Maciej Babinski (Varsóvia, Polônia 1931)
Printmaker, illustrator, painter, draftsman, teacher.
Babinski emigrated with his family to England in 1940 because of the Second World War (1939-1945). He began his artistic training there, taking watercolor lessons with Father Raphael Williams O.S.B., who introduced him to open-air painting. In 1949, he settled with his family in Montreal, Canada, where he studied painting with John Goodwin Lyman at McGill University. He also took printmaking lessons with Eldon Grier and drawing and painting courses with Goodrich Roberts at the Art Association of Montreal. In Roberts's studio, he painted landscapes, interiors and still lifes. At the same time, he drew close to the avant-garde group Les Automatistes, gathered around Paul-Émile Borduas, and exhibited with them in 1952 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. Still in his Canadian period, he held his first solo exhibition in 1953. That same year, he moved to Brazil, where he lived in Rio de Janeiro until 1965. During his time in Rio, he came into contact with Oswaldo Goeldi, Augusto Rodrigues and Darel, and took part in several salons and group shows. In 1961, he made 24 etchings for the book Cadernos de João [João's Notebooks], by Aníbal Machado, published by the Cem Bibliófilos do Brasil. Galeria Selearte, in São Paulo, and the Petite Galerie, in Rio de Janeiro, hosted his first solo exhibitions in Brazil, in 1962 and 1964 respectively. In 1965, he was invited to teach at the Instituto Central de Artes of the Universidade de Brasília - ICA/UnB, which he left a year later due to political persecution. After eight years in São Paulo, from 1966 to 1974, he moved to Minas Gerais, first to Araguari and then to Uberlândia, where he taught at the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia - UFU from 1979 to 1987. With the political amnesty, he was reinstated at UnB in 1988 and remained there until he retired in 1991, when he moved to Várzea Alegre, in the interior of Ceará. In 2004, the retrospective Babinski: 50 Anos de Brasil [Babinski: 50 Years in Brazil] was held at the Conjunto Cultural da Caixa in Brasília.
Critical Commentary
The experience of travel shapes Babinski's production, and the combination of traditions and models learned throughout his successive moves gives his work its particular features. The English and Canadian periods are marked by his initiation into different techniques (watercolor, painting and printmaking) and by contact with figurative art and with the "automatic" paintings of the abstract group gathered around Paul-Émile Borduas. Brazil in the 1950s, in turn, brought him into contact with the new figurations in painting and with the graphic work of Darel, Augusto Rodrigues and Oswaldo Goeldi. The inspiration drawn from Goeldi's universe is noticeable in Babinski's Álbum de Gravuras [Album of Prints], published in 1967, full of dreamlike elements and distorted, at times grotesque, figures. Traces of the work of Alfred Kubin, a reference for Goeldi himself, can also be seen there. While in the prints precise incisions and a profusion of lines serve fantastic and allegorical compositions - and themes with social content, such as Êxodo [Exodus], 1967 -, in the landscapes (watercolors and paintings) one sees a loose gesture defining superimposed planes built on a wide chromatic range. The evident freedom of the hand is combined with an almost geometric care for composition: "I believe my entire landscape is always restructured in relation to the horizontal and the vertical", he says.
His many trips around Brazil, in turn, influence the artist's repertoire. Thus, the luminous landscapes of Araguari and the panoramic views of the Triângulo Mineiro come to the foreground in his works of the 1970s and 1980s. Human figures, never abandoned, reappear more forcefully in the following years, in canvases marked by an explosion of bright, always contrasting colors, such as Iluminados ao Vento [Illuminated in the Wind], 2000. Identifying certain axes within Babinski's extensive production should not lead to the illusory establishment of clearly demarcated "phases" or "styles". On the contrary, at each new stop the traveler benefits from what he sees and learns, without leaving aside what he carries in his luggage. Distorted figures (O Filho [The Son], 2003), social emphasis (Chacina [Massacre], 1993) and lyrical landscape painting (Paisagem Crepuscular - Sítio Exu [Twilight Landscape - Sítio Exu], 2003) are present on all his journeys.
Critiques
"Maciej Babinski was one of the prizewinners at the Salão Paulista de Arte Contemporânea, the most debated of the salons. Not for its intrinsic cultural merit, but for having managed to turn an artistic event into a sporting one, in which artists were selected and awarded according to their club colors. The awards, by regions and affinities, were truly prophetic, since they anticipated the debates over the Brazilian national soccer team, in which our dear Oswaldo Brandão was passed over for a coach from Rio, and the players likewise, etc. In commenting on this exhibition, it is only fair to follow the criteria chosen, thus combining critical orthodoxy with sports commentary, in an amalgam so dear and so typical of our cordial and peaceful country. The center of the debate was the painter Maciej Babinski, winner of the first prize. He is an artist-player with a proven track record. But, despite this, it must be noted that he is not prepared for modern soccer, since he does not know how to support play, and his limited impressionist-expressionist soccer only manages to get the job done. He is certainly unable to keep up with current developments, in which all players play in every position and are equally responsible for the team's offensive and defensive power. In fact, he is a player without creativity, incapable of innovation, let alone of serving the famous ideal of the Dutch carousel".
Jacob Klintowitz
KLINTOWITZ, Jacob. Versus: dez anos de crítica de arte. São Paulo: André Galeria de Arte, 1978.
"The Cariri Valley, in southern Ceará, the land of Vicente Leite, José Rangel, Barrica, Aldemir Martins and Sérvulo Esmeraldo, now welcomes Maciej Babinski.
Such an important presence, in such fertile soil, will surely bear good fruit. A renowned painter, draftsman and printmaker, Babinski has also contributed to the visual arts through teaching. Professor Babinski is responsible for training important artists in the country.
The Pole from Canada who landed in Rio de Janeiro in 1953, bringing in his luggage the experiences he had lived as a member of the group Les Automatistes, the Montreal avant-garde of the time, soon had his eyes filled with Brazil.
Not by chance, his earliest friends were Oswaldo Goeldi, Augusto Rodrigues, Darel Valença and Newton Cavalcanti. These artists kept alive the expressionist figurative tradition of fidelity to the roots of popular art.
Babinski was in a hurry to become a Brazilian artist.
A condition achieved through a journey of generous exchanges, one that traces a beautiful line on a map of Brazil: from Rio de Janeiro he went to Brasília in 1965, from there to São Paulo, until reaching the Triângulo Mineiro - first Araguari, then Uberlândia - before returning as a reinstated professor at UnB, in Brasília, from which he retired in 1991. Having already chosen the Cariri region of Ceará, he first tried Crato, but it was in Várzea Alegre, at Sítio Exu, that he found his Promised Land".
Paulo Sérgio Bessa Linhares
LINHARES, Paulo Sérgio Bessa. De Varsóvia a Várzea Alegre. In: BABINSKI. Obra gráfica e pinturas recentes. Fortaleza: Secult, 1995.
"Babinski - this is the name of the painting with deep roots in European modernity and extensive ramifications in the American avant-gardes that now sets up studio and easel in the intense light of Várzea Alegre, in our backlands of Ceará. It is in the familiar framing that this recent loving image of the artist with his Lídia lends to the composition of his picture - it is right there that you can rest your gaze, so as to also travel through the strangeness he confronts in his adventure with form, expressed in the boldness of his pictorial taste. [...] In the other strand, that of drawing and printmaking [...] you can travel - in black and white - through the mastery of the incision, the line and the impression forged in one of the most expressive languages, in which Goeldi, Darel and Augusto Rodrigues [...] are direct ancestors of a Rio Babinski in the 1950s, of a Brasília and then São Paulo Babinski in the 1960s and 1970s, and of a Minas Gerais Babinski in the 1980s. In short, the abundant and rich sample of these forty years of a Brazilian Babinski can be savored as the punctuation he makes with his work in the History of Art and in the movements of life and death of his time. These are themes that a strong and powerful, broadly revolutionary impulse aroused in the artist, and which served as seasoning for the progressive construction of his place in Art: a deep gaze into the monstrous, through the distorting lenses invented by modernity, in his perception of the human; the vision of the individual monsters that arose from it; the contemplation of inward, tender and solemn landscapes, which journeys back to a lost time made it possible to find again; and, above all, the revelation of the art of printmaking itself, serving an intense and responsible path in the history of the invention of form".
Milton Cabral Viana
VIANA, Milton Cabral. Para ver Babinski. In: BABINSKI. Obra gráfica e pinturas recentes. Fortaleza: Secult, 1995.
Solo Exhibitions
1953 - Montreal (Canada) - Babinski: aquarelas, desenhos e gravuras [Babinski: Watercolors, Drawings and Prints], at Residência da Rua Sherbrooke
1956 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Babinski: aquarelas, desenhos e gravuras [Babinski: Watercolors, Drawings and Prints], at Enba
1960 - Montreal (Canada) - Babinski: aquarelas, desenhos e gravuras [Babinski: Watercolors, Drawings and Prints], at Université Catholique de Montreal
1962 - São Paulo SP - Babinski: desenhos [Babinski: Drawings], at Galeria Selearte
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Babinski: aquarelas e gravuras [Babinski: Watercolors and Prints], at Petite Galerie
1965 - Brasília DF - Babinski: aquarelas, desenhos e gravuras [Babinski: Watercolors, Drawings and Prints], at Aliança Francesa
1967 - São Paulo SP - Babinski: aquarelas, desenhos e gravuras [Babinski: Watercolors, Drawings and Prints], at Ginásio Vocacional do Brooklin Paulista
1969 - São Paulo SP - Babinski: aquarelas, desenhos e gravuras [Babinski: Watercolors, Drawings and Prints], at Clube dos Amigos do MAM/SP
1971 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria de Arte Portal
1973 - São Paulo SP - Babinski: pinturas, aquarelas e gravuras [Babinski: Paintings, Watercolors and Prints], at Galeria da Collectio
1975 - São Paulo SP - Babinski: aquarelas [Babinski: Watercolors], at Galeria Luisa Strina
1977 - Araguari MG - Babinski: pinturas, aquarelas, desenhos e gravuras [Babinski: Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Prints], at Clube Recreativo de Araguari
1977 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Luisa Strina
1978 - Ottawa (Canada) - Babinski: aquarelas, desenhos e gravuras [Babinski: Watercolors, Drawings and Prints], at Algonquin College Gallery
1979 - São Paulo SP - Babinski: aquarelas [Babinski: Watercolors], at Galeria Luisa Strina
1980 - Uberlândia MG - Babinski: pintura, aquarelas, desenhos e gravuras [Babinski: Painting, Watercolors, Drawings and Prints], at UFU
1981 - São Paulo SP - Babinski: aquarelas [Babinski: Watercolors], at Galeria Luisa Strina
1981 - Uberlândia MG - Babinski: aquarelas [Babinski: Watercolors], at UFU
1981 - Washington (United States) - Babinski: aquarelas e gravuras [Babinski: Watercolors and Prints], at Brazilian American Cultural Institute
1983 - Uberaba MG - Babinski: pinturas, desenhos e gravuras [Babinski: Paintings, Drawings and Prints], at Fundação Cultural de Uberaba
1984 - Araguari MG - Babinski: pinturas [Babinski: Paintings], at Casa da Cultura de Araguari
1984 - Asunción (Paraguay) - Babinski: gravuras [Babinski: Prints], at Casa do Brasil
1984 - São Paulo SP - Babinski: pinturas [Babinski: Paintings], at Galeria Luisa Strina
1986 - São Paulo SP - Maciej Babinski: aquarelas [Maciej Babinski: Watercolors], at Galeria Luisa Strina
1988 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Luisa Strina
1991 - São Paulo SP - Babinski: pinturas [Babinski: Paintings], at Galeria Luisa Strina
1992 - São Paulo SP - Babinski: gravuras [Babinski: Prints], at Biblioteca Municipal Mário de Andrade
1994 - Brasília DF - Babinski: gravuras [Babinski: Prints], at UnB
1994 - São Paulo SP - Babinski: pinturas [Babinski: Paintings], at Galeria Luisa Strina
1994 - Várzea Alegre CE - Babinski: pinturas [Babinski: Paintings]
1995 - Fortaleza CE - Maciej: obra gráfica e pinturas recentes [Maciej: Graphic Work and Recent Paintings], at Centro Cultural da Abolição
1996 - Florianópolis SC - Maciej Antoni Babinski: desenhos, gravuras e aquarelas [Maciej Antoni Babinski: Drawings, Prints and Watercolors], at Museu Victor Meirelles
1998 - São Paulo SP - Obras em Papel [Works on Paper], at Espaço Kim Esteves
1999 - Uberlândia MG - Babinski: óleos e aquarelas recentes [Babinski: Recent Oils and Watercolors], at Galeria Elisabeth Nasser
2000 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Escritório de Arte São Paulo
2003 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria André Millan
2004 - Brasília DF - Babinski: 50 anos de Brasil [Babinski: 50 Years in Brazil], at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
Group Exhibitions
1950 - Montreal (Canada) - L'Exposition des Rebelles [The Rebels' Exhibition], at Rua Sherbrooke
1950 - Montreal (Canada) - Spring Exhibition, at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal
1951 - Montreal (Canada) - Spring Exhibition, at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal
1952 - Montreal (Canada) - Spring Exhibition, at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal
1952 - Montreal (Canada) - The Borduas Group, at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal
1956 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 5th National Salon of Modern Art
1957 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 6th National Salon of Modern Art
1957 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão para Todos [Salon for All], at MEC
1958 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 7th National Salon of Modern Art, at MAM/RJ
1959 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th National Salon of Modern Art, at MAM/RJ
1960 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 9th National Salon of Modern Art, at MAM/RJ
1961 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 10th National Salon of Modern Art
1962 - Curitiba PR - Paraná Salon, at Biblioteca Pública do Paraná
1962 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 11th National Salon of Modern Art
1963 - London (England) - Brazilian Art Today
1963 - Vienna (Austria) - Brazilian Art Today
1963 - Brussels (Belgium) - Brazilian Art Today
1963 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 12th National Salon of Modern Art
1963 - São Paulo SP - 1st Young National Drawing Exhibition, at Faap
1964 - Belo Horizonte MG - 1st Young National Drawing Exhibition, at MAP
1964 - Curitiba PR - 1st Young National Drawing Exhibition
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 13th National Salon of Modern Art
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 2nd The Face and the Work, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Nude in Contemporary Art, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1965 - Brasília DF - 2nd Federal District Salon of Modern Art
1965 - London (England) - Brazilian Art Today, at Royal Academy of Arts
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 3rd JB Art Summary, at MAM/RJ - prize of the crítica
1965 - Santiago (Chile) - 2nd American Printmaking Biennial, at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo
1966 - Belo Horizonte MG - 21st Belo Horizonte City Fine Arts Salon, at MAP - acquisition prize
1966 - Bonn (Germany) - Brazilian Art Today, at Beethovenhalle
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Salão de Abril [April Salon], at MAM/RJ - drawing prize
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Self-Portraits, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Artist and the Machine, at MAM/RJ
1966 - São Paulo SP - The Artist and the Machine, at Masp
1967 - Belo Horizonte MG - Salão do Pequeno Quadro [Small Picture Salon] - printmaking prize
1967 - Belo Horizonte MG - Maciej Babinski and Evandro Carlos Jardim: Prints, at UFMG. EBA
1967 - Campinas SP - Maciej Babinski and Evandro Carlos Jardim: Prints
1967 - São Paulo SP - 9th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1967 - São Paulo SP - Maciej Babinski and Evandro Carlos Jardim: Prints, at MAC/USP
1968 - Kraków (Poland) - 2nd International Print Biennial
1968 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Cabinet des Estampes
1968 - New York (United States) - South American Engravers, at South American Center
1968 - Quito (Ecuador) - 1st Quito Biennial
1969 - Florianópolis SC - Maciej Babinski and Evandro Carlos Jardim: Prints, at Masc
1969 - Santos SP - Maciej Babinski and Evandro Carlos Jardim: Prints, at Secretaria Municipal de Turismo e Esportes
1970 - São José do Rio Pardo SP - Maciej Babinski and Evandro Carlos Jardim: Prints
1970 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Printmaking, at Paço das Artes
1971 - São Paulo SP - 3rd Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1972 - Capri (Italy) - 2nd Triennale Internazionale della Xilografia Contemporanea [International Triennial of Contemporary Woodcut]
1972 - São Paulo SP - Art/Brazil/Today: 50 Years Later, at Galeria da Collectio
1975 - Paris (France) - Arte Gráfica Brasileira [Brazilian Graphic Art], at Musée Galliera
1975 - Vienna (Austria) - Arte Gráfica Brasileira [Brazilian Graphic Art], at Museu Albertina
1975 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Arte Gráfica Brasileira [Brazilian Graphic Art], at Fundação Gulbenkian
1976 - Massachusetts (United States) - Arte Gráfica Brasileira [Brazilian Graphic Art], at Bristol Community College
1976 - São Paulo SP - 7th São Paulo Contemporary Art Salon, at Paço das Artes - State Governor Prize
1977 - São Paulo SP - Premiados no 7º Salão Paulista: pintura [Award Winners of the 7th Salão Paulista: Painting], at Galeria Vasp
1978 - Curitiba PR - 1st Curitiba Annual Printmaking Show, at Centro de Criatividade
1978 - São Paulo SP - Art and Its Processes: Paper as Support, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1982 - Mexico City (Mexico) - 3rd Ibero-American Art Biennial, at Cidade do México
1983 - Olinda PE - 2nd Exhibition of the Abelardo Rodrigues Visual Arts Collection, at MAC/Olinda
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 3x4 Grandes Formatos [3x4 Large Formats], at Galeria do Centro Empresarial Rio
1983 - São Paulo SP - 14th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1984 - Ribeirão Preto SP - Brazilian Printmakers of the 1950s/60s, at Galeria Campus-USP-Banespa
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: A Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - São Paulo SP - 18th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - São Paulo SP - Highlights of Brazilian Contemporary Art, at MAM/SP
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Christian Dior Contemporary Art Exhibition: Painting, at Paço Imperial
1986 - São Paulo SP - 17th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1987 - São Paulo SP - 18th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1987 - São Paulo SP - The Fabric of Taste: Another Look at Everyday Life, at Fundação Bienal
1987 - São Paulo SP - 20th Contemporary Art Exhibition, at Chapel Art Show
1988 - Brasília DF - Professores da UnB [UnB Teachers], at Embaixada da França
1988 - São Paulo SP - 1st FASM National Watercolor Salon, at Faculdade Santa Marcelina
1988 - São Paulo SP - 63/66 Figure and Object, at Galeria Millan
1989 - Brasília DF - Tradição e Contemporaneidade - Artistas de Brasília [Tradition and Contemporaneity - Artists from Brasília], 2nd FLAAC
1989 - São Paulo SP - 20th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1990 - Brasília DF - Brazilian Art, at MAB/DF
1990 - Brasília DF - Exposição Coletiva [Group Exhibition], at Galeria do Conjunto Cultural da CEF
1990 - Brasília DF - Brasília Visual Arts Award, at MAB/DF - award winner
1991 - São Paulo SP - The Forest, at MAC/USP
1991 - São Paulo SP - Homem e Natureza [Man and Nature], at MAC/USP
1993 - João Pessoa PB - Woodcut: From Cordel to the Gallery, at Funesc
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - O Papel do Rio [Rio on Paper], at Paço Imperial
1993 - São Paulo SP - Printmakers, at Adriana Penteado Arte Contemporânea
1993 - São Paulo SP - Modern Drawing in Brazil: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Galeria de Arte do Sesi
1994 - Belo Horizonte MG - A Outra Banda da Terra [The Other Side of the Land], at Fundação Clóvis Salgado. Palácio das Artes
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 - Poetics of Resistance: Aspects of Brazilian Printmaking, at Galeria de Arte do Sesi
1994 - São Paulo SP - Woodcut: From Cordel to the Gallery, at Metrô
1994 - Uberlândia and Belo Horizonte MG - A Outra Banda da Terra [The Other Side of the Land]
1995 - São Paulo SP - Group Show 34, at Adriana Penteado Arte Contemporânea
1996 - Osasco SP - 3rd Art Show, at Centro Universitário Fieo
1998 - São Paulo SP - Afinidades Seletivas [Elective Affinities], at Casa das Rosas
1998 - São Paulo SP - The Collectors Guita and José Mindlin: Matrices and Prints, at Galeria de Arte do Sesi
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Mostra Rio Gravura. Coleção Mônica e George Kornis [Rio Printmaking Exhibition. Mônica and George Kornis Collection], at Espaço Cultural dos Correios
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Rio Printmaking Show. Brazilian Modern Printmaking: Museu Nacional de Belas Artes Collection, at MNBA
2000 - São Paulo SP - Investigations. Brazilian Printmaking, at Itaú Cultural
2001 - Brasília DF - Collections of Brazil, at CCBB
2001 - Brasília DF - Investigations. Brazilian Printmaking, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
2001 - Penápolis SP - Investigations. Brazilian Printmaking, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
2001 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Watercolor, at Centro Cultural Light
2001 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Spirit of Our Time, at MAM/RJ
2001 - São Paulo SP - Art Today, at Arvani Arte
2001 - São Paulo SP - The Spirit of Our Time, at MAM/SP
2001 - Uberlândia MG - Gravuras Brasileiras do Acervo do MUna: anos 60, 70 e 80 [Brazilian Prints from the MUnA Collection: 1960s, 70s and 80s], at MUna
2002 - Brasília DF - JK - An Aesthetic Adventure, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
Source: Itaú Cultural
