Euclides Francisco Amâncio (Maraial PE 1912 - Olinda PE 1996)
Bajado
1912 - Maraial PE - December 9 / 1996 - Olinda PE - November 15
Euclides Francisco Amâncio, better known as Bajado, was an artist from Pernambuco, born on December 9, 1912, in the municipality of Maraial, in the Zona da Mata region of Pernambuco. From a very early age, the young Bajado showed a talent for drawing. His inspiration came from the cinema, one of his great passions. At the time, Bajado had no money for a movie ticket, and his solution was to sell sweet bread and tapioca cakes made by his mother and grandmother. When he left the theater, the boy would take paper and draw the story he had just seen in comic-strip form. Still young, Bajado left Maraial and moved to the town of Catende, Pernambuco, where he stayed until 1930, working as an assistant and painter of movie posters. Four years later, he settled in Olinda, where he continued painting movie posters and worked as a projectionist at Cine Olinda until 1950. The nickname Bajado arose in childhood from a joke during a game of jogo do bicho (an illegal lottery), one of the artist's favorite pastimes.
In 1956, he began a professional career as an artist, painting panels and murals in shopping centers and decorations for the Olinda Carnival. Bajado depicted the great carnival clubs of the old heritage city - Pitombeira dos Quatro Cantos, Elefante, O Homem da Meia-Noite, Vassourinhas - as well as the frenzied frevo in Ribeira, Largo do Amparo, Varadouro and Praça do Carmo. In 1964, together with some fellow artists, he launched the Movimento de Arte da Ribeira in Olinda, where he began exhibiting his work. Throughout his artistic life, Bajado also painted countless canvases about the daily life, suffering, emotions and culture of the people of Pernambuco. The artist had a calm and playful temperament. He flowed into art with the simplicity of a humble man. He was considered a primitive artist, within the style of contemporary art. His artistic tendency was aesthetic freedom, common in modern art.
Bajado died in 1996, at the age of 84, at his home at Rua do Amparo, nº 186, Olinda, Pernambuco.
Chronology
Poster painter, painter.
n.d. - Paints allegorical floats for carnivals
1924 - Self-taught, paints movie signs for Álvaro Valença's movie theater in Maraial, Pernambuco
1928 - Moves to Recife
1964 - Launches the Movimento de Arte da Ribeira [Ribeira Art Movement] with a group of artists from Olinda
1983 - The carnival march Bajado - Um Parceiro de Deus [Bajado - A Partner of God] is composed for the carnival group of Ozires Diniz and Nelson Luís
1983 - The artist suffers from cataracts in both eyes; to help him, the Olinda City Hall sponsors decorative panels for the carnival - made by several artists such as Luciana Pinheiro, Gil Vicente, Tiago Amorim and George Barbosa - which are later auctioned, with the proceeds donated to the artist
1984/1985 - The film Bajado - Um Artista de Olinda [Bajado - An Artist from Olinda] is produced
Critiques
"Not being a primitive, he stayed away from the pull of so-called gallery art, thus preserving his frank feeling and his outlook on his people and his town. Bajado is a popular artist in the literal sense of the word. His subject is the popular face and the popular event, just as his realist technique is a crude but genuine craft, the only one capable of photographing in detail the turbulent explosions and implosions of the crowd dancing at carnival, sliding its procession down the slopes of Olinda, piling up and burning its colors in the sun and on the sands of the beaches".
João Câmara
LEITE, José Roberto Teixeira. Dicionário crítico da pintura no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Artlivre, 1988.
Solo Exhibitions
1977 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Luís Buarque de Holanda e Paulo Bittencourt
1990 - Olinda PE - Bajado: acervos e coleções [Bajado: Holdings and Collections], at MAC/Olinda
1990 - Olinda PE - Solo, at Galeria Baobá
1992 - Olinda PE - Bajado: 80 anos [Bajado: 80 Years], at Museu Regional de Olinda
Group Exhibitions
1980 - São Paulo SP - Gente da Terra [People of the Land] and Imagens de Dança [Images of Dance] group shows, at Paço das Artes
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: A Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1988 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - O Mundo Fascinante dos Pintores Naïfs [The Fascinating World of Naïve Painters], at Paço Imperial
1991 - Olinda PE - Group show, at Mercado Eufrásio Barbosa
1994 - Paris (France) - Exhibition in tribute to Bajado, at UNESCO headquarters
Source: ArtePopularBrasil, Itaú Cultural
