Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (Lisboa, Portugal 1908 - Paris, France 1992)
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva was a painter, record company, designer, illustrator and Portuguese sculptor who He stood out in the European and international artistic scene throughout the 20th century. He began his artistic training in his childhood, studying drawing with Emília Santos Braga and painting with Armando Lucena, in addition to attending anatomy classes at the Lisbon School of Medicine and learning music at home. In 1928, he moved to Paris, where he continued his training, studying at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and with renowned sculptors such as Bourdelle and Despiau, until opting for painting and engraving as languages. Main.
During his Parisian trajectory, Vieira da Silva took classes with masters such as Dufresne, Waroquier, Friesz, Fernand Léger, Bissière and Hayter. In 1930, he married the Hungarian painter Arpad Szenes, with whom he established an intense artistic and personal partnership. His first solo exhibition took place in 1933, when he presented illustrations made for a children's book. In 1939, with the advancement of the Second World War, he returned to Lisbon, leaving his works under the care of the gallery owner Jeanne Bucher. The following year, he went into exile in Brazil, where he took up residence at the Hotel Internacional, in Rio de Janeiro, and joined a circle of artists and intellectuals, such as Murilo Mendes, Cecília Meireles and Carlos Scliar.
Still in 1940, alongside Arpad Szenes, created tile panels and portraits of scientists for the National School of Agronomy, baptizing the set of kilometer 44. Back in Paris in 1947, Vieira da Silva passed the Expose regularly and received critical attention, being the subject of a monograph by Pierre Descargues in 1949 and having his work released by the critic Guy Weelen from 1954 onwards. He became French in 1956 and expanded his artistic performance, Held in 1963 his first stained glass window in the city of Reims, France. Between 1968 and 1976, he produced stained glass windows for the Saint-Jacques Church, in collaboration with Charles Marq. Vieira da Silva received several awards throughout his life, including in the 2nd and 6th International Biennials of São Paulo. A member of prestigious institutions such as the Académie des Sciences, des Arts et des Lettres in Paris and the Royal Academy of Art in London, she left an important legacy for modern art. In 1990, the Arpad Szenes Foundation – Vieira da Silva was founded in Lisbon, dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of the couple's work. of Fine Arts of Lisbon. He moved to Paris in 1928, where he studies sculpture. He starts to dedicate himself to painting and engraving, studying with Fernand Léger (1881 - 1955). In 1930, he married the Hungarian artist Arpad Szenes (1897 - 1985). His works are situated between figuration and abstraction. The artist's painting presents a concern to reveal ambiguities of space and depth represented on a flat surface. The use of a checkered network predominates in its paintings, obtained through the lines and their intersections, which form planes similar to colored squares, as occurs in La Chambre à Carreaux [the checkered room], from 1935. L'Atelier Lisbonne [the Lisbon studio], from 1940, small squares rotate to form an interior in perspective. In the center of the composition, figures make a circle, remembering Matisse's dance, in a spectral record. The artist also reveals the importance of works by Bonnard (1867 - 1947), especially the painting Le Nappe à Carreaux [the checkered towel], which he sees when he arrives in Paris, and the abstract compositions of Torres Garcia (1874 - 1949).
The couple Arpad Szenes and Vieira da Silva came to Brazil in 1940, due to the Second World War, settling in the former International Hotel, in Rio de Janeiro. There he lives with intellectuals and painters, such as Cecília Meireles (1901 - 1964), Murilo Mendes (1901 - 1975) and Carlos Scliar (1920 - 2001). In 1941, Vieira da Silva Pinta La Forêt des Erreurs [A Floresta dos Errantes], a picture that presents an almost vertiginous visual rhythm and a lowered chromatic range, with a predominance of yellows and greens. The couple founds the Atelier Silvestre, which becomes a center for artistic discussions. brings to Brazil the novelty of abstraction that, in the case of Vieira da Silva, evokes forms of association between colors, textures, rhythms and intervals. came across. In the opinion of art historian Nelson Aguilar, the impact of his work can be recognized in Brazil, for example, in the tile panels made for landscape projects by Burle Marx (1909 - 1994) and also in the work of Carlos Scliar and Athos Bulcão (1918).
Criticism
"(...) Vieira da Silva raises and paints his squares: each one follows the other, pursues him, in the building that, making himself, In the construction that is magically being, as, on a screen, an inverted projection makes the unexpected walls of a house lift from a lot of stones. The construction is being made, with an inevitable and unavoidable force. simply to be done, not to be redoed: to be done. Each new corner, each step or every glow of gable, is a thing alone, a new thing that did not exist before, that does not bring with it the memory of the old presence of the house, nor does it leave the vacuum in a (...) and then, as in a system of parallel mirrors, in obedience to a frightening law, everything is reflected, it multi-represents itself to the mathematical infinity, becomes images of itself and gains, in irregularity and vertigo, a new reality, Fierce, deeper, an inevitable metaphysical power. It is the reality that is seen around it, looking at the terrible heart of that same reality. terrible, in the nonsense that has no end, no palpable utility (...)".
José Augusto França
FRANÇA, José Augusto. 1950-1951). de Vieira da Silva implies successive views. Each new approach reveals other underlying plots and these are modified without ceasing by a psychological overload. As these fugitive characters of which remain only a trace in the atmosphere, the painter is present in the middle of the canvas in a daedalus, a labyrinth of perspectives that are inscribed in different axes. Its dynamism bursts the surface in elusive lines like arrows slouching through space and reaching depth.
A painting could not be more faithfully decaled about the development of a thought, with its setbacks, its stops At the crossroads, its narrow corridors, its underground caves and its sudden dazzles. This art is always changing, accepts no limitation, no end. However, if it is given to us once, it is in a state that lends itself to new extensions that the spectator himself will be able to create. The latter surely receives the shock at the moment chosen by the artist, but can then add to him the discovery of the details, of secrets that are not perceptible at first sight and that the progressive familiarity with the work itself reveals. This is not exactly fixed, or is apparently only apparent, always carrying out virtualities never exhausted.
Vieira da Silva proceeds first by very vivid statements, full of subtleties that overlap, insistent, obsessing. Under the light of the imagination, the shapes decompose into triangles or squares and retain subtle and varied colors. The sadness and poverty of the everyday environment wear magical clothes. Going beyond its raw state, objects find strange kinship (...). The beings, the objects, are then very different from what was thought to be seen, evolve outside of all logic, escaping their weight, and the canvas became, according to René de Solier's expression, 'The Place of the Hybrid'".
Jacques Lassaigne
LASSAIGNE, Jacques. "The Creative Operation". Europe-America, 1978.
"The painting by Vieira da Silva, whatever the parameters in which it was situated, over a certain time, seems to be the work of an independent artist. Whether he were in Portugal, France or Brazil, Vieira da Silva followed his route regardless of the great currents he came across or crossed. There is within him an inability to adapt after having convinced himself, without romanticism, that he must work in the silence far from the boloice of society. In his opinion, it is the public that must meet the artist to try to establish a dialogue and never the artist meets the public. (...)
In chronological order: Cubism impresses it a lot. He appreciates the shapes similar to the elementary figures of geometry, the gears, the dismemberments, the percuting rhythms, the subtle facets that correspond to the vision of a society on the brink of industrialization. of Futurism, more through Marcel Duchamp 'Le Nu Descendant Un Escalier', nº 2 (1911) than through the Italians, often too demonstrative, it perhaps retains a constant dynamic and never the analysis of the trajectory of a body in the space. From the simultaneism embodied by Robert Delaunay (...) and Apollinaire the first, just the time of a painting: 'La Machine Optique' (1937) which for her represents a study where she analyzes the movement of colors. of surrealism, does not subscribe to anything of the visible part of this iceberg of precise writing, a refined technique, revised and corrected by Messonier, and almost nothing of the submerged part, in the sense that Vieira da Silva assumes the alchemy of imagination and refusal, not the unconscious, because It is too subtle to ignore it, but its influence on the conduct of men, their powers in their inventions. Essentially, he dwells on ancient philosophy, particularly in the Stoics, which he discovered when he was young. He found the keys that open these doors.
It was revealed to him, perhaps by Torres Garcia, the importance of the structures that his Portuguese arrogance soon assimilated. Bonnard continues to confuse her by her color strategy. Finally, of Impressionism, the great liberator of painting since the 19th century. XIX, Vieira da Silva captures the light, which constantly persecutes from frame to frame because it corresponds to its inner light, which is as necessary to it as air and its poetically redemptive view.
Vieira did not retain anything from expressionism, whatever its origin".
José Sommer Ribeiro and Guy Weelen
RIBEIRO, José Sommer & Weelen, Guy. Vieira da Silva. Guest artist 20th São Paulo International Biennial Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian, 1989.
"In the art of the 20th century, the search for an immanent meaning had been taken to absurdity by Duchamp as early as 1913. Under the conditions of modern times, its continuation it had become impossible. Vieira's painting has been a problem with excellence in the appropriation of the timeless and mythical figure of the labyrinth as a fragment of an inconceivable totality, thus preserving its symbolic complexity. The path turning into a detour and dead end continues to evoke the search for a north. The center, marking only the end of life and the confrontation with death, does not fail to ask the question of where we saw and where we are going. Beyond the center, on the winding paths of the return, the lost totality is guessed. Vieira's painting thus managed to integrate uncertainty as one of the determining conditions of modern consciousness. His personal problematic of a stranger in this world crosses with the attitude of modern man."
Gisela Rosenthal
Rosenthal, Gisela. Vieira da Silva 1980-1992. In search of the Unknown Space Lisbon: Cologne, Taschen, 1998.
Testimonies
"In Brazil I was very marked by events, so that I lived a little more with my head in Europe. That's why I got to know very little about Brazil. I met a group of people I liked a lot, I met the laundress, the pension maid. I didn't really know Brazil, but just a little bit of the people, very nice, good, intelligent people too. At that time we couldn't travel through the Ais, life was difficult... But in Europe, you lived so badly. I mean, for us it was already a miracle for us to live as we lived in Brazil.
(...)
I left many works in Brazil, almost all of them given as a gift to our friends. Nobody bought anything at that time in Brazil. The Arpad also left a lot. We were happy to sell the paintings, but the people who bought us were always very honest and paid what we asked for. But they usually bought smaller paintings, which cost little. On the one hand, I think it was fortunate that the rich people would not come to us to buy paintings. we would have fallen into the graces of the Grand Fines and we would not have had that contemplative life. But, of course, it was very beautiful because it ended, because it was distressing for us. We felt everything very fragile. Luckily we didn't suffer any disasters nor did we have any tropical disease - I only had one hepatitis. We lived just like a butterfly. (...)
The paintings I made in Brazil were very dark. I don't know why. I don't think it was the result of my concerns. It must be anything with my sight. I probably saw the pictures lighter than I painted them. I don't know. Finally, it was a time of tension, the one in Brazil"
Vieira da Silva
SILVA, Maria Helena Vieira Da. "We lived just like a butterfly". Mauá. Rio de Janeiro: Banerj Art Gallery, 1986, N.P. (Cycle of exhibitions on art in Rio de Janeiro, 6).
Individual exhibitions
1933 - Paris (France) - individual, at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery
1935 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Individual, in the UP gallery, organized by the writer and painter Antônio Pedro
1937 - Paris (France) - Individual, at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery
1942 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, at the MNBA
1944 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, at the ASKANASY Gallery
1946 - New York (United States) - Individual, at the Marian Willard Gallery, organized By Jeanne Bucher
1947 - Paris (France) - Individual, at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery
1949 - Lille (France) - Individual, at the Trouvaille Gallery
1949 - Paris (France) - Individual, at the Pierre Gallery
1950 - Stockholm (Sweden) - Individual, at the Blanche Gallery
1951 - Paris (France) - Individual, at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery
1951 - Paris (France) - Individual, at Galeria Pierre
1952 - Lille (France) - Individual, at the Dupont Gallery
1952 - London (England) - Vieira da Silva, at Redfern Gallery
1954 - New York (United States) - Individual, at Cadby Brich Gallery
1955 - Paris (France) - Individual, at the Pierre Gallery
1956 - Basel (Switzerland) - Individual, at the Modern Art Gallery
1956 - New York (United States) - Individual, at Saidemberg Gallery
1957 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Individual, at the Perron Gallery
1957 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Individual, at the gallery Portico
1957 - London (England) - Individual, at Hannover Gallery
1958 - Bremen (Germany) - Vieira da Silva: Retrospective, at Kunsthalle Bremen
1958 - Hannover (Germany) - Vieira da Silva: Retrospective, at Kestner Gesellschaft
1958 - Wuppertal (Germany) - Vieira da Silva: Retrospective, at Kunst und Museumverein
1960 - Paris (France) - Individual, at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery
1961 - New York (United States) - Individual, at the Knoedler Gallery
1961 - Washingnton (United States) - Individual, at the Phillips Art Gallery
1962 - Mannheim (Germany) - Individual, at Städtische Kunsthalle
1963 - Jerusalem (Israel) - L'Inclémence Lointain, at the Bezalel Museum Jerusalen
1963 - Lisbon (Portugal) - L'Inclémence Lointain, at the Engraving Gallery
1963 - New York (United States) - Vieira da Silva: Temperas, at Knoedler Gallery
1963 - Paris (France) - Vieira da Silva: Temperas, at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery
1963 - Washingnton (United States) - Vieira da Silva: Temperas, at Phillips Art Galerry
1964 - Grenoble (France) - Vieira da Silva: Retrospective, at the Museé de Grenoble
1964 - Turin (Italy) - Vieira da Silva: Retrospective at the Civic Museum
1965 - New York (United States) - Individual, at Albert Loeb Gallery
1966 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Individual, at the Academy of Music Amateurs
1966 - New York (United States) - Individual, at the Knoedler Gallery
1967 - Paris (France) - Individual, at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery
1969 - Paris (France) - Les IrréSolutions Résolues, at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery
1969 - Paris (France) - Individual, at the Jacob Gallery
1970 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Individual, at Galeria 111
1970 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Individual, at Galeria Judith Cruz
1970 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Individual, at Galeria São Mamede
1970 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Vieira da Silva: retrospective, at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. José de Azeredo Perdigão Modern Art Center
1970 - Porto (Portugal) - Individual, at Galeria Zen
1971 - Montpellier (France) - Vieira da Silva: Retrospective, at the Musée Fabre
1971 - Paris (France) - Individual, at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery, on the occasion of the study publication by Dora Vallier
1973 - Orléans (France) - Retrospective, at the Museum of Art and History
1974 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Individual, at Artel Galerie
1976 - Luxembourg (Luxembourg) - Vieira da Silva: Retrospective
1976 - Paris (France) - Individual, at the National Museum of Modern Art, Center Georges Pompidou
1977 - Paris (France) - Vieira da Silva: Retrospective, at the Musée d'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
1977 - Paris (France) and Lisbon (Portugal) - Retrospective, at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
1978 - Aalborg (Denmark) - Vieira da Silva: Retrospective at Nordjyllands Kunstmuseum
1980 - Barcelona (Spain) - Vieira da Silva: Paintings, at the Joan Prats Gallery
1980 - The Hague (Holland) Spectra
1985 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Portraits of Centro de Arte Modern Art José de Azeredo Perdigão
1986 - Paris (France) - Individual, at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery
1987 - São Paulo SP - Vieira da Silva in the Portuguese collections, at MASP
1988 - Paris (France) - Individual, in the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais
Collective exhibitions
1931 - Paris (France) - Autumn Salon, at the Grand Palais
1931 - Paris (France) - Salon des Surinépendants
1936 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes: Abstract paintings, in Vieira da Silva's studio
1944 - London (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at the Royal Academy of Arts
1944 - Norwich (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Norwich Castle and Museum
1945 - Bath (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Victory Gallery
1945 - Bristol (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery
1945 - Edinburgh (Scotland) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at the National Gallery
1945 - Glasgow (Scotland) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Kelingrove Art Gallery
1945 - Manchester (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, Manchester Art Gallery
1945 - Paris (France) - Salon des Réalités Nouvelles
1950 - Paris (France) - Vieira da Silva and Reichel: Gouaches, at Galerie La Hune
1952 - Paris (France) - Salon de Mai
1952 - Pittsburgh (United States) - Pittsburgh Exhibition of Contemporary Painting, at the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh
1953 - São Paulo SP - 2nd São Paulo International Biennial, at the State Pavilion - Acquisition Award
1954 - Basel (Switzerland) - Vieira da Silva, Bissière, Schiess, UBAC and Germaine Rechier Kunsthalle
1954 - Goiânia GO - Exhibition of the National Congress of Intellectuals
1954 - Venice (Italy) - 27th Venice Biennale
1955 - Amsterdam (Netherlands) - Vieira da Silva and Germaine Richier, at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
1955 - Caracas (Venezuela) - Bienal de Caracas - 3rd Prize
1958 - New York (United States) - Annual Guggenheim Museum Award - Honorable Mention
1958 - Pittsburgh (United States) - Carnegie Institute - 4th Prize
1961 - São Paulo SP - 6th International Biennial of São Paulo, at the Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho pavilion - International Grand Prix for Painting
1967 - Treigny (France) - Vieira da Silva and Étienne Martin, at Ratilly Castle
1976 - Paris (France) - Les Dessins d'Arpad Szenes et Vieira da Silva, at the Center National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou
1976 - Sochaux (France) - Collective, at Casa de Artes and Leisures de Sochaux
1976 - Metz (Germany) - Collective, at the Metz Museum
1976 - Luxembourg (Luxembourg) - Collective, at the Luxembourg State Museum
1979 - São Paulo SP - 15th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation
1980 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Homage to Mário Pedrosa, at the Jean Boghici Gallery
1982 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Brazil 60 years of modern art: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at the José de Azeredo Perdigão Modern Art Center
1982 - London (England) - Brazil 60 years of modern art: Gilberto Chateaubriand collection, at Barbican Art Gallery
1984 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes, at Galeria Emi-Valentim de Carvalho
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Six decades of modern art: Roberto Marinho Collection, At Paço Imperial
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - War Times: International Hotel, at the Banerj Art Gallery
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Times of War: Pensão Mauá, at the Art Gallery Banerj
1989 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Six decades of Brazilian modern art: Roberto Marinho Collection, at the José Azeredo Perdigão Modern Art Center
1989 - São Paulo SP - 20th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Biennial
Posthetic exhibitions
1992 - Zurich (Switzerland) - Brasilien: Entdeckung und Selbstendeckung, at Kunsthaus Zürich
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazil, 100 years of modern art, at the MNBA
1993 - São Paulo SP - The modern design in Brazil: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at the SESI Art Gallery
1994 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The modern design in Brazil: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at MAM/RJ
1994 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian modern art: a selection of the Roberto Marinho collection, at MASP
1994 - São Paulo SP - Memory of Liberdade, at the Pinacoteca do Estado
1994 - São Paulo SP - Poetics of the Resistance: Aspects of Brazilian Engraving, at the SESI Art Gallery
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Manuel de Brito Collection: Images of Portuguese Art of the Century XX, at MAM/RJ
1995 - São Paulo SP - Manuel de Brito Collection: Images of 20th Century Portuguese Art, at MASP
1998 - São Paulo SP - The Modern and the Contemporary in Brazilian Art: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection - MAM/RJ, at MASP
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Rio Engraving Show. Brazilian Literature and Engraving, at ABL
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - When Brazil was modern: plastic arts in Rio de Janeiro from 1905 to 1960, at Paço Imperial
2000 - São Paulo SP - Arpad Szenes and Vieira da Silva: Brazilian period, at the Pinacoteca do Estado
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brazil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition, at the Bienal Foundation
2001 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Watercolor, at the Light Cultural Center
2001 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian period, at Fundação Casa França-Brasil
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian art in the Fadel collection: from the restlessness of the modern to the autonomy of the language, in the CCBB
2002 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian art in the Fadel collection: from the restlessness of the modern to the autonomy of language, in the CCBB
2003 - Brasília DF - Brazilian art in the Fadel collection: from the restlessness of the modern to the autonomy of Language, at CCBB
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Art: from the 30th to the post-war revolution, at MAM/RJ
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Autonomy of drawing, at MAM/RJ
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Order X Liberdade, at MAM/RJ
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Century of a Brazilian: Roberto Marinho Collection, at Paço Imperial
2004 - São Paulo SP - Five painters of modernity Portuguese, at MAM/SP
2005 - São Paulo SP - The Century of a Brazilian: Roberto Marinho Collection, at MAM/SP
Source: Itaú Cultural
