Enrico Bianco (Roma, Itália 1918 - Rio de Janeiro RJ 2013)
Enrico Bianco was a painter, printmaker, draftsman and illustrator. He began his studies with Maud Latour, in Rome, in the 1930s. In Rio de Janeiro, between 1935 and 1937, he studied with Candido Portinari (1903-1962) at the Instituto de Artes of the Universidade do Distrito Federal (UDF). The following year, he worked with Portinari on several works, notably the murals of the Ministério da Educação e Cultura (MEC), the panels of Banco da Bahia and the UN building, among others. In 1940, he held his first solo exhibition at the Copacabana Palace Hotel. He illustrated the special edition of Caçada de Esmeraldas [Emerald Hunt], by Olavo Bilac (1865-1918), organized by Brazilian bibliophiles, as well as the recording album of the symphonic poem Anhanguera, by Hekel Tavares, in 1951.
An Intellectual and Two Artists
Rome, 1935. In the vast room of the old mansion, the sound of a piano fills the space with the chords of a Chopin nocturne.
Seated at the table, a teenager of about 17 has colored pencils, paints and sheets of sketches spread out before him. Some paintings are taking shape on them, still unfinished but heading toward resolution, with the assurance of someone who knows what he is doing.
Beside him, a middle-aged man checks the drafts of a text he has just finished and hopes to post before the end of the day.
The man is Francesco Bianco, writer and international correspondent for the «Jornal do Brasil», of Rio de Janeiro. The pianist, his wife, is Maria Bianco-Lanzi, who, besides her virtuosity and ease at the keyboard, is gifted with uncommon culture.
The young man busy with the paints is their son, Enrico Bianco, who since the age of six, encouraged by his parents, had been studying drawing and painting, counting among his teachers some well-known names in Italian art, such as Deoclécio Redig de Campos, who went on to become director of the Vatican Museum.
Now he was taking lessons from Dante Ricci, once teacher to the royal family, not as famous but equally capable and strict, who passed on to his pupil not only techniques but above all a notion of rigorous discipline, necessary for anyone who wishes to carry through any artistic work.
The father gets up and goes to the post office with his work. The young man, who practiced at least six hours a day, remains immersed in his tasks. And the sound of the piano continues, lighting up the room and inspiring the artist.
Addio, Italia mia
Then, one day, the piano fell silent. Silent forever. The Bianco family was living through its worst days. Besides the tragedy that had struck them, with the painful loss of wife and mother, problems were piling up with no solution in sight.
Francesco Bianco had once been a Christian Democrat member of parliament and, with the rise of Fascism in Italy, he fell into disgrace. The «Jornal do Brasil», going through the crisis of the 1930s and feeling the effects of the regime's tightening in Brazil too, after Getúlio Vargas took office, dismissed him from his post as its correspondent in Italy.
With all his erudition and good connections in Italy, Francesco could well have found a new job, but to work in the press or in any media outlet he would need a Fascist Party card, which he neither wanted to obtain nor would have been given, because of his political background.
There was another possible way out: to travel to Brazil, where he had already been in 1920. There he even had the promise of a job at Italcable, a submarine-cable telegraph service that competed with the American Western. But for that he needed passports, and these were denied him, as he was considered an enemy of the government, undesirable when near and uncontrollable when far.
Avanti tutti
Sensing the mounting difficulties, the family doctor, who was also Mussolini's cardiologist, offered to seek a solution and, during a routine consultation with the dictator, ventured a remark: «Bianco's wife has died».
«I know», replied the Duce. The answer was cold, but not unfriendly or hostile. The doctor ventured a further step: «He wants three passports, for himself and the two children.»
A new, prolonged silence and then Mussolini replied firmly: «Then let him fill in the papers, and I will authorize their issue.»
And so it was that, in 1937, led by the forces of fate, Enrico Bianco arrived in Rio de Janeiro with his father and sister, settling in Brazil for good. Months after arriving, he had an encounter that marked him for the rest of his life.
The Prospector's Hand
Bianco had been in Brazil for six months when the painter Paulo Rossi suggested he visit a work Portinari was preparing at the headquarters of the Ministry of Education. He went, but found only three assistants there: Burle Marx (1909-1994), Inês and Ruben Cassa (1905).
Noticing the difficulty the three were having enlarging, in fresco, the hand of a prospector, he asked them to let him try and, with their consent, painted that detail on his own.
Shortly afterwards Portinari arrives and, with a master's intuition, noticed the intervention, asking irritably: «Who did that hand there?» The assistants pointed to Bianco, huddled in a corner, to whom the master apparently paid little or no attention.
Had Bianco known, he would not even have gone there but, since he was there, he stayed on, watching the work progress. Around lunchtime, he decided to go home and said goodbye to Portinari, who asked him, with his usual energy: «But where are you going?» «I'm going home», Bianco replied.
The master held out his hand, with the same cross face, and asked him: «But you'll come back tomorrow, won't you?»
And so, little by little, the young painter became part of Portinari's team, serving for many, many years as a valued collaborator.
The «prospector's hand», Bianco's first intervention in the master's painting, is still there, where it was painted. And Portinari's influence on Bianco is visible in many of his paintings. The painter grew, came into his own, but never strayed from the style he assimilated and learned to respect.
Barred from the Ball
Bianco's closeness to Portinari, while on the one hand bringing him only pride and admiration, on the other also caused him problems, notably because of some Brazilian politicians' aversion to Portinari, mainly for his ideology and political positions. Although the master was not an activist, the mere fact of showing sympathy for communism put him in the McCarthyist crosshairs and, with him, all those who followed him.
In 1960, Mexico was organizing its 2nd Biennial and, wishing to include some Brazilian artists, sent a representative here who, among others, invited Enrico Bianco, commissioned to prepare three paintings especially for the event.
Since Itamaraty had offered to pay the travel expenses, it considered itself entitled to review the guest list, striking Bianco from it on the grounds that he was born in Italy and therefore did not represent Brazilian art.
The aversion to the painter was barely concealed. Bianco was born in Italy but made his career in Brazil in the shadow of one of the greatest Brazilian masters. His subject matter was entirely devoted to our land, our people, our customs. Rubem Braga came to his defense in an article published in the magazine «Manchete»:
«I saw the paintings. They are better than I expected; they are good paintings of modern art anywhere in the country and in the world, and they are the paintings of a painter trained in Brazil and sensitive to the suggestions and feeling of Brazilian life; they are, therefore, eminently representative of Brazilian painting at any international exhibition. I saw them, and the critics cannot argue with me, because the critics did not see them.»
It was no use. When the State interferes in art, art always comes off worse. And so does the artist.
The Most Brazilian of the Italians
Enrico Bianco was born in Rome on July 18, 1918. Although Italian, he came to Brazil as a teenager, developing his art amid the ferment of Brazilian modernism, set in motion by the Modernist Movement of 1921 in Rio de Janeiro and gaining substance with the Modern Art Week of 1922 in São Paulo.
He associated with great Brazilian masters of painting, such as Cândido Portinari, whose disciple he was, enjoyed the friendship of Burle Marx and received lavish praise from leading figures in the art world, such as Antônio Bento and Pietro Maria Bardi.
Having chosen Brazil as his second homeland, having settled here for good, and having produced practically all his work here, with the undeniable influence of Brazilian artists, and taking Brazilian life, customs and society as the subject of his work, Bianco can quite rightly be counted among the Painters of Brazil.
Text: Paulo Victorino
Critiques
"His immediate acquaintance with Portinari, the year after arriving in Brazil, definitively marked Enrico Bianco's drawing and painting from then on. (...) Thus, throughout Bianco's work, we see the development of a search for a fusion between apparently opposite poles, namely the organizing discipline of pictorial space according to schemes of linearity and subtly Cubist plays of planes, and the propensity, in fact broader, toward Expressionist vehemence. Hence the predominance of the figure in Bianco's work, treated with the concern of recording the drama of contingencies typical of today's world, compounded by global wars, or under the stimulus of other memories of drama, in the series of paintings with a religious basis. Landscapes, in turn, have gained presence in his current work, without our being able to experience in them, however - despite the agility and the same vehemence in the treatment of the whole -, that same Expressionist density found in his approach to other themes; one can even sense, in these works, a tendency toward the abstracting simplification of each element and its context, although the landscape remains there, visible and reactivated".
Roberto Pontual
PONTUAL, Roberto. Arte/Brasil/hoje: 50 anos depois. São Paulo: Collectio, 1973.
"Bianco is a talented painter, one of those one learns to respect from an early age. He does not limit his activity to particular areas. Everything in life interests him, which allows him to express himself in the most varied subject matter. He avoids formulas and fashions. A companion of Portinari, he took part, at the time the building of the Ministry of Education and Health was being built, in the activities of the group of modernists that brought together Mário de Andrade, Manuel Bandeira, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Graciliano Ramos, Oscar Niemeyer, Lúcio Costa, Carlos Leão, the brothers Roberto and Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Villa-Lobos and so many others to whom we owe the renewal that had its starting point in the Week of '22. As an artist emerging from the tradition wrongly called academic, Bianco is interested in the figure, landscape, still life and particularly rural scenes. Each canvas shows the mastery of those who devote themselves to the profession of painter-painter, continuing to consider and reveal events and encounters".
Pietro Maria Bardi
LOUZADA, Júlio. Artes plásticas: seu mercado, seus leilões. São Paulo: J. Louzada, 1984-.
"Enrico Bianco is that rare occurrence in Brazil: an artist who paints from a tradition more than 10 years old. This is, incidentally, the first thing that strikes the public on coming into contact with this work. Suddenly there is something different in this work, and it lies not only in the subject or in the artist's vision, but in his way of painting. That is to say, this difference, this something that catches the eye, lies in the brushstroke, in the use of pigments, in colors layered over other colors, in the composition and drawing, in the exaltation of the model. The public is certain that these paintings took a long time to make and that the artist's apprenticeship was long, a lifetime's dedication. They are works that seem to have eliminated chance, even if this is not true. There is a purpose, and the dialogue between work and public arises from this realization. And finally, if we were still in the days of refuting the anecdotal bourgeois, this time we could say that he would not say: 'my 10-year-old son could do that too'. We can certainly call Enrico Bianco's pictorial practice mastery. This knowledge, built up by the artist over so many years of devoted labor, takes shape in certain favorite subjects such as the female figure, still life, wheat fields, scenes of rural toil and landscapes, in which we find more than the transfiguration of everyday reality, since what is present is painting made of delicacy, lyricism, hidden sounds. We are no longer interested exactly in the motif from which the artist starts or in his visual stimulus, but in the creation of a unique and particular universe. Enrico Bianco does not make flowers, women or herds of cattle, but painting".
Jacob Klintowitz
BIANCO. Bianco. Curadoria José Adolpho M. Ayres; apresentação Jacob Klintowitz; projeto gráfico Hélio Alves Neves. São Paulo : Galeria de Arte André, 1997. 25 p. il. color.
Solo Exhibitions
1940 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - First solo exhibition in Brazil, at Copacabana Palace Hotel
1941 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Ita
1942 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Casa e Jardim
1956 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Petite Galerie
1958 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Tenreiro
1963 - Europe - Exposición de América y España
1964 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Solo
1964 - New Orleans (United States) - Solo
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Petite Galerie
1966 - Rome (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria da Casa do Brasil
1967 - Tel Aviv (Israel) - Solo
1967 - Rome (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria Piazza di Spagna
1968 - Recife PE - Solo, at Galeria Ranulpho
1970 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria de Arte Ipanema
1971 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at The Chelsea Art Galleries Jardim
1972 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Copacabana Palace
1973 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria de Arte Ipanema
1973 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria de Arte Ipanema
1975 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Graffiti
1976 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria de Arte Ipanema
1978 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Mini Gallery
1980 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Renot
1981 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Dezon
1982 - São Paulo SP - Retrospective Exhibition, at Masp
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Retrospective Exhibition, at MNBA
1996 - Brasília DF - Solo, at Palácio Itamaraty
1997 - Santos SP - Solo, at Fundação Benedito Calixto
1997 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria de Arte André
Group Exhibitions
1935 - Rome (Italy) - 1st Quadriennale Nazionale d'Arte
1940 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Modern Section of the National Salon of Fine Arts - silver medal
1951 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Still Life Exhibition, at Serviço de Alimentação e Previdência Social
1951 - São Paulo SP - 1st Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão do Trianon
1954 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th National Visual Arts Salon - special room
1954 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Black and White Salon, at Palácio da Cultura
1954 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary Art: Exhibition of the Collection of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, at MAM/SP
1960 - Mexico City (Mexico) - 2nd Inter-American Biennial of Mexico - special room
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
1981 - Paris (France) - Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Universe of Football, at MAM/RJ
1983 - Atami (Japan) - 6th Brazil-Japan Fine Arts Exhibition
1983 - Kyoto (Japan) - 6th Brazil-Japan Fine Arts Exhibition
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 6th Brazil-Japan Fine Arts Exhibition, at MNBA
1983 - São Paulo SP - 6th Brazil-Japan Fine Arts Exhibition, at Masp
1983 - Tokyo (Japan) - 6th Brazil-Japan Fine Arts Exhibition
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ
1985 - São Paulo SP - 100 Itaú Works, at Masp
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Seven Decades of Italian Presence in Brazilian Art, at Paço Imperial
1988 - São Paulo SP - 15 Years of the Brazil-Japan Fine Arts Exhibition, at Fundação Mokiti Okada M.O.A.
1989 - São Paulo SP - Thirty-Three Ways of Seeing the World, at Ranulpho Galeria de Arte
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Eco Art, at MAM/RJ
1993 - São Paulo SP - 100 Masterpieces from the Mário de Andrade Collection: Painting and Sculpture, at IEB/USP
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Riocult, at Riocentro
1996 - Passo Fundo RS - Museu de Artes Visuais Ruth Schneider: Inaugural Exhibition, at Museu de Artes Visuais Ruth Schneider
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Visions of Rio, at MAM/RJ
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Negotiated Images: Portraits of the Brazilian Elite, at CCBB
1998 - São Paulo SP - Football in Art, at Galeria de Arte André
2000 - São Paulo SP - Group show, at Galeria Ricardo Camargo
2001 - São Paulo SP - 4 Decades, at Nova André Galeria
2002 - São Paulo SP - Landscapes of the Imaginary, at Nova André Galeria
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Caixa Treasures: Brazilian Modern Art in the Caixa Collection, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
2003 - São Paulo SP - Entre Aberto, at Gravura Brasileira
Source: Itaú Cultural
