Ivan Serpa (Rio de Janeiro RJ 1923 - idem 1973)
Ivan Serpa was a painter, printmaker, draftsman, visual artist and teacher, born in Rio de Janeiro in 1923. In 1946, he began studying art with the printmaker Axl Leskoschek, and in 1947 he exhibited in the modern division of the Salão Nacional de Belas Artes. By the early 1950s, his work was already identified with geometric abstraction, and his participation in the 1st São Paulo Biennial in 1951 reaffirmed this choice. On that occasion, he received the Young National Painter Prize.
From 1952, he also devoted himself to teaching children in painting courses held at the Museu de Arte Moderna, an activity that accompanied him throughout his life. In 1953, he took part in the 1st National Exhibition of Abstract Art in Petrópolis and, the following year, created Grupo Frente, leading it throughout its two years of existence. In 1957, he took part in the 1st National Exhibition of Concrete Art in Rio de Janeiro and, that same year, received the foreign travel prize of the Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna. Between 1958 and 1959, he lived in Europe, returning to Brazil to take part in the 1st Neoconcrete Art Exhibition held in Rio de Janeiro.
In the early 1960s, he carried out some experiments in figuration, including the so-called "black phase", of expressionist tendency, which developed during a period of political crisis that culminated in the military coup of 1964. From 1965, he returned to geometric abstraction, introducing elements more linked to the sensuality of forms, something absent from his concrete phase of the 1950s. He took part in important exhibitions throughout the 1960s, such as Opinião 65, Opinião 66 and Nova Objetividade Brasileira, which brought together leading names of the emerging generation of visual artists. Still in the 1960s and early 1970s, he developed works with Lygia Pape, Antonio Manuel and Dionísio del Santo, who reproduced them in silkscreen.
Serpa received numerous awards in Brazil and took part in several biennials in São Paulo, as well as in Venice (1952, 1954 and 1962) and Zurich (1960), also receiving awards on those occasions. The Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro held retrospectives of his work in 1965, 1971 and 1974.
An art course just for children
The young teacher left in high spirits, his head full of plans. He had just been hired by the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro to give open painting classes to children who showed talent and interest in art.
For Ivan Serpa - the teacher we are talking about - it was not everything he aspired to, but it was a good start. At 29, he was beginning his career by linking his name to an institution that was still new but was fighting to break with the academic tradition, creating a space for renewal.
Indeed, in 1952 MAM was only four years old. An existence more on paper than in fact. Founded in 1948 by a group of collectors, it had neither a collection nor premises of its own. A bank branch in Rio de Janeiro lent it space, and the works on display were also lent by the men who led the venture.
In 1951, Mrs. Niomar Muniz Sodré Bittencourt took over the presidency of the institution; her husband, Paulo Bittencourt, was the director and owner of Correio da Manhã, one of the most prestigious newspapers in circulation in the city.
That was when things began to change. The Minister of Education and Culture, Simões Filho, granted a large open space among the supporting columns of the Palácio da Cultura. Oscar Niemeyer took charge of the project which, in a few months, would turn the area into one of the most welcoming art venues in Rio.
The new museum opened on January 15, 1952, with a controversial exhibition presenting the best of what was being done in art in Brazil and abroad.
Among the works on display were also those awarded the previous year at the 1st São Paulo Biennial. And among these was the painting Formas [Forms], by the painter Ivan Serpa, which prompted the invitation, readily accepted by him, to teach at the Museum.
Overcoming the force of inertia
To understand the importance of the work that was beginning, one must remember that, until the 1940s, modern art was pushed forward by sheer grit and determination, with many promising artists and others with established names, but no major institution to guide and coordinate the movements.
In 1948, industrialists from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo took the lead in creating this structure: in Rio de Janeiro, led by the collector Raimundo Ottoni de Castro Maia; in São Paulo, by Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho (Don Ciccillo), helped by Assis Chateaubriand Bandeira de Melo, who, as he had done with MASP, also housed MAM at the headquarters of Diários Associados, in the old center of São Paulo. The São Paulo museum opened with the exhibition Do Figurativismo ao Abstracionismo [From Figuration to Abstraction].
In Rio de Janeiro, the institution spent four long years searching for direction. São Paulo, getting ahead, took the first effective steps: in 1950 it selected a group of worthy artists and, for the first time, Brazil was represented at the Venice Biennale, with such success that the following year the 1st São Paulo Biennial was held at the MAM-SP headquarters itself, the first of other biennials that, over time, spread throughout Brazil.
At that point, as we said, MAM-RJ, now reorganized, opened its new premises and held an exhibition that also included among the works on display those already awarded at the São Paulo Biennial.
The 1950s thus served as a watershed in which the force of inertia was overcome. Ivan Serpa played an active part in this process, through the multiplier effect of his teaching.
The teacher of great masters
Ivan Serpa was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1923 and, at 23, began studying with the Austrian printmaker Axl Leskoschek. Having assimilated his teacher's lessons well, the very next year he began taking part in the exhibitions held in the Modern Division of the Salão Nacional de Belas-Artes. In 1951, he entered the 1st São Paulo Biennial and won his first prize, with the painting Formas.
Teaching children at MAM-RJ with good results, he accepted the task of expanding the project by organizing an open course for adults as well, whose first students included Aluísio Carvão (1920) and Décio Vieira (1922-1988).
A characteristic of the teacher was his constant questioning of art and of the obstacles that had to be removed to allow the progress of the new painters who were beginning to appear, some of them with enormous potential, within a tiny market.
Realizing that the moment required everyone's unity and joint participation in opening up the market, he encouraged them to go beyond the limits of the classroom, seeking solutions among themselves for the problems they faced.
Many meetings were held at the teacher's own home. Later, the students began to take turns, offering their own homes for the meetings and debates. Finally, they concluded that the time had come to organize an official group, which would be in charge of promoting events and publicizing their work.
Grupo Frente
Around 1954, several of his students gathered around Ivan Serpa to create an art group called «Grupo Frente», whose unusual name is explained by the writer and poet Ferreira Gullar, also a member:
I had a habit of writing poems on paper. I would take several sheets cut in half, put on a cover of ordinary wrapping paper, brown paper, and staple it all together. I used to walk around with it in my hand, and since the cover was the same on both sides and I didn't want to write anything, I put the word frente [front] just to know which side to open.
One day, I arrived at Ivan's course with one of these notebooks. His students were there, and the writer Macedo Miranda. I put the notebook on the table, Ivan looked at it and said: what a cool thing. He opened it and asked: what does this mean? I answered: nothing. The word is there just to show me which way to open it. Later Ivan told me: "you know, I'm going to give our group the name Frente".
The group accepted painters of all kinds, including figurative ones, and, according to Ivan Serpa, the only condition was to break with the pasteurized formulas of the old academy, being willing to question art and to walk on one's own feet.
Beginning with Aluísio Carvão, Silvio Costa, Vincent Ibberson, Carlos Val, Décio Vieira and others, it kept gaining new members, such as Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, César Oiticica and Hélio Oiticica.
In its brief two-year existence, it held four exhibitions: at the gallery of the Instituto Brasil-Estados Unidos (Praia do Flamengo), at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, at the Itatiaia Country Club in Resende and at the headquarters of the Cia. Siderúrgica Nacional, in Rio de Janeiro.
The end of «Grupo Frente» was a natural consequence of the growing prestige of many of its members, who found the conditions to carry on the struggle, each in his or her own way.
First the others, then himself
Ivan Serpa did not live long. He died in 1973, at the age of 49. His career, from his debut at the Salão Nacional de Belas-Artes until his death, lasted only 25 years. Working incessantly, he produced a vast body of work, took part in countless exhibitions and made his quality as an artist plain.
But it was perhaps in teaching that he carried out the most important part of his mission in life. As teacher of the open painting course at MAM-RJ, he trained numerous artists who went on to national prominence, and at least one of them, Aluísio Carvão, followed in his footsteps, teaching at the same institution where he had learned the foundations of modern painting from the master.
Ivan Serpa, the teacher, was not a bureaucrat after a salary. He was a master in the best sense of the word. Endowed with an experimental restlessness, he did not accept any result as the final word, but rather as the beginning of a new search. He passed this restlessness on to his students, who were taught always to look for new alternatives that would set them apart from others.
This multiplier effect was his great contribution to the visual arts in Brazil. For an artist, having been a disciple of Ivan Serpa is a consecration. For the master, it is an extension of his own life in the art of those to whom he taught the first steps and, above all, in whom he instilled the feeling of creative nonconformity that drives great change.
Critical Commentary
Ivan Serpa began painting in the early 1940s. From 1946, he studied drawing, printmaking and painting with the Austrian Axl Leskoschek. In this period, he produced a great deal. He made figurative works with little thematic or literary concern. He distanced himself from the approaches of academic painting and of nationalist modernism, of artists such as Candido Portinari and Di Cavalcanti, and became interested in the structure of composition and the rhythm of forms. Not by chance, in 1947, he made his first abstract painting: a small gestural gouache, geometrically ordered. In the first years of the 1950s, his interest in abstraction became systematic. The artist recomposed the traditional themes of painting, such as still life, using pure colors and organic forms. In other works, he broke figurative references down into geometric patterns.
In 1951, he made the constructive painting Formas, in which he shows his growing interest in geometric abstraction. Contact with the works of concrete artists such as Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Max Bill at the 1st Bienal Internacional de São Paulo would reinforce these convictions. With Formas, he won the title of Best Young Painter at that Biennial. He joined concretism that same year. References to the real world disappear from his canvases, as does the harmonious relationship between figure and ground. The works are made with flat, geometric forms, mathematically organized.
The following year, he became a teacher at the art school of the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro - MAM/RJ. According to the critic Reynaldo Roels, Serpa was "the soul of the institution's courses".1 He taught children and adults. At the Museum, he trained Hélio Oiticica, Décio Vieira, Aluísio Carvão and many others. According to the critic Mário Pedrosa, in these classes "complete freedom of expression is cultivated".2 Serpa was active in the art world as a painter, teacher and cultural organizer.
He brought together some of his students and other Rio de Janeiro artists, such as Abraham Palatnik and Franz Weissmann, and founded Grupo Frente between 1953 and 1954. Although it was not a concrete group stricto sensu, the collective was home to concrete production in Rio. However, like Serpa's painting, its members did not take a dogmatic stand in favor of concretism. Besides Rio's abstract artists, the group's exhibitions included some naïve painters and even a pupil from MAM/RJ's children's classes: Carlos Val. Serpa led the group until its dissolution in 1956.
At that point, his work followed constructive principles to the letter. His forms are geometric and objective, made with industrial materials and neutral textures. The titles of his series reveal the impersonality of the works: Faixas Ritmadas [Rhythmic Bands] and Construções [Constructions]. Within this scheme, however, Serpa allowed himself small audacities. More heterodox than the São Paulo concrete artists, he used, for example, "not very objective" colors, such as brown. Between the late 1950s and early 1960s, his work took on new contours. Serpa revised his concrete position and began to incorporate less determined elements, such as gestures, stains and splashes of paint. In 1960, influenced by children's drawing,3 he painted formless stains. With them, he built images between abstraction and figuration. At that time, he worked as a book restorer at the Biblioteca Nacional. This work served as inspiration for the Anóbios [Bookworms] series, made between 1961 and 1962, in which figures are suggested by small, scattered and apparently random colored marks.
From 1963, his interest in figuration intensified. Ivan Serpa identified with expressionism and developed a gestural figuration along the lines of the CoBrA group. This production would bring him close to the artists who would be grouped under the label Nova Objetividade Brasileira. Alongside this new figuration, he produced works such as his Série Negra [Black Series] and the series Bichos [Creatures] and Mulheres com Bichos [Women with Creatures]. Some works incorporate lettering and overlapping geometric forms. This production was shown in important exhibitions such as Opinião 65, Opinião 66 and Nova Objetividade Brasileira.
In 1967, the artist began his Op Erótica series. This work marked his return to constructive language. Interested in op art, he took up geometric construction and well-defined elements again. He developed other series with this characteristic, such as Mangueira and Amazônicas. The constructive rigor is softened. The forms become sinuous and sensual. The colors are soft. These works led him to the Arcas [Chests], pieces of furniture with white forms inside. His work with op planes gave rise to the Geomânticas [Geomantic] paintings from 1969. He worked on these paintings until 1973, when he died at only 49.
Notes
1 SERPA, Ivan. Retrospectiva: 1947-1973. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 1993. p.23.
2 PEDROSA, Mário. Crescimento e Criação. In: ______. Forma e percepção estética: textos escolhidos II. São Paulo: Edusp, 1996. p.76.
3 SERPA, Ivan. Retrospectiva: 1947-1973. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 1993. p.30.
Critiques
"Ivan Serpa is in love with symmetry, like so many modern artists of our country and of other young cultural milieus like ours. But at the same time he is fascinated, like the modern sensibility, by movement. In the past, he sought to balance these two opposing concepts or fascinations through whim, through chance, and above all through taste, which in him is almost infallible. Concretism, that rigorous grammar which is for the artist an extraordinary working tool and a fruitful discipline, gave him arbitrary, less occasional means to overcome that antinomy. Through the various processes of repetition, progression and reversal, the painter manages to achieve an ever more subtle and precious dynamic balance. His latest canvases, which are based as it were on a shifting of interior planes within a vast symmetrical scheme, breathe happily and soberly, without falling into the emptiness or insignificance into which the painter sometimes falls when, out of love for simplicity, he limits himself to setting out the plastic problem he has in view, on the canvas or on the wall, without really solving it".
Mário Pedrosa
PEDROSA, Mário. Serpa, mostra-despedida. In: ______. ARANTES, Otília Beatriz Fiori (org.). Acadêmicos e modernos: textos escolhidos III. São Paulo: Edusp, 1998. 429 p., il. p&b. p. 303. [texto publicado originalmente no Jornal do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, 08.04.1958].
"Certain artists require a broader knowledge of their works for an understanding of the work they propose, as well as of the conduct they adopt. They cannot be measured and analyzed through a single example. For them, versatility corresponds, indeed, to an effective participation in the feeling of contemporaneity, and this will be reflected in their very trajectory. (...) Ivan Serpa's themes are the result of a process of intellectual curiosity. . . seeking plastic values in the most diverse territories of human expressiveness (...) converting these spontaneous values into a conscious and rational plastic construction. He worked gesturally. . . a gesture that is the fruit of a whole life of painting, commanded by the craftsman's knowledge and the artist's emotion".
Clarival do Prado Valladares
VALLADARES, Clarival do Prado. [Texto para Exposição Comemorativa do IV Centenário da Cidade, no MAM/RJ, março de 1965.] In. LAKS, Sergio (coord.). Gravura moderna brasileira: acervo Museu Nacional de Belas Artes. Rio de Janeiro: MNBA, 1999. p. 30.
"Ivan Serpa's work has so far been, in fifteen years of work, a phenomenon of periodization. No Brazilian painter in this century and in such a span of time has known such radical variations and ruptures of content and form. Even among those who knew him best, the spiritual antinomies of his art provoked the greatest sense of surprise, making him, for those who easily forget his high standing, merely a prototype of the contradictory artist, subject to the frequent impact of external influences. And there is no doubt that he has placed himself in diverse and even antagonistic perspectives. As opposed to the artist concentrated on the ideal, convergent problem, Serpa expresses, in his most dramatic choices, a dissociated situation of personality and milieu. Turning away from the rationalist formalism he followed without showing any disturbance, at a certain moment he began to give vent to his represented reactions, even if they were incoherent with that past fascinated by absolutist concepts".
Walter Zanini
AYALA, Walmir (org.), CAVALCANTI, Carlos (org.). Dicionário brasileiro de artistas plásticos - Q - Z. Brasília: MEC: INL, 1973. v. 4, (Dicionário especializado, 5), p. 366.
"(...) As an artist, he placed his work at the extremes of crisis and construction, having been, in different phases, expressionist, informal and geometric. He even sought an understanding between a critical figuration and constructive rigor, just as, in a series of black-and-white drawings, he fused the optical and the erotic. Awarded as the best young Brazilian artist at the 1st Bienal Internacional de São Paulo in 1951, he received there the impact of Swiss concretism, which led him to practice in his painting precise, linear rhythms whose intervals and variety recall a musical score. Inventor and craftsman, he then explored, in high-temperature collages, the interpenetration or dematerialization of spaces and the luminous transparency of colors. Awarded the trip to Europe at the Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna in 1957, he changed course for the first time under the pressure of informalism. Little by little, however, dramatic figures emerged from the stains, recalling the critical and chaotic universe of the European CoBrA artists. His ´black phase´, which preceded the political events of 1964, has, according to Hélio Pellegrino, ´an explosive power of denunciation and social protest´. However, from 1967, with his Amazonian phase, adding a Brazilian palette and an organic or baroque sensuality, he took up the constructive vein again, from which he would not depart. Original solutions then emerged, of an optical or simply geometric character, which invariably result in a subtle play of poetic spatialities".
Frederico Morais
MORAIS, Frederico. Vertente Construtiva. In: Da coleção: os caminhos da arte brasileira. São Paulo: Júlio Bogoricin, 1986, p. 132.
Solo Exhibitions
1951 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria do Ibeu Copacabana
1951 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at MAM/RJ
1953 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Teatro de Bolso
1954 - Caracas (Venezuela) - Solo, at 10ª Conferência Interamericana
1954 - Washington (United States) - Solo, at Pan American Union Gallery
1955 - Ithaca (United States) - Solo, at Museu Guggenheim
1957 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Tenreiro
1958 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria GEA
1961 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Ivan Serpa: Retrospective, at MAM/RJ
1963 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Tenreiro
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Barcinsky
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Tenreiro
1965 - Belo Horizonte MG - Solo, at Museu de Arte da Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Relevo
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at MAM/RJ
1965 - São Paulo SP - Ivan Serpa: Drawings and Gouaches, at MAC/USP
1966 - Bonn (Germany) - Solo
1966 - Manágua (Nicarágua) - Solo
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo
1966 - Salvador BA - Solo
1968 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1971 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Ivan Serpa: Retrospective, at MAM/RJ
Group Exhibitions
1947 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 53rd National Salon of Fine Arts, at MNBA
1948 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 54th National Salon of Fine Arts - Modern Division, at MNBA - bronze medal
1949 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Municipal Fine Arts Salon, at Ministério da Educação e da Saúde - City Hall Prize
1951 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 57th National Salon of Fine Arts, at MNBA
1951 - São Paulo SP - 1st Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão do Trianon - young national painter prize
1952 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st National Salon of Modern Art, at MAM/RJ
1952 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Exhibition of Brazilian Artists, at MAM/RJ
1952 - Venice (Italy) - 26th Venice Biennale
1953 - Lausanne (Switzerland) - Lausanne International Fair
1953 - Petrópolis RJ - 1st National Exhibition of Abstract Art, at Hotel Quitandinha
1953 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão dos Estados - Museu de Arte Moderna Prize
1954 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Grupo Frente, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1954 - Venice (Italy) - 27th Venice Biennale
1955 - Caracas (Venezuela) - Inter-American Exhibition
1955 - Lissone (Italy) - 9th Lissone International Prize
1955 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 2nd Grupo Frente, at MAM/RJ
1955 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4th National Salon of Modern Art
1955 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Miniature Salon, at ABI
1955 - São Paulo SP - 3rd Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão das Nações - Unesco Prize
1955 - Tokyo (Japan) - 3rd Tokyo Biennial
1956 - Barcelona (Spain) - 3rd Hispano-American Biennial
1956 - Resende RJ - 3rd Grupo Frente, at Itatiaia Country Club
1956 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 5th National Salon of Modern Art
1956 - São Paulo SP - 1st National Exhibition of Concrete Art, at MAM/SP
1956 - Volta Redonda RJ - 4th Grupo Frente, at Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional
1957 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st National Exhibition of Concrete Art, at MAM/RJ
1957 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 62nd National Salon of Fine Arts, at MNBA
1957 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 6th National Salon of Modern Art - foreign travel award
1957 - São Paulo SP - 4th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo Sobrinho
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 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Neoconcrete Art Exhibition, at MAM/RJ
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 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 9th National Salon of Modern Art, at MAM/RJ - acquisition prize
1960 - Utrecht (Netherlands) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - Zurich (Switzerland) - 1st Zurich Biennial
1961 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 10th National Salon of Modern Art - award winner
1961 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st The Face and the Work, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1961 - São Paulo SP - 6th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo Sobrinho - award winner
1962 - Córdoba (Argentina) - 1st American Art Biennial
1962 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 11th National Salon of Modern Art - domestic travel prize
1962 - Venice (Italy) - 31st Venice Biennale
1963 - Campinas SP - Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, at Museu Carlos Gomes
1963 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 12th National Salon of Modern Art
1963 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Landscape as Theme, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1963 - São Paulo SP - 7th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1964 - Paris (France) - Salon Comparaisons, at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Nude in Contemporary Art, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1965 - Belo Horizonte MG - 20th Belo Horizonte City Fine Arts Salon, at MAP - Clube dos Lojistas Prize
1965 - Bonn (Germany) - Current Brazilian Art
1965 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Contemporary Brazilian Artists, at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
1965 - London (England) - Brazilian Art Today, at Royal Academy of Arts
1965 - Paris (France) - Salon Comparaisons
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 14th National Salon of Modern Art, at MAM/RJ
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Opinião 65, at MAM/RJ
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - National Salon of Fine Arts
1965 - São Paulo SP - 8th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1965 - Vienna (Austria) - Current Brazilian Art
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 3rd JB Art Summary, at MAM/RJ - Jornal do Brasil Prize
1966 - Austin (United States) - Art of Latin America since Independence, at The University of Texas at Austin. Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery
1966 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Contemporary Brazilian Artists, at Museo de Arte Moderno
1966 - Montevideo (Uruguay) - Contemporary Brazilian Artists, at Museo de Arte Moderno de Montevidéu
1966 - New Haven (United States) - Art of Latin America since Independence, at Yale University Art Gallery
1966 - New Orleans (United States) - Art of Latin America since Independence, at Isaac Delgado Museum of Art
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 15th National Salon of Modern Art
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4th JB Art Summary, at MAM/RJ
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Opinião 66, at MAM/RJ
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salon of the 4th Centenary of Rio de Janeiro, at MAM/RJ
1966 - Salvador BA - 1st National Biennial of Visual Arts - special room
1966 - San Diego (United States) - Art of Latin America since Independence, at La Jolla Museum of Art
1966 - San Francisco (United States) - Art of Latin America since Independence, at San Francisco Art Museum
1966 - São Paulo SP - Half a Century of New Art, at MAC/USP
1966 - Venice (Italy) - 33rd Venice Biennale
1967 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Nova Objetividade Brasileira (New Brazilian Objectivity), at MAM/RJ
1969 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 7th JB Art Summary, at MAM/RJ
1971 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 20th National Salon of Modern Art
1972 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 10th JB Art Summary, at MAM/RJ
1972 - São Paulo SP - Art/Brazil/Today: 50 Years Later, at Galeria da Collectio
Posthumous Exhibitions
1973 - São Paulo SP - 12th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1974 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Ivan Serpa: Retrospective, at MAM/RJ
1974 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Sea, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1975 - Brasília DF - Solo, at Oscar Seraphico Galeria de Arte
1976 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo
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 - 15th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1980 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Tribute to Mário Pedrosa, at Galeria Jean Boghici
1980 - São Paulo SP - Masters of Lyrical Abstraction in Brazil, at Galeria Eugénie Villien
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Between the Stain and the Figure, at MAM/RJ
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 6th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st National Exhibition of Abstract Art - Hotel Quitandinha, at Galeria de Arte Banerj
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Grupo Frente 1954-1956, at Galeria de Arte Banerj
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Wood, Material of Art, at MAM/RJ
1984 - São Paulo SP - Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection: Portrait and Self-Portrait of Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1984 - Volta Redonda RJ - Grupo Frente 1954-1956
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Axl Leskoschek and His Students: Brazil/1940-1948, at Galeria de Arte Banerj
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Opinião 65, at Galeria de Arte Banerj
1985 - São Paulo SP - 18th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - São Paulo SP - Axl Leskoschek and His Students: Brazil/1940-1948, at MAM/SP
1986 - Resende RJ - Grupo Frente 1954-1956
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Maurício Leite Barbosa
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - JK and the 1950s: A View of Culture and Everyday Life, at Galeria Investiarte
1987 - Paris (France) - Modernidade: Brazilian Art of the 20th Century, at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Geometric Abstraction: Concretism and Neoconcretism, at Funarte. Centro de Artes
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - To the Collector: Tribute to Gilberto Chateaubriand, at MAM/RJ
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Klee
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Registro
1987 - São Paulo SP - 1st Geometric Abstraction: Concretism and Neoconcretism, at MAB/Faap
1987 - São Paulo SP - The Weave of Taste: Another Look at Everyday Life, at Fundação Bienal
1987 - São Paulo SP - The Biennials in the MAC Collection: 1951 to 1985, at MAC/USP
1987 - São Paulo SP - The Craft of Art: Painting, at Sesc
1988 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Hedonism: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Galeria Edifício Gilberto Chateaubriand
1988 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Tríade Galeria
1988 - São Paulo SP - 63/66 Figure and Object, at Galeria Millan
1988 - São Paulo SP - MAC 25 Years: Highlights of the Initial Collection, at MAC/USP
1988 - São Paulo SP - Modernidade: Brazilian Art of the 20th Century, at MAM/SP
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Tríade
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Small Greatnesses of the 1950s, at Gabinete de Arte Cleide Wanderley
1989 - São Paulo SP - 20th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1991 - São Paulo SP - Constructivism: Poster Art 40/50/60, at MAC/USP
1992 - Poços de Caldas MG - Brazilian Modern Art: Collection of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, at Casa da Cultura
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st On the Way to Niterói: João Sattamini Collection, at Paço Imperial
1992 - Zurich (Switzerland) - Brasilien: Entdeckung und Selbstentdeckung, at Kunsthaus Zürich
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Erotic Art, at MAM/RJ
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazil 100 Years of Modern Art, at MNBA
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Emblems of the Body: The Nude in Brazilian Modern Art, at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil - CCBB
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Saracini
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Ivan Serpa: Retrospective 1947-1973, at CCBB
1993 - São Paulo SP - Modern Drawing in Brazil: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Galeria de Arte do Sesi
1994 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Exhibition Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Founding of Grupo Frente, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1994 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Modern Drawing in Brazil: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at MAM/RJ
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século XX, at Fundação Bienal
1994 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Millan
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Opinião 65: 30 Years, at CCBB
1996 - Niterói RJ - Contemporary Brazilian Art in the João Sattamini Collection, at MAC/Niterói
1996 - Niterói RJ - Solo, at UFF. Galeria de Arte
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Scream, at MNBA
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Constructive Tendencies in the MAC/USP Collection: Construction, Measure and Proportion, at CCBB
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(I)os(ign)ição, at Casa das Rosas
1998 - Niterói RJ - Mirror of the Bienal, at MAC/Niterói
1998 - São Paulo SP - Constructive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, at MAM/SP
1998 - São Paulo SP - The Collector, at MAM/SP
1998 - São Paulo SP - The Modern and the Contemporary in Brazilian Art: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection - MAM/RJ, at Masp
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Constructive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, at MAM/RJ
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Rio Printmaking Exhibition: Brazilian Modern Printmaking: Museu Nacional de Belas Artes Collection, at MNBA
2000 - Brasília DF - Brazil Europe Exhibition: Encounters in the 20th Century, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
2000 - Lisbon (Portugal) - 20th Century: Art of Brazil, at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - When Brazil Was Modern: Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro from 1905 to 1960, at Paço Imperial
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brasil + 500 Mostra do Redescobrimento, at Fundação Bienal
2000 - Valencia (Spain) - De la Antropofagia a Brasilia: Brasil 1920-1950, at IVAM. Centre Julio González
2001 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Watercolor, at Centro Cultural Light
2001 - São Paulo SP - 50 Years of the Biennial: A Tribute to Ciccillo Matarazzo, at Fundação Bienal
2001 - São Paulo SP - The Trajectory of Light in Brazilian Art, at Itaú Cultural
2002 - Niterói RJ - Collection on Paper, at MAC/Niterói
2002 - Niterói RJ - Dialogue, Antagonism and Replication in the Sattamini Collection, at MAC/Niterói
2002 - Porto Alegre RS - Violence and Passion, at Santander Cultural
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Rio Contemporary Art Show, at MAM/RJ
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 - Genealogy of Space, at Galeria do Parque das Ruínas
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 - From Anthropophagy to Brasília: Brazil 1920-1950, at MAB/Faap
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
2003 - Brasília DF - Brazilian Art in the Fadel Collection: From the Restlessness of the Modern to the Autonomy of Language, at CCBB
2003 - Campos dos Goytacazes RJ - Planar-Spatial Poem, at Sesc
2003 - Mexico City (Mexico) - Cuasi Corpus: arte concreto y neoconcreto de Brasil: una selección del acervo del Museo de Arte Moderna de São Paulo y la Colección Adolpho Leirner, at Museo Rufino Tamayo
2003 - Nova Friburgo RJ - Planar-Spatial Poem, at Galeria Sesc Nova Friburgo
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Autonomy of Drawing, at MAM/RJ
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Op-Erótica, at Espaço Antonio Bernardo
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Order x Freedom, at MAM/RJ
2003 - São Paulo SP - Art and Society: A Controversial Relationship, at Itaú Cultural
2003 - São Paulo SP - Lauro Eduardo Soutello Alves Collection in the MAM Collection, at MAM/SP
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 30 Artists, at Mercedes Viegas Escritório de Arte
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Paço Imperial
2004 - Niterói RJ - Transitive Modernity, at MAC/Niterói
2004 - São Paulo SP - Ivan Serpa: Graphic Drawings, at Galeria André Millan
2005 - Petrópolis RJ - Abstract Express, at Museu Imperial
Source: FGV CPDOC, Pitoresco, Itaú Cultural
