at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão. Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
Posthumous Exhibitions
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Nature: Four Centuries of Art in Brazil, at CCBB
1993 - São Paulo SP - Modern Drawing in Brazil: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Galeria de Arte do Sesi
1994 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Modern Drawing in Brazil: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at MAM/RJ
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Visions of Rio, at MAM/RJ
1997 - Porto Alegre RS - Parallel Exhibition, at Museu da Caixa Econômica Federal
1997 - Porto Alegre RS - Caixa Collection Exhibition, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
1997 - São Paulo SP - Caixa Collection Exhibition, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
1998 - Curitiba PR - Caixa Collection Exhibition, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Caixa Collection Exhibition, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - When Brazil Was Modern: Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro from 1905 to 1960, at Paço Imperial
1999 - Salvador BA - 60 Years of Brazilian Art, at Espaço Cultural da Caixa Econômica Federal
2001 - São Paulo SP - Aldo Franco Collection, at Pinacoteca do Estado
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Identities: The Brazilian Portrait in the Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at MAM/RJ
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Caixa Treasures: Brazilian Modern Art in the Caixa Collection, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
2008 - Tiradentes MG - Modern Greens, at Fundação Oscar Araripe
2010 - São Paulo SP - SP-Arte, at Fundação Bienal
Sources: Matias Marcier and Itaú Cultural
