Paulo Rossi Osir (São Paulo SP 1890 - idem 1959)
Painter, draftsman, architect.
Paulo Cláudio Rossi Osir began painting with his father, the architect Cláudio Rossi. He traveled to Italy and studied with Alberto Beniscelli at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in 1906 and 1907. The following year, in Dover, England, he took watercolor and etching courses with Alexandre Austed. He returned to Brazil and, between 1909 and 1911, studied at the Escola Politécnica de São Paulo - Poli and the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios de São Paulo - Laosp. Back in Europe, he attended the studio of the architect Victor Alexandre Frédéric Laloux (1850 - 1937) and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris in 1912. In Italy he received a builder's diploma in Milan in 1915 and graduated as an architect from the Royal Academy of Bologna in 1916. He took part in founding the Sociedade Pró-Arte Moderna - Spam [Pro-Modern Art Society] in 1932 and the Família Artística Paulista - FAP in 1937. In the 1940s, he created the tile company Osirarte and began producing the tiles designed by Candido Portinari (1903 - 1962) for the Ministério da Educação e Saúde - MES building in Rio de Janeiro and for the Pampulha Church in Belo Horizonte. Between 1941 and 1947, he held regular Osirarte exhibitions to promote the artistic tiles created by the group working in the workshop. Participants included Mario Zanini (1907 - 1971), Alfredo Volpi (1896 - 1988), Hilde Weber (1913 - 1994) and Gerda Brentani (1908 - 1999), among others.
Critical Commentary
As art historian Tadeu Chiarelli notes, Rossi Osir drew close to the return-to-order tendency, especially in its neo-Renaissance strand, in his treatment of the female body, in works such as Nu, Mulata [Nude, Mulatto Woman], 1930. In this painting, the sensual use of the figures' contour line and the subject matter reveal the artist's affinities with the production of Vittorio Gobbis (1894 - 1968). In Imigrante Lituano [Lithuanian Immigrant], 1930, he explores the linearity of form, using a highly stylized procedure originating in the painting not only of Amedeo Modigliani (1884 - 1920) but, above all in some portraits, of Ubaldo Oppi (1889 - 1942).
Rossi Osir played a fundamental role through the support he gave to the painters of the Grupo Santa Helena and the Família Artística Paulista - FAP, whose production he encouraged, and also because of his vast library, full of authors linked to the production of the Italian Novecento. In 1940, the artist created the company Osirarte, a workshop that rendered in tiles the paintings of Candido Portinari (1903 - 1962) for the Ministério da Educação e Saúde - MES building in Rio de Janeiro. Later, Osirarte developed a large production with paintings by artists of the Grupo Santa Helena, consisting mostly of decorative compositions with popular themes.
Critiques
"He created (...) Osirarte, a workshop specializing in the creation and manufacture of artistic tiles, thus seeking to revitalize this type of architectural cladding, and to that end enlisting the help of artists such as Volpi, Mário Zanini and several others. Osirarte would play a prominent role in the panorama of the national decorative arts throughout its existence, which practically coincides with the 1940s. Osir had an exquisite technique and, thanks mainly to his advice and to that of Vittorio Gobbis, São Paulo painting of the 1930s and 1940s acquired a craft consciousness. But, much more than a mere technician, Osir was an artist, although his importance has not yet been fully appreciated. Practicing landscape, seascape, figure and still life, he excelled greatly in all these genres, stylistically blending the chromatic fluidity of the Impressionists with the constructivist sense of form derived from Cézanne through Cubism."
José Roberto Teixeira Leite
LEITE, José Roberto Teixeira. Dicionário crítico da pintura no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Artlivre, 1988, pp. 368-369.
"His still lifes and landscapes bear witness to a strong concern with the formal construction of painting, through a naturalism that, while showing no visible influences of Cézanne or the macchiaioli, likewise shows no Impressionist and much less academic influences. It is as if Rossi Osir had in fact stripped himself of all knowledge of these poetics in order to interpret the reality around him through a raw naturalism emptied of any stylistic feature. This rawness of Osir's painting reaches high points not only in some of his still lifes and landscapes but, above all, in his nudes, among them 'Angelina', from 1927, and 'Nu, mulata'. In these paintings, the treatment of the woman's body, which definitively brings him close to the neo-Renaissance strand of the Novecento (...)"
Tadeu Chiarelli
CHIARELLI, Tadeu. O novecento e a Arte Brasileira. In: ________. Arte Internacional Brasileira. São Paulo: Lemos, 1999, pp. 77-78
Solo Exhibitions
1921 - São Paulo SP - Solo
1922 - São Paulo SP - Solo
1927 - São Paulo SP - Solo
1938 - São Paulo SP - Solo
1924 - Bologna (Italy) - Solo
1926 - Paris (France) - Solo
1926 - Boston (United States) - Solo
1926 - Pittsburgh (United States) - Solo
1926 - Philadelphia (United States) - Solo
1926 - New York (United States) - Solo
1928 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo
1937 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo
Group Exhibitions
1928 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 35ª Exposição Geral de Belas Artes [35th General Fine Arts Exhibition], at Enba
1930 - New York (United States) - The First Representative Collection of Paintings by Brazilian Artists, at Nicholas Roerich Museum
1931 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1º Salão da Pró-Arte [1st Pró-Arte Salon]
1931 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão Revolucionário [Revolutionary Salon], at Enba
1932 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 2º Salão da Pró-Arte [2nd Pró-Arte Salon]
1933 - São Paulo SP - 1ª Exposição de Arte Moderna da SPAM [1st SPAM Modern Art Exhibition]
1934 - São Paulo SP - 1º Salão Paulista de Belas Artes [1st São Paulo Fine Arts Salon], at Rua 11 de Agosto
1935 - Pittsburgh (United States) - The 1935 International Exhibition of Painting, at Carnegie Institute
1936 - Cleveland (United States) - The 1935 International Exhibition of Painting, at Toledo Museum of Art
1936 - Toledo (United States) - The 1935 International Exhibition of Painting, at Toledo Museum of Art
1937 - São Paulo SP - 1º Salão da Família Artística Paulista [1st Família Artística Paulista Salon], at Esplanada Hotel de São Paulo
1939 - São Paulo SP - 2º Salão da Família Artística Paulista [2nd Família Artística Paulista Salon], at Automóvel Clube
1940 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 3º Salão da Família Artística Paulista [3rd Família Artística Paulista Salon], at Palace Hotel
1940 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 46º Salão Nacional de Belas Artes [46th National Fine Arts Salon], at MNBA
1941 - São Paulo SP - 1º Salão de Arte da Feira Nacional de Indústrias [1st Art Salon of the National Industries Fair], at Parque da Água Branca
1941 - São Paulo SP - 1º Salão Osirarte [1st Osirarte Salon], at Rua Barão de Itapetininga 124
1942 - São Paulo SP - 7º Salão do Sindicato dos Artistas Plásticos [7th Salon of the Visual Artists' Union], at Galeria Prestes Maia
1943 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Exposição Anti-Eixo [Anti-Axis Exhibition], at Museu Histórico e Diplomático - Palácio Itamaraty
1943 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Exposição de Azulejos da Osirarte [Osirarte Tile Exhibition], at MNBA
1944 - Belo Horizonte MG - Exposição de Arte Moderna [Modern Art Exhibition], at Edifício Mariana
1944 - London (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Royal Academy of Arts
1944 - Norwich (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Norwich Castle and Museum
1944 - São Paulo SP - 9º Salão do Sindicato dos Artistas Plásticos [9th Salon of the Visual Artists' Union], at Galeria Prestes Maia
1944 - São Paulo SP - Exposição de Pintura Moderna Brasileira-Norte-Americana [Brazilian-North American Modern Painting Exhibition], at Galeria Prestes Maia
1945 - Bath (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Victoria Art Gallery
1945 - Bristol (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery
1945 - Edinburgh (Scotland) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at National Gallery
1945 - Glasgow (Scotland) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Kelvingrove Art Gallery
1945 - Manchester (England) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Manchester Art Gallery
1946 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Osirarte, at Salón Peuser
1946 - São Paulo SP - Osirarte, at Galeria Benedetti
1947 - Mendoza (Argentina) - Osirarte, at Galeria Gimenez
1951 - São Paulo SP - 1ª Bienal Internacional de São Paulo [1st São Paulo International Biennial], at Pavilhão do Trianon
1952 - São Paulo SP - Volpi, Zanini, Rossi, at Centro Cultural Ítalo-Brasileiro
1954 - São Paulo SP - 3º Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna [3rd São Paulo Salon of Modern Art], at Galeria Prestes Maia
Posthumous Exhibitions
1960 - São Paulo SP - Paulo Rossi Osir: desenhos [Paulo Rossi Osir: Drawings], at Associação Amigos do MAM/SP
1962 - São Paulo SP - Seleção de Obras de Arte Brasileira da Coleção Ernesto Wolf [Selection of Brazilian Artworks from the Ernesto Wolf Collection], at MAM/SP
1963 - São Paulo SP - 7ª Bienal Internacional de São Paulo [7th São Paulo International Biennial], at Fundação Bienal
1964 - São Paulo SP - Paulo Rossi Osir: retrospectiva [Paulo Rossi Osir: Retrospective], at Galeria Selearte
1966 - São Paulo SP - Meio Século de Arte Nova [Half a Century of New Art], at MAC/USP
1967 - São Paulo SP - Gomide, Osir e Visconti [Gomide, Osir and Visconti], at Art Galeria
1972 - São Paulo SP - A Semana de 22: antecedentes e consequências [The 1922 Week: Background and Consequences], at Masp
1975 - São Paulo SP - O Modernismo de 1917 a 1930 [Modernism from 1917 to 1930], at Museu Lasar Segall
1975 - São Paulo SP - SPAM e CAM [SPAM and CAM], at Museu Lasar Segall
1976 - São Paulo SP - Os Salões: da Família Artística Paulista, de Maio e do Sindicato dos Artistas Plásticos de São Paulo [The Salons: of the Família Artística Paulista, of May and of the São Paulo Visual Artists' Union], at Museu Lasar Segall
1982 - São Paulo SP - Do Modernismo à Bienal [From Modernism to the Biennial], at MAM/SP
1982 - São Paulo SP - Marinhas e Ribeirinhas [Seascapes and Riverscapes], at Museu Lasar Segall
1982 - São Paulo SP - Pintores Italianos no Brasil [Italian Painters in Brazil], at MAM/SP
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 7º Salão Nacional de Artes Plásticas [7th National Visual Arts Salon], at MAM/RJ
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão de 31 [The 1931 Salon], at Funarte
1988 - São Paulo SP - Brasiliana: o homem e a terra [Brasiliana: Man and Land], at Pinacoteca do Estado
1992 - São Paulo SP - O Olhar de Sérgio sobre a Arte Brasileira: desenhos e pinturas [Sérgio's View of Brazilian Art: Drawings and Paintings], at Biblioteca Municipal Mário de Andrade
1993 - São Paulo SP - 100 Obras-Primas da Coleção Mário de Andrade: pintura e escultura [100 Masterpieces from the Mário de Andrade Collection: Painting and Sculpture], at IEB/USP
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século XX [20th-Century Brazil Biennial], at Fundação Bienal
1995 - São Paulo SP - O Grupo Santa Helena [The Santa Helena Group], at MAM/SP
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - O Grupo Santa Helena [The Santa Helena Group], at CCBB
1996 - São Paulo SP - Arte Brasileira: 50 anos de história no acervo MAC/USP: 1920-1970 [Brazilian Art: 50 Years of History in the MAC/USP Collection: 1920-1970], at MAC/USP
1996 - São Paulo SP - Figura e Paisagem no Acervo do MAM: homenagem a Volpi [Figure and Landscape in the MAM Collection: Tribute to Volpi], at MAM/SP
1998 - São Paulo SP - A Arte de Expor Arte [The Art of Exhibiting Art], at MAM/SP
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brasil + 500 Mostra do Redescobrimento [Brazil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition], at Fundação Bienal
2001 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Aquarela Brasileira [Brazilian Watercolor], at Centro Cultural Light
2001 - São Paulo SP - Museu de Arte Brasileira: 40 anos [Museu de Arte Brasileira: 40 Years], at MAB/Faap
2002 - São Paulo SP - Modernismo: da Semana de 22 à seção de arte de Sérgio Milliet [Modernism: From the 1922 Week to Sérgio Milliet's Art Section], at CCSP
2003 - São Paulo SP - Arte e Sociedade: uma relação polêmica [Art and Society: A Controversial Relationship], at Itaú Cultural
2004 - São Paulo SP - O Preço da Sedução: do espartilho ao silicone [The Price of Seduction: From Corset to Silicone], at Itaú Cultural
Source: Itaú Cultural
