Maria Leontina (São Paulo SP 1917 - Rio de Janeiro RJ 1984)
Maria Leontina was a prominent Brazilian visual artist who worked as a painter, printmaker and draftswoman. Her artistic training began in 1938 with drawing lessons from Antônio Covello in São Paulo. In the 1940s, she deepened her knowledge of painting by studying with Waldemar da Costa. In 1946, already in Rio de Janeiro, she attended the studio of the sculptor Bruno Giorgi and took a course in museology at the Museu Histórico Nacional, which she completed in 1948.
In 1947, she took part in the historic exhibition "19 Pintores" [19 Painters] at Galeria Prestes Maia in São Paulo, alongside artists such as Lothar Charoux, Marcelo Grassmann, Aldemir Martins, Luiz Sacilotto and Flavio-Shiró. In 1951, she was invited by the psychiatrist and art critic Osório César to coordinate the visual arts section of the Juqueri Psychiatric Hospital, where she organized an exhibition of the patients' works at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo.
With a scholarship from the French government, she traveled to Europe in 1952, accompanied by her husband, the painter Milton Dacosta. Between 1952 and 1954, she attended Johnny Friedlaender's printmaking studio in Paris, refining her technique. In the 1960s, she left her mark on public works, such as the tile panel for the Copan Building and the stained-glass windows of the Igreja Episcopal Brasileira da Santíssima Trindade, both in the city of São Paulo.
Her artistic production began in figuration with a strong expressionist influence, but gradually evolved toward abstraction, without being bound to a rigid geometry. In 1960, she gained international recognition when she received the Guggenheim Foundation national award in New York. In 1975, she also won the painting award of the São Paulo Association of Art Critics.
Critical Commentary
Born into a traditional São Paulo family, Maria Leontina became interested in painting after visiting an exhibition by Flávio de Carvalho. She began her artistic training by studying drawing with the academic painter Antônio Covello. Her approach to the modern milieu and her serious dedication to painting came in 1940, when she began to attend the studio of Waldemar da Costa, co-founder of the Família Artística Paulista - FAP. During her years of study with him (until 1946), Leontina produced work of expressionist tendency, close to that of Flávio de Carvalho and Iberê Camargo. In 1947, she took part in the exhibition 19 Pintores [19 Painters], conceived by her sister, the art critic Maria Eugênia Franco, and received the second prize from the jury, made up of Anita Malfatti, Di Cavalcanti and Lasar Segall. Among the young exhibiting artists were important names in Brazilian art such as Lothar Charoux, Marcelo Grassmann, Aldemir Martins, Luiz Sacilotto and Flavio-Shiró, all linked at that time to expressionist iconography. As the artist stated, near the end of her life, to the critic Frederico Morais: "I was an expressionist, like almost all artists at that time".
Her work attracted more intense critical attention with the series of still lifes begun in 1949, in which a reflection on cubism can be perceived. In them, an autonomous pictorial space, unconcerned with representing reality, begins to assert itself, and the figures become increasingly synthetic. In 1949, she married the painter Milton Dacosta. With a scholarship from the French government, she traveled with her husband to Europe in 1952. She attended Johnny Friedlaender's printmaking course in Paris, where she lived until 1954. During this period, she traveled through several countries.
Through the unbroken development of her painting, she arrived at geometric abstraction in the mid-1950s, by refining away the figurative elements. Naturally, the artist was affected by the climate of debate around abstraction then prevailing in Brazil, and by her experience abroad, where she probably came into contact with the constructive movement and European abstract painting. Related to abstract-geometric poetics are series such as Os Jogos e os Enigmas [The Games and the Enigmas], Da Paisagem e do Tempo [Of Landscape and Time], Narrativas [Narratives] and Episódios [Episodes]. Many of her paintings evoke urban space and its buildings. In works such as Os Enigmas [The Enigmas] (1955), the city appears as a construction of geometric forms reminiscent of the Castelos e Cidades [Castles and Cities] series produced by Milton Dacosta from 1955 onward. The artist may have been influenced by her painter husband, producing works with more rigorous geometric forms in the second half of the 1950s. However, she did not follow the craftsmanlike precision of Dacosta's lines, preferring a lighter approach, softening the edges of forms and allowing colors to overlap, in a painting full of transparencies.
Maria Leontina's "constructive" phase, which lasted until 1961, is regarded by several critics as the most singular moment in her artistic career. Remaining on the margins of the Brazilian constructive currents, the artist developed a peculiar "sensitive geometry", in which the rigidity of line and the mathematical rigor of composition are replaced by an intuitive ordering and imprecise geometric forms. As the critic Frederico Morais states, these works achieve "the right balance between expression and construction, calculation and emotion". For the critic Paulo Venâncio Filho, a certain magical and spiritual quality - which many have called metaphysical, in the sense of a conception of painting as the presentation of the invisible through the visible - permeates her structures, softening the more radical ordering impulse. It is no accident that the critic Ferreira Gullar relates Leontina's abstract production to the works of Paul Klee and Joan Miró. As for color, too, the artist, one of the greatest colorists in Brazilian art, did not restrict herself to the constructive dogma of primary colors, working with equal skill in both warmer hues and more sober tones.
In 1961, the Formas [Forms] series inaugurated a new phase in her career, in which forms go through a process of rounding and are later transformed into patches of color. From then until the end of her life, Maria Leontina produced several series in which abstraction, geometric or not, sometimes predominates, and at other times a synthetic figuration of symbolic character. Particularly notable is the long series of Estandartes [Banners], begun in 1963, which the artist described as "a plastic theme infinite in its possibilities of variations of form, line and color". The elements are increasingly reduced to the essential, while the metaphysical and lyrical atmosphere present since her earliest works, as well as the silent quality of her paintings, persist.
It should be noted that the artist has a little-known body of drawings that deserves further investigation. On the role of drawing in her creative method, she declared: "When I see the mountain, the outline at first seems defined to me. Then two, three lines appear. The same happens in our relationships with human beings. What was sharp at first gives way to imprecision [...] I draw a lot. I like to work the drawing out inside me, so that it emerges spontaneously. Drawing is always very useful. Above all, to capture nuances and sensations".
Critiques
"(...) As was characteristic among us around the mid-1940s, she adhered to figuration, already grounded in lyricism and turned more toward the soul than toward the body of people, objects and landscapes. She then gave herself over to the abstract experience. In it, what interested her at first was speculation with the harmonies of geometric forms, of which the series Os Jogos e os Enigmas [The Games and the Enigmas] was an excellent example at the close of the 1950s. (...) Thus, even when it was a matter of pure architectural structures, a gaze seeking the objective world there would end up finding it in the allusion to patterns of rows of houses or of signs in big cities. It was indeed such an allusive inclination that, at the start of the 1960s, led her to rethink her course and turn once again to the still lifes from which she had also started. But the attitude did not really mean a return to the limits of representation; rather, it meant a need to take the expressive possibilities of that starting point to their ultimate consequences, transcending its figurative character through the systematic exercise of analogies. With gentle and precise logic, there then came the series of the Estandartes [Banners], the Páginas [Pages] and Os Reinos e as Vestes [The Kingdoms and the Garments]. In all of them pulses an atmosphere that draws on poetic subtlety, already announced in the titles, on discreet chromaticism, as in a musical andante, and on the pacified tensions of forms that seem to levitate, dissolving and interpenetrating in space - a sign of time, which dissolves, interpenetrates and accumulates in the flow of life. In many respects, Maria Leontina's painting shares a kinship with that of Maria Helena Vieira da Silva".
Roberto Pontual
PONTUAL, Roberto. Maria Leontina. In: ______. Entre dois séculos: arte brasileira do século XX na coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand. Rio de Janeiro: Jornal do Brasil, 1987, p. 252.
"(...) I can only describe Maria Leontina's art as lyrical if the term lyricism includes, not without legitimacy, the tragic feeling of forms as well - tragic, and not merely dramatic. Tragic in the archaic and pure sense, of that certainty of an unfathomable destiny which nevertheless always ends up revealing itself precisely when and where the illusion of apparent reality seems to break. A tragic sense that, in the case of these exhibitions, enters into open conflict with the rational security of an internationally rationalized composition. This is how the current problem of Maria Leontina's painting presents itself. It is clear that the sincerity of her character rejects any suggestion of a formula adopted out of mere curiosity or any other less respectable motive. (...) immediately, one will look in Maria Leontina for a rationalist capable of challenging our emotions with the rigors of intelligence by offering us well-calculated indecipherables, for her undisguisedly emotional, even passionate, temperament cultivates and proposes mystery even when she gives herself to lucid gratuities that are themselves tragically unsettling".
Lourival Gomes Machado
MACHADO, Lourival Gomes. Maria Leontina. In: MODERNIDADE: arte brasileira do século XX. São Paulo: MAM; Paris: Musée d´Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1988. [Texto publicado originalmente no jornal O Estado de São Paulo, 1958.]
"Leontina's passage to abstraction differs from Dacosta's in that it did not follow exactly and strictly the path of geometrization. When figurative, her lineage was expressionist, not cubist. Thus, she did not go through 'cones, spheres and cylinders', as in Cézanne's famous phrase, which is a kind of theory of cubism avant la lettre. She started from exceptional still lifes (one of her favorite themes, with which she created the best of her figurative production), and gradually simplified, stripped away, emptied, removed weight and consistency, until she arrived at essential and, finally, abstract forms. However, perhaps not only because of her closeness to Dacosta but above all by virtue of her own essentially Apollonian, harmonious, limpid and tranquil temperament, she did not arrive at informal or gestural abstraction. As a rule, historically, and as a matter of affinity, expressionists who turn abstract have tended more toward that pole; this is what happened, for example, with Iberê Camargo. Leontina created a very personal and lyrical type of constructivism, at times somewhat more, at times somewhat less structured and rigorous, but always fluid and flowing".
Olívio Tavares de Araújo
ARAÚJO, Olívio Tavares de. Maria Leontina (1917-1984): A Alma da Artista. In: ______. Pintura brasileira do século XX: trajetórias relevantes. Rio de Janeiro: 4 Estações, 1998. 120 p., il. color., p. 96.
"For four decades, Maria Leontina followed a trajectory very similar to that of the artists who experienced the impact of abstraction among us and, at the same time, engendered traits of singularity in that territory. In her works of the 1940s, still figurative, Leontina seemed to attest with perplexity that the reality perceived by the senses was too vast, too mysterious to be easily synthesized in the reality of each painting. In these works, the artist is clearly feeling her way through the codes, trying to recreate them in order to better understand the possible parallels between the world and the world of painting.
In the 1950s, certainly steeped in the debate on abstraction, Leontina preserved the same perplexity before the world and the world of art, now with a more mature attitude (...) In the following decades, however, perhaps in search of a more absolute formal refinement, Leontina seems to replace that profound perplexity of the early years with a pictorial scheme with which she seldom reaches the quality of the previous periods. Only at the end of her life does that anguish seem to spring up again, but in another sense: art, for her, suddenly seems to become too vast, too mysterious to be engendered in the reality of the world (...)".
Tadeu Chiarelli
CHIARELLI, Tadeu. Maria Leontina. In: ______. Arte internacional brasileira. São Paulo: Lemos, 1999. p. 214 [Texto publicado originalmente no jornal O Estado de São Paulo, 15/5/1994, p. M-10, com título "Mostra refaz itinerário de uma angústia". ]
"Gothic, Leontina seeks in matter its opposite - the spirit, eliminating its weight, freeing it from the ground. She produced an aerial, ethereal, transparent, imprecise painting. A painting - or a drawing - almost detaching itself from the canvas and the paper. Everything in it is light; otherwise, how could her pages, garments and banners float? Her gesture is charged with a certain mystical tremor and suggests a vaguely myopic gaze. A vague gesture and yet one capable of saying everything, as in a haiku in which the world is spoken of in 17 syllables.
One of the artist's last canvases, dated 1983, (...) is almost an epitaph, in the form of a summing-up or synthesis of her admirable work. In a single, extremely subtle graphic weave, set between two black columns at the sides of the canvas, we find allusions to almost all of her thematic series - banners, pages, garments, thresholds. On the threshold of time, Maria Leontina awaits the moment to begin her final journey. Silence."
Frederico Morais
MORAIS, Frederico. A pintura como silêncio. In: MILTON Dacosta e Maria Leontina: um diálogo. Rio de Janeiro: CCBB, 1999. p. 23.
Solo Exhibitions
1950 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria do IAB/RJ
1950 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Domus
1951 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Ibeu
1951 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Domus
1955 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Petite Galerie
1955 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at MAM/SP
1957 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Petite Galerie
1957 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Ambiente
1958 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Gea
1958 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Tenreiro
1958 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria de Arte da Folha
1959 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Associação de Amigos do MAM/SP
1959 - São Paulo SP - Milton Dacosta and Maria Leontina, at Associação de Amigos do MAM/SP
1960 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Estúdio
1960 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria São Luís
1962 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Petite Galerie
1962 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Petite Galerie
1963 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Relevo
1963 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Seta Galeria de Arte
1964 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Associação dos Amigos do MAM/SP
1966 - Belo Horizonte MG - Solo, at MAP
1966 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Associação dos Amigos do MAM/SP
1972 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria de Arte Ipanema
1972 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Seta Galeria de Arte
1973 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Uirapuru
1975 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria de Arte Ipanema
1975 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Petite Galerie
1975 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Arte Global
1977 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Grifo Galeria de Arte
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Maria Leontina: Retrospective Synthesis, at Galeria do IAB/RJ
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria GB Arte
1983 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Arco
Group Exhibitions
1942 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 48th National Salon of Fine Arts, at MNBA
1944 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - National Salon of Fine Arts, at MNBA - bronze medal
1944 - São Paulo SP - 9th Salon of the Visual Artists' Union, at Galeria Prestes Maia - Mário de Andrade Prize
1944 - São Paulo SP - Exhibition of Brazilian-North American Modern Painting, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1945 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 51st National Salon of Fine Arts, at MNBA
1947 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 53rd National Salon of Fine Arts, at MNBA - Modern Division
1947 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 6 New Artists from São Paulo, at Galeria do IAB/RJ
1947 - São Paulo SP - 11th Salon of the Visual Artists' Union, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1947 - São Paulo SP - 19 Pintores [19 Painters], at Galeria Prestes Maia - Jeremias Lunardelli Prize (2nd prize)
1948 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 54th National Salon of Fine Arts, at MNBA - Modern Division - jury exemption
1948 - São Paulo SP - 12th Salon of the Visual Artists' Union, at Galeria Domus
1949 - São Paulo SP - 13th Salon of the Visual Artists' Union
1950 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 56th National Salon of Fine Arts, at MNBA - Modern Division - silver medal
1950 - Venice (Italy) - 25th Venice Biennale
1951 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Still Life Exhibition, at Serviço de Alimentação e Previdência Social
1951 - São Paulo SP - 1st Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão do Trianon - Moinho Santista Prize
1951 - São Paulo SP - 1st São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia - domestic travel prize
1951 - São Paulo SP - Still Life Exhibition, at Sede do Serviço de Alimentação e Previdência Social - 1st prize
1952 - Feira de Santana BA - 1st Feira de Santana Modern Art Exhibition, at Banco Econômico
1952 - Paris (France) - 38th Salon de Mai
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
1954 - São Paulo SP - 3rd São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia - large gold medal
1954 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary Art: Exhibition of the Collection of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, at MAM/SP
1955 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4th National Salon of Modern Art - domestic travel prize
1955 - Salvador BA - 5th Bahia Fine Arts Salon, at Galeria Belvedere da Sé
1955 - São Paulo SP - 3rd Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at MAM/SP - MAM/RJ Prize
1955 - São Paulo SP - 4th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1956 - Montevideo (Uruguay) - Pintura Brasileña Contemporánea, at Instituto de Cultura Uruguayo-Brasileño
1956 - Venice (Italy) - 28th Venice Biennale
1957 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 6th National Salon of Modern Art - acquisition prize
1957 - São Paulo SP - 4th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho - acquisition prize
1957 - São Paulo SP - 6th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1958 - São Paulo SP - Leirner Contemporary Art Prize, at Galeria de Arte das Folhas
1959 - São Paulo SP - 5th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho - acquisition prize
1959 - São Paulo SP - Milton Dacosta and Maria Leontina, at Associação dos Amigos do Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo
1959 - São Paulo SP - Leirner Contemporary Art Prize, at Galeria de Arte das Folhas
1960 - New York (United States) - Guggenheim International Award, at Fundação Guggenheim
1960 - São Paulo SP - 9th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia - acquisition prize
1960 - São Paulo SP - Leirner Collection, at Galeria de Arte das Folhas
1960 - São Paulo SP - Women's Contribution to the Visual Arts in Brazil, at MAM/SP
1961 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Face and the Work, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1961 - São Paulo SP - 6th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho
1962 - São Paulo SP - Selection of Brazilian Artworks from the Ernesto Wolf Collection, at MAM/SP
1963 - Campinas SP - Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, at Museu Carlos Gomes
1963 - São Paulo SP - 7th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Nude in Contemporary Art, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1965 - São Paulo SP - 8th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal - acquisition prize
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Self-Portraits, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1966 - São Paulo SP - Half a Century of New Art, at MAC/USP
1967 - São Paulo SP - 9th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1968 - São Paulo SP - 19 Pintores [19 Painters], at Tema Galeria de Arte
1969 - São Paulo SP - 1st Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP - acquisition prize
1970 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP - acquisition prize
1972 - São Paulo SP - Art/Brazil/Today: 50 Years Later, at Galeria da Collectio
1972 - São Paulo SP - Waldemar da Costa Retrospective: Tribute to the Master, at MAM/SP
1973 - São Paulo SP - 5th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1975 - São Paulo SP - Brazil-Japan Fine Arts Exhibition
1976 - Campinas SP - 10th Campinas Contemporary Art Salon - Art in Brazil: Document/Debate, at MAC/Campinas - guest artist
1976 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art in the 20th Century - Paths and Tendencies, at Galeria Arte Global
1976 - São Paulo SP - Young Drawing of the 1940s, at Pinacoteca do Estado
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 - Caracas (Venezuela) - Ibero-American Meeting of Artists and Critics, at Fundación Museo de Bellas Artes
1978 - São Paulo SP - 19 Pintores [19 Painters], at MAM/SP
1978 - São Paulo SP - The Biennials and Abstraction: The 1950s, at Museu Lasar Segall
1979 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Sculptors, at Galeria Aktuel
1979 - São Paulo SP - 15th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1980 - Belo Horizonte MG - Hilton Painting Highlight, at Fundação Clóvis Salgado. Palácio das Artes - acquisition prize
1980 - Brasília DF - Hilton Painting Highlight, at Fundação Cultural do Distrito Federal - acquisition prize
1980 - Curitiba PR - Hilton Painting Highlight, at Teatro Guaíra - acquisition prize
1980 - Porto Alegre RS - Hilton Painting Highlight, at Margs - acquisition prize
1980 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - São Paulo Concretists, at Galeria Place des Arts
1980 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Hilton Painting Highlight, at MAM/RJ - acquisition prize
1980 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Tribute to Mário Pedrosa, at Galeria Jean Boghici
1980 - Santos SP - 5 Tendencies, at CCBEU
1980 - São Paulo SP - Hilton Painting Highlight, at MAM/SP - acquisition prize
1982 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Brazil 60 Years of Modern Art: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
1982 - London (United Kingdom) - Brazil 60 Years of Modern Art: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Barbican Art Gallery
1982 - Salvador BA - Brazilian Art from the Odorico Tavares Collection, at Museu Carlos Costa Pinto
1982 - São Paulo SP - From Modernism to the Bienal, at MAM/SP
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 6th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Skin Deep: Painting and Pleasure, at Centro Empresarial Rio
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Self-Portraits, at Galeria de Arte Banerj
1984 - Fortaleza CE - 7th National Visual Arts Salon
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Recent Donations 82-84, at MNBA
1984 - São Paulo SP - The Color and Drawing of Brazil, at MAM/SP
1984 - São Paulo SP - Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection: Portrait and Self-Portrait of Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
Posthumous Exhibitions
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 7th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: A Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - Porto Alegre RS - Iberê Camargo: Trajectory and Encounters, at Margs
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Encounters, at Petite Galerie
1986 - Brasília DF - Iberê Camargo: Trajectory and Encounters, at Teatro Nacional Cláudio Santoro
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Iberê Camargo: Trajectory and Encounters, at MAM/RJ
1986 - São Paulo SP - Iberê Camargo: Trajectory and Encounters, at Masp
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - JK and the 1950s: A View of Culture and Everyday Life, at Galeria Investiarte
1987 - Paris (France) - Modernity: 20th-Century Brazilian Art, at Musée d´Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - To the Collector: Tribute to Gilberto Chateaubriand, at MAM/RJ
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 - Geometric Abstraction, at Fundação Nacional de Arte. Centro de Artes
1988 - São Paulo SP - MAC 25 Years: Highlights of the Initial Collection, at MAC/USP
1988 - São Paulo SP - Modernity: 20th-Century Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1989 - São Paulo SP - 20th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo - Abstract Painting: The Bienal Effect, 1954-1963, at Fundação Bienal
1992 - Poços de Caldas MG - Brazilian Modern Art: Collection of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, at Casa de Cultura de Poços de Caldas
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - On the Way to Niterói: João Sattamini Collection, at Paço Imperial
1992 - São Paulo SP - Sérgio's View of Brazilian Art: Drawings and Paintings, at Biblioteca Municipal Mário de Andrade
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazil, 100 Years of Modern Art, at MNBA
1994 - Poços de Caldas MG - Unibanco Collection: Exhibition Celebrating Unibanco's 70th Anniversary, at Casa de Cultura de Poços de Caldas
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 - Maria Leontina: Retrospective, at MAM/SP
1994 - São Paulo SP - Retrospective Marking the 10th Anniversary of Her Death, at MAM/SP
1995 - Brasília DF - Brasília Collections, at Ministério das Relações Exteriores. Palácio do Itamaraty
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Unibanco Collection: Exhibition Celebrating Unibanco's 70th Anniversary, at MAM/RJ
1996 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art: 50 Years of History in the MAC/USP Collection: 1920-1970, at MAC/USP
1996 - São Paulo SP - Women Artists in the MAC Collection, at MAC/USP
1997 - Porto Alegre RS - 1st Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul, at Fundação Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul
1997 - Porto Alegre RS - Exhibition of the Caixa Collection, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
1997 - Porto Alegre RS - Constructive Strand and Design, at Espaço Cultural ULBRA
1997 - São Paulo SP - Exhibition of the Caixa Collection, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
1998 - Curitiba PR - Exhibition of the Caixa Collection, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
1998 - Niterói RJ - Mirror of the Biennial, at MAC/Niterói
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Exhibition of the Caixa Collection, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
1998 - São Paulo SP - Constructive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, at MAM/SP
1998 - São Paulo SP - The Modern and the Contemporary in Brazilian Art: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection - MAM/RJ, at Masp
1998 - São Paulo SP - The Collectors - Guita and José Mindlin: Matrices and Prints, at Galeria de Arte do Sesi
1999 - Niterói RJ - Rio Printmaking Show. Banerj Collection, at Museu do Ingá
1999 - Porto Alegre RS - 2nd Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul, at Fundação Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul
1999 - Porto Alegre RS - Picasso, Cubism and Latin America, at Margs
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Constructive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, at MAM/RJ
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Milton Dacosta and Maria Leontina: A Dialogue, at CCBB
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Rio Printmaking Show. Banerj Collection, at Museu Histórico do Ingá
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Rio Printmaking Show. Brazilian Modern Printmaking: Museu Nacional de Belas Artes Collection, at MNBA
1999 - Salvador BA - 60 Years of Brazilian Art, at Espaço Cultural da Caixa Econômica Federal
1999 - São Paulo SP - Everyday/Art. Consumption. Metamorphosis of Consumption, at Itaú Cultural
1999 - São Paulo SP and Rio de Janeiro RJ - Constructive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, at MAM/SP and MAM/RJ
2000 - Brasília DF - Brazil Europe Exhibition: Encounters in the 20th Century, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
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 Rediscovery Exhibition. Modern Art, at Fundação Bienal
2001 - Brasília DF - Collections of Brazil, at CCBB
2001 - São Paulo SP - Color in Brazilian Art, at Espaço MAM/Villa-Lobos
2001 - São Paulo SP - Bienal 50 Years: A Tribute to Ciccillo Matarazzo, at Fundação Bienal
2002 - Niterói RJ - Collection on Paper, at MAC/Niterói
2002 - Niterói RJ - Brazilian Art on Paper: 19th and 20th Centuries, at Solar do Jambeiro
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 - 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 - 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 - Modernism: From the Week of '22 to Sérgio Milliet's Art Section, at CCSP
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 1930 Revolution to the Postwar Period, at MAM/RJ
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Autonomy of Drawing, at MAM/RJ
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Order x Freedom, at MAM/RJ
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Caixa Treasures: Brazilian Modern Art in the Caixa Collection, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
2003 - São Paulo SP - MAC USP 40 Years: Contemporary Interfaces, at MAC/USP
2004 - Niterói RJ - Transitive Modernity, at MAC/Niterói
2004 - São Paulo SP - Paper Cabinet, at CCSP
2004 - São Paulo SP - Gesture and Expression: Informal Abstraction in the JP Morgan Chase and MAM Collections, at MAM/SP
2004 - São Paulo SP - Women Painters, at Pinacoteca do Estado
2004 - São Paulo SP - Collection Room, at Ricardo Camargo Galeria
2004 - São Paulo SP - Everything Is Drawing, at CCSP
Source: Itaú Cultural
