Sylvio Pinto (Rio de Janeiro RJ 1918 - Idem 1997)
Sylvio Pinto was a painter, set designer and teacher. The son of the Portuguese painter Bernardo Pinto da Silva, he received his first artistic training in his father's studio and at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios do Rio de Janeiro. In the early 1930s, he joined the Núcleo Bernardelli, where he worked alongside artists such as José Pancetti, Manuel Santiago, Bustamante Sá, Milton Dacosta and Ado Malagoli. From 1939 on, he produced theater sets and allegorical floats for the Rio carnival. In 1940, he founded a free art school for children in the Jacarezinho neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro.
He took part in the 1st São Paulo Biennial in 1951 and, the following year, received the foreign travel prize at the Salão Nacional de Belas Artes. In 1953, he traveled to Lisbon, Madrid and Seville before settling in Paris, where he produced numerous urban scenes. In 1977, he traveled to the United States and, in 1981, set up a studio in Ellenville, New York. In 1985, he published the book Vida e Obra em Depoimentos [Life and Work in Testimonies], with a text by Quirino Campofiorito.
He received several honors, including the Pedro Ernesto Medal (1988) and the Medal of Honor of Merit from the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (1989), as well as tributes from Portuguese cultural authorities (1991) and from Brasília's cultural authorities (1993). In 1993, the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes held a retrospective of his work. He died in 1997 in Rio de Janeiro, where he spent his last years in the Leme neighborhood.
