José Cláudio (Ipojuca PE 1932)
Painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, art critic and writer.
In 1952, José Cláudio, together with Abelardo da Hora (1924 - 2014), Gilvan Samico (1928 - 2013) and Wellington Virgolino (1929 - 1988), among others, founded the Ateliê Coletivo [Collective Studio] of the Sociedade de Arte Moderna do Recife - SAMR. Later, in Salvador, José Cláudio was mentored by Mario Cravo Júnior (1923 - 2018), Carybé (1911 - 1997) and Jenner Augusto (1924 - 2003). He went to São Paulo in 1955, where he first worked with Di Cavalcanti (1897 - 1976), while also studying printmaking with Lívio Abramo (1903 - 1992) at the Crafts School of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM/SP. He received a scholarship from the Fundação Rotelini in 1957 and spent a year in Rome at the Academy of Fine Arts. Back in Brazil, he settled in Olinda and wrote articles on the visual arts for the Recife newspaper Diário da Noite. He paints figurative works depicting regional scenes and landscapes of the Northeast, while avoiding the picturesque. Throughout his career, the artist has written many introductory texts for exhibitions of northeastern painters, such as the show Oficina Pernambucana (1967). His publications include the book Memória do Ateliê Coletivo [Memory of the Collective Studio] (1978), which brings together statements by the various artists who were members of the group.
Critical Commentary
José Cláudio is one of the founders of the Ateliê Coletivo [Collective Studio] of the Sociedade de Arte Moderna do Recife - SAMR, together with Abelardo da Hora (1924 - 2014), Gilvan Samico (1928 - 2013) and Wellington Virgolino (1929 - 1988), among others. The Ateliê Coletivo was a center for the study of drawing and printmaking devoted to socially engaged art, active in Recife between 1952 and 1957. Later, in Salvador, José Cláudio was mentored by Mario Cravo Júnior (1923 - 2018), Carybé (1911 - 1997) and Jenner Augusto (1924 - 2003).
The artist went to São Paulo in 1955, where he studied printmaking with Lívio Abramo (1903 - 1992) at the Crafts School of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM/SP. In 1957, he received a scholarship from the Fundação Rotelini and spent a year in Rome at the Academy of Fine Arts. Back in Brazil, he settled in Olinda and wrote articles on the visual arts for the Recife newspaper Diário da Noite.
José Cláudio paints figurative works depicting regional scenes and landscapes of the Northeast, while avoiding the picturesque, as in Pátio do Mercado [Market Square] (1972) or Rua Leão Coroado (1973). In Casa Vermelha de Olinda [Red House in Olinda] (1973), the dialogue with abstraction, formal simplification, free brushwork and intense color stand out. His works reveal his admiration for artists of the School of Paris and for the expressionists, as in the series of female nudes from the late 1970s. Carnival is the subject of the paintings Homem da Meia Noite [The Midnight Man] and Cheguei Agora [I've Just Arrived] (both from 1974), with vivid, contrasting colors. In 1975, the artist took part in an expedition to the Amazon organized by the Museum of Zoology of the University of São Paulo, recording various aspects of the region in numerous oil drawings.
In 1980, José Cláudio created a series of canvases reinterpreting the painting O Repouso do Modelo [The Model's Rest] by Almeida Júnior (1850 - 1899), the painter from Itu. In these works he shows a tendency to abolish the depth of the picture plane, simplifying the formal elements, which tend toward geometrization. In 1985, he painted landscapes outdoors, such as Ipojuca and Serrambi, using broad, energetic brushstrokes.
Throughout his career, the artist has written many introductory texts for exhibitions of northeastern painters, such as the show Oficina Pernambucana (1967). His publications include the book Memória do Ateliê Coletivo [Memory of the Collective Studio] (1978), which brings together statements by the various artists who were members of the group.
Critiques
"José Cláudio has always been a figurative painter, and he practices an art in which the first emotion does not even permit or admit amendments and corrections. This sometimes gives his work a certain impression of carelessness and poor finish. However, these are deliberately achieved effects, the fruit of his pronounced love of the material. An expressionist, using rigorous drawing, a broad and spontaneous brushstroke and deep color, José Cláudio has, in terms of subject matter, focused on regional scenes and types, on regional customs and on the landscape, birds and fruits of his Northeast, stripping them, however, of any picturesque content in order to concentrate solely on their pictorial expression. A sensualist and a Dionysian, a hedonist who, in his own words, faced with a beautiful mango does not know whether to paint it or eat it, José Cláudio has also turned to the problem of artistic creation - as a painter, in the series of large oils he devoted in the early 1980s to Almeida Júnior's REPOUSO DO MODELO [The Model's Rest] - dismembered, rearticulated and reinterpreted in each of its many formal and psychological aspects - and as a writer and historian of Pernambuco art, in a style as unaffected as his painting, (...)".
José Roberto Teixeira Leite
LEITE, José Roberto Teixeira. Dicionário crítico da pintura no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Artlivre, 1988.
Collections
Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo Collection - MAC/USP - São Paulo SP
Artistic-Cultural Collection of the Palaces of the Government of the State of São Paulo - São Paulo SP
Banco Itaú S.A. Collection - São Paulo SP
Solo Exhibitions
1956 - São Paulo SP - First solo exhibition, at Clube dos Artistas e Amigos das Artes (Clubinho)
1963 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria São Luís
1966 - Recife PE - Solo, at Galeria Casa Hollanda
1970 - Recife PE - Solo, at Galeria Detalhe
1975 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Renato Magalhães Gouvêa Escritório de Arte
1977 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Renato Magalhães Gouvêa Escritório de Arte
1977 - Recife PE - Solo, at Galeria Artespaço
1977 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Nara Roesler
1977 - Recife PE - Solo, at Gatsby Arte
1980 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Renato Magalhães Gouvêa Escritório de Arte
1980 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Galeria Kraft
1981 - Recife PE - Solo, at Galeria Artespaço
1982 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Renato Magalhães Gouvêa Escritório de Arte
1983 - Recife PE - Solo, at Galeria Artespaço
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Ipanema
Group Exhibitions
1954 - Recife PE - 1st Ateliê Coletivo Exhibition
1954 - Recife PE - Painting Salon of the Museu do Estado de Pernambuco - honorable mention
1955 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4th National Salon of Modern Art
1956 - São Paulo SP - São Paulo Salon of Modern Art
1957 - São Paulo SP - 4th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho
1959 - São Paulo SP - 5th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho
1961 - São Paulo SP - Leirner Contemporary Art Prize, at Galeria de Arte das Folhas - 1st prize in drawing
1961 - São Paulo SP - 6th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho
1963 - São Paulo SP - 7th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1969 - São Paulo SP - 1st Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1971 - São Paulo SP - 3rd Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1975 - Brussels (Belgium) - Image du Brésil, at Manhattan Center - organized by Masp
1976 - São Paulo SP - Drawing in Pernambuco, at Galeria Nara Roesler
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Between the Stain and the Figure, at MAM/RJ
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 3 x 4 Large Formats, at Galeria do Centro Empresarial Rio
1983 - São Paulo SP - 14th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Interventions in Urban Space, at Funarte. Galeria Sérgio Milliet
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: A Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - São Paulo SP - 18th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1986 - Brasília DF - Pernambuco Artists in Brasília, at ECT Galeria de Arte
1986 - Fortaleza CE - Imagine: The Planet Greets the Comet, at Arte Galeria
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Christian Dior Contemporary Art Show: Painting, at Paço Imperial - award winner
1987 - Recife PE - José Cláudio and Gil Vicente, at Museu do Estado de Pernambuco
1987 - São Paulo SP - The Biennials in the MAC Collection: 1951 to 1985, at MAC/USP
1988 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Le Déjeuner sur l'Art: Manet in Brazil, at EAV/Parque Lage
1988 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Abolition, at Galeria de Arte Ipanema
1988 - São Paulo SP - The Afro-Brazilian Hand, at MAM/SP
1988 - São Paulo SP - Rhythms and Forms: Brazilian Contemporary Art, at Sesc Pompéia
1989 - Copenhagen (Denmark) - Rhythms and Forms: Brazilian Contemporary Art, at Museu Charlottenborg
1989 - Recife PE - Nature of Painting, at Centro Cultural Adalgisa Falcão
1989 - Olinda PE - Viva Olinda Viva, at Atelier Coletivo
1990 - Olinda PE - Permanence of Painting, at Atelier Coletivo
1991 - São Paulo SP - The Forest, at MAC/USP
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Coca-Cola 50 Years with Art, at MAM/RJ
1992 - São Paulo SP - Coca-Cola 50 Years with Art, at MAM/SP
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Ateliê Coletivo, at Centro Cultural Candido Mendes
1993 - Hamburg (Germany) - Atelier Coletivo, at Km Wolff
1993 - São Paulo SP - 23rd Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1993 - São Paulo SP - Works Illustrating the Suplemento Literário: 1956 - 1967, at MAM/SP
1994 - São Paulo SP - Seascapes, at Galeria Nara Roesler
2000 - São Paulo SP - Almeida Júnior: An Artist Revisited, at Pinacoteca do Estado
2000 - Recife PE - Ateliê Pernambuco: Tribute to Bajado and the Mamam Collection, at Mamam
2003 - São Paulo SP - Art and Society: A Controversial Relationship, at Itaú Cultural
Source: Itaú Cultural
