João Rossi (São Paulo SP 1923 - idem 2000)
Painter, printmaker, ceramist, sculptor, muralist, teacher.
In 1949, he traveled to Uruguay. The following year, he was a director of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Montevideo, where he taught physical education and, at the same time, drawing and painting. In 1951, he went to Paraguay to work at the YMCA in Asunción, where he gave lectures on art and taught drawing, painting and art history. He taught open-air painting and new techniques for using brush and palette knife, and formed the Grupo Arte Nuevo. He returned to São Paulo in 1953 and taught at the Escola de Artesanato of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM/SP alongside Nelson Nóbrega (1900 - 1997), Lívio Abramo (1903 - 1992) and Wolfgang Pfeiffer (1912 - 2003). In 1954, he painted the canvas Mangacha - the nickname of his wife, the Paraguayan ceramist Isabel Olmedo (1926) - and, at the invitation of Flávio Motta (1916), began teaching at the Escola de Arte of the Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado - Faap. He became director of that school in 1959 and of the institution's Faculdade de Artes Plásticas in 1962. He took part in the 8th São Paulo International Biennial in 1965. With Caciporé Torres (1935), he executed the murals História e Evolução da Cidade de São Paulo [History and Evolution of the City of São Paulo] for the façade of the Palácio dos Bandeirantes, in 1968. In 1970, he taught at the Faculdade de Artes Plásticas of the Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie. He held a retrospective exhibition at the Fundação Memorial da América Latina in 1999.
Critical Commentary
Self-taught, João Rossi worked in countries such as Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil. He stands out for his use of the polymaterial technique, characterized by the use of various raw materials in the composition of his work, which he divides into two themes - Ameríndia [Amerindia] and Urbanas [Urban]. The Ameríndia theme originated in the early 1950s, when he lived in Uruguay and Paraguay, based on his perception of the social inequality experienced by South American Indigenous peoples. "The Amerindian is untransferable in the social trait that João Rossi, over the years, has managed to reconstruct in his prints (...)".¹ Outcasts, prostitutes, flower and fruit sellers and dead children appear here in prints, paintings and objects alike.
He produced the works of the Urbanas axis from 1953 on, after returning to São Paulo, devoting himself to urban development and the lighting of the city center, as in the work Luminosos - Rua Álvaro de Carvalho com Av. 9 de Julho [Neon Signs - Rua Álvaro de Carvalho and Av. 9 de Julho], 1970. He points to the transformation of places such as Avenida 9 de Julho, presenting old houses and skyscrapers in the same work. The watercolors, prints and paintings in this series share tonal gradations based on overlapping colors and show São Paulo as a big city. The two themes come together when the artist inserts the Amerindian figure into some of the landscapes of the Urbanas axis.
Note
1 CHRISTO, Anthony de. A face irreversível da América Latina. In: ROSSI, João. João Rossi. Elementos de Comunicação Visual Sensível (1950 a 1980). Campinas: Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Campinas, 1981.
Critiques
"Throughout his long artistic career, João Rossi was a painter of the city of São Paulo. His work as an urban landscape painter can only be compared with that of Aldo Bonadei and Manuel Martins, in the São Paulo School. He stands apart from the other great São Paulo landscape painters by capturing aspects of São Paulo the megalopolis, whereas Bonadei painted mainly Bela Vista and Manuel Martins certain aspects of greater human warmth. Rossi managed to grasp the hard beauty of buildings and streets, the shadow of skyscrapers and the glow of the great thoroughfares, discovering their special light and their contemporary melancholy. With his talent as a researcher, he was always able to find the appropriate technique".
Mário Schenberg
LEITE, José Roberto Teixeira. Dicionário crítico da pintura no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Artlivre, 1988.
Collections
Acervo Artístico-Cultural dos Palácios do Governo do Estado de São Paulo
Instituto Itaú Cultural - São Paulo SP
Museu Brasileiro de Escultura - MuBE - São Paulo SP
Museu de Arte Brasileira da Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado - MAB/Faap - São Paulo SP
Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo - MAC/USP - São Paulo SP
Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand - Masp - São Paulo SP
Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM/SP - São Paulo SP
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo - Pesp - São Paulo SP
Solo Exhibitions
1959 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Associação Cristã de Moços
1967 - Solo, at Art Galeria
1975 - Asunción (Paraguay) - Solo, at Centro de Estudos Brasileiros
1977 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at FAU/USP
1979 - Asunción (Paraguay) - Solo, at Galeria Arte Sanos
1982 - Curitiba PR - Solo, at Museu Guido Viaro
1982 - Florianópolis SC - Solo, at Galeria da Casa da Cultura
1982 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Documenta
1983 - Curitiba PR - Solo, at Casa da Gravura
1983 - São Paulo SP - Retrospectiva 30 Anos [30-Year Retrospective], at Masp
1987 - Havana (Cuba) - Solo, at Galeria Latino-Americana
1990 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Biblioteca Mário de Andrade - APCA award, best printmaker of the year
1990 - São Paulo SP - João Rossi, uma obra em processo [João Rossi, a Work in Progress], at Pinacoteca do Estado
1991 - Bogotá (Colombia) - Solo, at Galeria Arte 19
1992 - Asunción (Paraguay) - Solo, at Galeria Lamarca
1992 - São Paulo SP - Retrospectiva de Gravuras [Print Retrospective], at Pinacoteca do Estado
1994 - São Paulo SP - João Rossi: pinturas e gravuras [João Rossi: Paintings and Prints], at A Hebraica
1997 - Asunción (Paraguay) - Solo, at Embaixada Brasileira
1999 - Brasília DF - Solo, at Galeria Caixa Econômica Federal
1999 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Memorial da América Latina
1999 - Curitiba PR - Solo, at Museu Metropolitano de Arte
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Caixa Econômica Federal
2000 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at A Hebraica
2000 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Fernando Silva - Yázigi
Group Exhibitions
1965 - São Paulo SP - 8th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1965 - São Paulo SP - Proposta 65, at MAB/Faap
1966 - São Paulo SP - Three Premises, at MAB/Faap
1972 - São Paulo SP - 2nd International Print Exhibition, at MAM/SP
1977 - São Paulo SP - 9th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1983 - São Paulo SP - Avenida Paulista, at Galeria Sesc Paulista
1987 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Coletiva Ano 3 [Group Show Year 3], at Galeria Ribeirão Preto, Promoções de Artes Plásticas
1988 - Beijing (China) - 1st Brazil-China Exhibition, at Galeria de Belas Artes da China
1988 - São Paulo SP - Rhythms and Forms: Contemporary Brazilian Art, at Sesc Pompeia
1989 - Copenhagen (Denmark) - Rhythms and Forms: Contemporary Brazilian Art, at Museu Charlottenborg
1994 - São Paulo SP - Gravuras: sutilezas e mistérios, técnicas de impressão [Prints: Subtleties and Mysteries, Printing Techniques], at Pinacoteca do Estado
1995 - São Paulo SP - Contact Project, at Galeria Sesc Paulista
1998 - São Paulo SP - Impressions: The Art of Brazilian Printmaking, at Espaço Cultural Banespa-Paulista
Source: Itaú Cultural
