Hermelindo Fiaminghi (São Paulo SP 1920 - idem 2004)
Hermelindo Fiaminghi was a painter, draftsman, graphic artist, lithographer, advertising professional, teacher and critic. Between 1936 and 1941, he attended the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios de São Paulo, where he studied with Lothar Charoux (1912–1987) and Waldemar da Costa (1904–1982). He devoted himself to lithography, working at the leading printing companies in São Paulo. In 1946, he founded his first company, Graphstudio, working in graphic production. In the early 1950s, he began to develop abstract works that reveal the influence of constructive art. He also collaborated with the concrete poets on the graphic layout of their poems.
Between 1959 and 1966, he frequented the studio of Alfredo Volpi (1896–1988). He was part of the Ruptura Group, led by Waldemar Cordeiro (1925–1973), and took part in creating the collective studio in Brás, where he developed the Virtuais [Virtuals] series, also working with enamel on Eucatex fiberboard. In the early 1960s, he began working with tempera and started experimenting with color. In this context, he adopted the term Corluz [Color-Light] to designate his works, carrying out research with offset halftone screens.
He was a co-founder of the Associação de Artes Visuais and of the Galeria Novas Tendências, both created in São Paulo in 1963. In 1969, he founded the Ateliê Livre de Artes Plásticas in São José dos Campos, São Paulo, where he served as director and teacher.
Critical Commentary
Hermelindo Fiaminghi attended the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios de São Paulo between 1936 and 1941, where he studied painting with Waldemar da Costa (1904 - 1982). He also studied graphic arts, which he would practice throughout his career. He devoted himself to lithography, working at the leading printing companies in São Paulo. From 1946 on, he worked in advertising. Fiaminghi joined the concrete movement in 1955. He contributed to the graphic production of the poster-poems of the São Paulo concrete writers, such as Haroldo de Campos (1929 - 2003) and Décio Pignatari (1927 - 2012). In 1959, Fiaminghi broke with Waldemar Cordeiro (1925 - 1973) and the group of concrete artists in São Paulo.
Early in his career, he devoted himself to geometric abstraction. His works stand out for the visual rhythm of their compositions, as in Long Play (1955), in which he works with the suggestion of movement of geometric figures. He frequently uses a reduced range of colors. From 1958 on, he produced the Virtuais [Virtuals] series, in enamel on particleboard. He uses few figures, defined by planes of color, which present a certain ambiguity, since they lie on the flat surface of the picture and, at the same time, are inserted into a cubic space built of orthogonal planes, as in Virtual XIV (1958).
Between 1959 and 1966, he frequented the studio of Alfredo Volpi (1896 - 1988), with whom he learned tempera painting. He replaced wood with linen canvas. In his paintings, he made increasing use of the transparency of colors. With the series of works called Cor-Luz [Color-Light], he began research into the fusion and diffusion of color through the incidence of light. He painted canvases inspired by the gridded surfaces that make up the printing halftone screen. He also carried out experiments with slides, later printed in offset, in search of optical precision.
Later, his brushwork became more gestural, subverting the grid that structures his canvases. In the 1980s, he made a series of "unportraits", such as the one of Haroldo de Campos from 1985, and of "unlandscapes", with loose brushstrokes that reveal color as a floating surface. At that time, enchanted by the painting of Claude Monet (1840 - 1926), Fiaminghi reviewed his own works and stated: "Everything I had been thinking is there", and, almost like an old Impressionist painter, said: "I chase light, but light is fleeting".
Fiaminghi's work reveals great freedom in the use of color. Throughout his career, he reconciled the dual activity of visual artist and graphic arts professional, and some critics consider him a pioneer in the use of offset as a language of artistic creation.
Critiques
"In his extensive series of Virtuais [Virtuals], Fiaminghi develops visual exercises of rare inventiveness, creating, together with Luís Sacilotto, works with intriguing spatial solutions through an immense economy of means. This series, with its 'color-light' experiments, which he would later develop in offset, would be his great contribution to the concrete movement. With few elements - two triangles and two parallelograms - he works the surface of the picture (always Eucatex painted in enamel), arranging them in a multiple play that proposes new spaces or geometry, enclosing the apparent spaces. Here one senses the artist manipulating figure-ground ambiguity, though without starting from overly rigid dogmas, since, despite forming a series, the Virtuais had varied dimensions. According to Fiaminghi, it was the composition of the elements that determined the space the image would occupy; in other words, invention determined the physical limits of the picture".
Aracy Amaral
FIAMINGHI, Hermelindo. Fiaminghi: décadas 50-60-70. São Paulo: MAM, 1980.
"(...) Rational and objective art that one intends to achieve by means that are not only purely artisanal but almost entirely pragmatic is taking too far the reliance on what I have already had occasion to call 'sensitive control'... Electronic control not only does not exclude sensitive control, it demands it. An artist like Fiaminghi, who has deep experience in the graphic arts and is perfectly up to date with their most modern techniques, knows this. His latest works on canvas form a series of approaches to the problem of color-light, which necessarily point toward a more rigorous control of its handling. The graphic arts have several resources for this kind of control - and their path is a natural one for Hermelindo Fiaminghi, given the becoming of his art. This new direction in Fiaminghi's art must be followed with full attention, because it will make it possible to raise again problems wrongly forgotten or never even formulated, such as those posed by industrial design, the graphic arts, photography, cinema and television, enabling truly new solutions".
Décio Pignatari
FIAMINGHI, Hermelindo. Fiaminghi: décadas 50-60-70. São Paulo: MAM, 1980.
"Hermelindo Fiaminghi's first rational paintings date from 1953. But only in 1955 did he come close to the concrete artists and poets, above all Décio Pignatari. The dynamism in the articulation of geometric elements and the use of reduced color scales between black and white in his early period (cf. Elevação Vertical com Movimento Horizontal [Vertical Elevation with Horizontal Movement], 1955) would gain breadth in 1956-57 (cf. Círculos Concêntricos e Alternados [Concentric and Alternating Circles], from the latter year). The well-crafted Virtuais [Virtuals] series, whose conception is Gestaltian, dates from 1958. He later made paintings he calls Corluz [Color-Light]. This investigation, at the limits of the immateriality of light, would also be carried out in litho-offset, responding to the need for greater optical precision in the work. Fiaminghi combines the dual condition of visual artist and graphic arts professional. Despite his skilled use of technological resources in art, he would remain faithful to painting and to traditional techniques (such as tempera), his concretism showing a freedom of evolution attached preferably to the expression of color".
Walter Zanini
ZANINI, Walter (org.). História geral da arte no Brasil. São Paulo: Instituto Walther Moreira Salles, Fundação Djalma Guimarães, 1983.
"My testimony is that of a painter who took part in the concrete movement. I have no critical or theoretical training; I believe there are professionals with more appropriate language, given the literary technique of artistic discourse.
I arrived at concretism, incredible as it may seem, without any theoretical training, without any information about its postulates or even about its existence.
My knowledge of art history, at the time, went as far as Cubism; everything else was abstract. My idols were Cézanne and Van Gogh.
It was at the third Biennial that the critics exposed me as a concrete artist; I was caught red-handed.
My curiosity led me into the jaguar's den to find out what kind of beast this was, and I came upon the São Paulo concrete artists.
There, intuitive sensibility came to an end; I took on the responsibility of a responsible art and all its local implications.
It was worth it..."
Hermelindo Fiaminghi
BOUSSO, Vitória Daniela. Fiaminghi ou a concreção sensória. 1992. 200 p. Dissertação (Mestrado) - Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo - ECA/USP, São Paulo, 1992. p. 164.
"The construction of color is complex. Fiaminghi does not work with pure basic colors; his base mixtures are generally the result of rather complicated blends. He is guided by the perception that color produces in our vision and in its overlap with other colors. He has to do a great deal of mixing. By following his work, it was possible to identify some of his chromatic mixtures. However, not all of them can be identified, since they lack a clear composition procedure (...). Color also has a temporal aspect; it performs a movement in depth as it dries; some colors leap out of the canvas, light up when dry, and this may take one day, or it may take ten days".
Isabella Cabral e Marco Antonio Amaral Rezende
CABRAL, Isabella; REZENDE, Marco Antonio Amaral. Hermelindo Fiaminghi. São Paulo: Rio, 1998. (Artistas brasileiros, 11). p. 24-25.
Solo Exhibitions
1961 - Campinas SP - First solo exhibition, at Galeria Aremar
1964 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Associação de Artes Visuais Galeria Novas Tendências
1975 - São José dos Campos SP - Solo, at Galeria do Sol
1977 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at A Ponte Galeria de Arte
1980 - São Paulo SP - Fiaminghi: décadas 50/60/70 [Fiaminghi: 1950s/60s/70s], at MAM/SP
1986 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria de Arte São Paulo
1988 - São José dos Campos SP - Solo, at Galeria do Sol
1988 - São Paulo SP - Hermelindo Fiaminghi: pintura [Hermelindo Fiaminghi: Painting], at Galeria Montesanti Roesler
1990 - São Paulo SP - Fiaminghi CorLuz, at Galeria Montesanti Roesler
1995 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Escritório de Arte São Paulo
1998 - São Paulo SP - CorLuz, at Galeria Nara Roesler
2001 - São Paulo SP - Mostra Antológica de Hermelindo Fiaminghi [Hermelindo Fiaminghi Anthological Exhibition], at MAM/SP
2003 - Niterói RJ - Hermelindo Fiaminghi na Coleção Sattamini [Hermelindo Fiaminghi in the Sattamini Collection], at MAC/Niterói
Group Exhibitions
1955 - São Paulo SP - 3rd São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão das Nações
1955 - São Paulo SP - 4th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia - silver medal
1956 - São Paulo SP - 1st National Exhibition of Concrete Art, at MAM/SP
1957 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Arte Moderna do Brasil [Modern Art of Brazil], at Museo de Arte Moderno
1957 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st National Exhibition of Concrete Art, at MAM/RJ
1957 - São Paulo SP - 4th São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo Sobrinho
1958 - São Paulo SP - 6 Artistas Concretos [6 Concrete Artists], at Galeria de Arte das Folhas
1959 - Leverkusen (Germany) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1959 - Munich (Germany) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe, at Kunsthaus
1959 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Arte Contemporânea Brasileira [Brazilian Contemporary Art], at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
1959 - São Paulo SP - 5th São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo Sobrinho
1959 - São Paulo SP - Leirner Contemporary Art Prize, at Galeria de Arte das Folhas
1959 - Vienna (Austria) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - Hamburg (Germany) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - Lisbon (Portugal) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - Madrid (Spain) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - Paris (France) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - São Paulo SP - 9th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1960 - Utrecht (Netherlands) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - Zurich (Switzerland) - Konkrete Kunst, at Helmhaus
1961 - São Paulo SP - 6th São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo Sobrinho
1963 - São Paulo SP - Galeria Novas Tendências: coletiva inaugural [Galeria Novas Tendências: Inaugural Group Show], at Associação de Artes Visuais Novas Tendências
1966 - Asunción (Paraguay) - Arte Hoy en el Brasil [Art Today in Brazil], at Galeria da Missão Cultural Brasileira
1966 - Campinas SP - Seis Pesquisadores da Arte Visual [Six Researchers of Visual Art], at MACC
1966 - São Paulo SP - 15th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia - gold medal
1966 - São Paulo SP - Seis Pesquisadores da Arte Visual [Six Researchers of Visual Art], at MAC/USP
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ, Porto Alegre RS and Belo Horizonte MG - Pesquisadores de Artes Visuais [Visual Arts Researchers], organized by MAC/USP
1967 - São Caetano do Sul SP - 1st São Caetano do Sul Contemporary Art Salon - acquisition prize
1968 - São José dos Campos SP - Seis Pesquisadores da Arte Visual [Six Researchers of Visual Art]
1969 - Santo André SP - 2nd Santo André Contemporary Art Salon, at Paço Municipal - Cidade de Santo André Prize
1970 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1971 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Eletrobrás Art Salon, at MAM/RJ - acquisition prize
1971 - São Paulo SP - 3rd São Paulo Contemporary Art Salon, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1972 - São Paulo SP - 4th São Paulo Contemporary Art Salon, at Masp
1972 - São Paulo SP - Waldemar da Costa Retrospective: Tribute to the Master, at MAM/SP
1973 - São Paulo SP - 12th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1973 - São Paulo SP - 5th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1973 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Eletrobrás Light and Movement Art Salon, at MAM/RJ - acquisition prize
1974 - São Paulo SP - Prospectiva '74, at MAC/USP
1975 - São Paulo SP - 13th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1975 - São Paulo SP - 6th São Paulo Contemporary Art Salon, at Fundação Bienal
1976 - Bloomington (United States) - Graphic Art 76, at Matrix Gallery
1976 - São Paulo SP - 8th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1977 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Constructive Project in Art: 1950-1962, at MAM/RJ
1977 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Constructive Project in Art: 1950-1962, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1978 - São Paulo SP - The Biennials and Abstraction: The 1950s, at Museu Lasar Segall
1979 - São Paulo SP - 11th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1980 - São Paulo SP - Arte Brasil-Itália [Brazil-Italy Art], at Masp
1984 - Campinas SP - Geraldo de Barros and Hermelindo Fiaminghi, at Galeria de Arte da Unicamp
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: A Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Christian Dior Contemporary Art Exhibition: Painting, at Paço Imperial
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Seven Decades of Italian Presence in Brazilian Art, at Paço Imperial
1986 - São Paulo SP - 17th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1986 - São Paulo SP - Mostra da Coleção Museu de Arte de São Paulo [Exhibition of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Collection], at Masp
1986 - São Paulo SP - Volpi Permanência e Matriz: 7 artistas de São Paulo [Volpi Permanence and Matrix: 7 São Paulo Artists], at Galeria Montesanti Roesler
1987 - Brasília DF - São Paulo Artists in Brasília, at MAB/DF
1987 - Canada - 13th Art Exhibition Embraer
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Geometric Abstraction: Concretism and Neo-Concretism, at Centro de Artes da Funarte
1987 - São Paulo SP - 1st Geometric Abstraction: Concretism and Neo-Concretism, at MAB/Faap
1987 - São Paulo SP - The Fabric of Taste: Another Look at Everyday Life, at Fundação Bienal
1988 - São Paulo SP - Artistas Italianos e Descendentes no Brasil [Italian Artists and Descendants in Brazil], at Banco Sudameris
1990 - Atami (Japan) - 9th Brazil-Japan Contemporary Art Exhibition
1990 - Brasília DF - 9th Brazil-Japan Contemporary Art Exhibition
1990 - Brasília DF - Brasília Visual Arts Award, at MAB/DF
1990 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 9th Brazil-Japan Contemporary Art Exhibition
1990 - São Paulo SP - 9th Brazil-Japan Contemporary Art Exhibition, at Fundação Brasil-Japão
1990 - Sapporo (Japan) - 9th Brazil-Japan Contemporary Art Exhibition
1990 - Tokyo (Japan) - 9th Brazil-Japan Contemporary Art Exhibition
1991 - São Paulo SP - Citizenship: 200 Years of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, at Sesc Pompeia
1991 - São Paulo SP - Constructivism: Poster Art 40/50/60, at MAC/USP
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st On the Way to Niterói: João Sattamini Collection, at Paço Imperial
1992 - São Paulo SP - Polaridades/Perspectivas [Polarities/Perspectives], at Paço das Artes
1992 - São Paulo SP - A Gênese da Pintura [The Genesis of Painting], at Masp
1993 - São José dos Campos SP - Ateliê Livre: 23 anos depois [Ateliê Livre: 23 Years Later]
1993 - São Paulo SP - 23rd Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP - award winner
1993 - São Paulo SP - Ateliê Livre: 23 anos depois [Ateliê Livre: 23 Years Later], at MAM/SP
1993 - São Paulo SP - Polaridades e Perspectiva [Polarities and Perspective], at MIS/SP
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século XX, at Fundação Bienal
1995 - São Paulo SP - Contact Project, at Galeria Sesc Paulista
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Constructive Tendencies in the MAC/USP Collection: Construction, Measure and Proportion, at CCBB
1996 - São Paulo SP - 1st Off Bienal, at MuBE
1996 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art: 50 Years of History in the MAC/USP Collection: 1920-1970, at MAC/USP
1996 - São Paulo SP - Desexp(l)os(ign)ição, at Casa das Rosas
1996 - São Paulo SP - The World of Mario Schenberg, at Casa das Rosas
1997 - Niterói RJ - Visões e (Sub) Versões [Visions and (Sub) Versions], at MAC/Niterói
1998 - São Paulo SP - Constructive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, at MAM/SP
1998 - São Paulo SP - Impressions: The Art of Brazilian Printmaking, at Espaço Cultural Banespa-Paulista
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Constructive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, at MAM/RJ
1999 - São Paulo SP - Everyday Life/Art. Consumption, at Itaú Cultural
1999 - São Paulo SP - The 1950s and Their Involvements, at Jo Slaviero Galeria de Arte
2000 - Lisbon (Portugal) - 20th Century: Art of Brazil, at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brasil + 500 Mostra do Redescobrimento: Arte Moderna [Brazil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition: Modern Art], at Fundação Bienal
2001 - São Paulo SP - Trajectory of Light in Brazilian Art, at Itaú Cultural
2002 - Niterói RJ - Coleção Sattamini: modernos e contemporâneos [Sattamini Collection: Modern and Contemporary], at MAC/Niterói
2002 - Niterói RJ - Dialogue, Antagonism and Replication in the Sattamini Collection, at MAC/Niterói
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Art in the Fadel Collection: From the Restlessness of the Modern to the Autonomy of Language, at CCBB
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Paths of the Contemporary 1952-2002, at Paço Imperial
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Parallels: Brazilian Art of the Second Half of the 20th Century in Context, Colección Cisneros, at MAM/RJ
2002 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art in the Fadel Collection: From the Restlessness of the Modern to the Autonomy of Language, at CCBB
2002 - São Paulo SP - Map of Now: Recent Brazilian Art in the João Sattamini Collection of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2002 - São Paulo SP - Parallels: Brazilian Art of the Second Half of the 20th Century in Context, Colección Cisneros, at MAM/SP
2002 - São Paulo SP - Gate 2, at Galeria Nara Roesler
2003 - Belo Horizonte MG - Geométricos [Geometrics], at Léo-Bahia Arte Contemporânea
2003 - Brasília DF - Brazilian Art in the Fadel Collection: From the Restlessness of the Modern to the Autonomy of Language, at CCBB
2003 - Mexico City (Mexico) - Cuasi Corpus: arte concreto y neoconcreto de Brasil: una selección del acervo del Museo de Arte Moderno de São Paulo y la Colección Adolpho Leirner [Quasi Corpus: Concrete and Neo-Concrete Art from Brazil: A Selection from the Collection of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo and the Adolpho Leirner Collection], at Museo Rufino Tamayo
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Order x Freedom, at MAM/RJ
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilianart Project, at Almacén Galeria de Arte
Posthumous Exhibitions
2004 - São Paulo SP - Cinquenta 50 [Fifty 50], at Museu de Arte Moderna
2005 - São Paulo SP - Homo Ludens: do faz-de-conta à vertigem [Homo Ludens: From Make-Believe to Vertigo], at Itaú Cultural
2005 - Belo Horizonte MG - 40/80: An Exhibition of Brazilian Art, at Léo Bahia Arte Contemporânea
2006 - São Paulo SP - Ao Mesmo Tempo o Nosso Tempo [At the Same Time Our Time], at Museu de Arte Moderna
2006 - São Paulo SP - Concreta '56: a raiz da forma [Concreta '56: The Root of Form], at Museu de Arte Moderna
2006 - São Paulo SP - Pincelada - Pintura e Método: Projeções da Década de 50 [Brushstroke - Painting and Method: Projections of the 1950s], at Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2007 - Americana SP - ... limites ... [... Limits ...], at Casa de Cultura Hermann Müller
2008 - São Paulo SP - MAM 60, at Oca
2008 - São Paulo SP - Panorama of Panoramas, at Museu de Arte Moderna
2008 - São Paulo SP - Ruptura, Frente e Ressonâncias [Ruptura, Frente and Resonances], at Galeria Berenice Arvani
2008 - Niterói RJ - Poetas da Cor [Poets of Color], at Museu de Arte Contemporânea
2009 - São Paulo SP - Anos 50 - 50 Obras [The 1950s - 50 Works], at Galeria Berenice Arvani
2009 - Madrid (Spain) - 28th Arco
2009 - Niterói RJ - Arte Contemporânea Brasileira nas Coleções João Sattamini e Mac de Niterói [Brazilian Contemporary Art in the João Sattamini and MAC de Niterói Collections], at Museu de Arte Contemporânea
2009 - São Paulo SP - Fiaminghi, at Dan Galeria
2010 - São Paulo SP - 41st Chapel Art Show, at Escola Maria Imaculada - Chapel School
2010 - São Paulo SP - Preto no Branco: do concreto ao contemporâneo [Black on White: From Concrete to Contemporary], at Galeria Berenice Arvani
2010 - São Paulo SP - 6th SP-Arte, at Fundação Bienal
2011 - São Paulo SP - 7th SP-Arte, at Pavilhão da Bienal
2011 - Porto Alegre RS - Iberê Camargo e o Ambiente Cultural do Pós-Guerra [Iberê Camargo and the Postwar Cultural Milieu], at Fundação Iberê Camargo
Source: Itaú Cultural
