Tomoo Handa (Utsunomiya, Japão 1906 - s.l. 1996)
Painter and teacher.
He arrived with his family in Porto Martins, in the interior of São Paulo, in 1917. He went on to the Santo Antônio farm, near Botucatu, to work on the coffee plantation. In 1921, he moved to the state capital, where he began his artistic training at the Escola Profissional Masculina do Brás, between 1927 and 1929. He attended the Escola de Belas Artes de São Paulo from 1932 to 1935, where he was taught by Lopes de Leão (1889-1964). In 1935, with other artists, he founded the Grupo Seibi (Seibi-Kai), which aimed to share experiences and stimulate artistic debate through weekly meetings among Japanese-Brazilian painters. In 1936, he held his first solo show at the Nippon Club, and that same year gained recognition outside his community, receiving an honorable mention at the Salão Paulista de Belas Artes [São Paulo Fine Arts Salon]. He also took part in other important groups of the Japanese community, such as the Grupo Jacaré, or Grupo dos 15, between 1948 and 1949, and the Grupo Guanabara, from 1950 to 1959. He took part in all five group exhibitions held by the Grupo Guanabara at Galeria Domus, in São Paulo (1950, 1951, 1953, 1958, 1959). He took part in the 1st Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, in 1951, and in the 1st Salão de Arte Moderna de São Paulo and the 1st Salão de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, both in 1952. He was one of the organizers of the 1st Salão de Arte da Colônia Japonesa [Japanese Community Art Salon] in São Paulo, in 1952. After his death, the exhibition Retrospectiva de Tomoo Handa was held at the Museu de Arte Nipo-Brasileira, São Paulo, in 1997.
Critical Commentary
Essentially pictorial, Tomoo Handa's work consists mainly of landscapes and portraits, with oil and watercolor as the artist's preferred media. In his landscapes, he looks closely at the local vegetation and shows an interest in chromatic elaboration. Handa painted the outskirts of São Paulo and nearby towns, producing canvases of rich, delicate color, as in Paisagem da Vila Sônia [Vila Sônia Landscape] (1947). The childhood he spent on farms in the interior of São Paulo, among the newly formed Japanese community, is evoked in canvases such as Cafezal [Coffee Plantation] (1952) and A Colheita do Café [The Coffee Harvest] (1955). In a 1968 text, Handa remarks: "...since the visual arts did not meet the language barrier to expression, artists were able to inquire into what Beauty is, what the fine arts of Japan are, and what the art that the immigrant could create in Brazil might be. [...] it can be stated with complete confidence that all their effort [that of the Japanese immigrant] was never aimed at imitating the forms of Japanese fine arts, and that they will not leave sad shadows of them to posterity". Handa also devoted himself to portraying the people around him. In 1937, two years after completing his training at the Escola de Belas Artes, he painted a Retrato de Mulher [Portrait of a Woman] depicting a young Japanese woman. The handling of the canvas is still somewhat conventional, but it already shows the search for balance and subtlety in the use of color. Between 1940 and 1945, he painted the oil Retrato do Pintor Tamaki [Portrait of the Painter Tamaki]. This work, as the curator Ana Paula Nascimento observes, already displays a feature common to his output: the expressive use of dark lines outlining the figure and all the objects.
Critiques
"For him, the landscape speaks to him and he brings it back to life on his canvases. A painter of light colors, because he concluded that he is not a tragic man, he says that not even the war and the countless social problems he went through had any influence on his work. In Brazil for 70 years, Brazilian by free choice, he believes that the Japanese style visits him in terms of softness and subtlety, but his inspiration really lies in nature, in forms. So many years have passed since his first work was sold, and his simple lyricism is still in bloom: 'My pictures remain the same, like me'. The brushwork and color are carefully elaborated, with no lack of an Eastern accent in the technical rigor and the transparency of the paint used, which mark him as a true professional of this craft. The themes of nature govern his intention, offering him shortcuts and inexhaustible sources; he wisely knows how to listen to this counsel".
Ciça França Lourenço
LOURENÇO, Ciça França. In: Na arte da colônia japonesa no Brasil. São Paulo: MASP, 1988.
Solo Exhibitions
1936 - Arujá SP - Solo, at Nippon Club
1948 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Domus
Group Exhibitions
1934 - São Paulo SP - 1st São Paulo Fine Arts Salon, at Rua 11 de Agosto
1935 - São Paulo SP - 3rd São Paulo Fine Arts Salon
1936 - São Paulo SP - 4th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon
1937 - São Paulo SP - 5th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon
1937 - São Paulo SP - 1st Salão de Maio, at Esplanada Hotel de São Paulo - at the invitation of Mário de Andrade
1938 - São Paulo SP - 1st Grupo Seibi Show
1939 - São Paulo SP - 6th São Paulo Fine Arts Salon
1949 - São Paulo SP - Grupo 15 Exhibition, at IAB/SP
1950 - São Paulo SP - 1st Grupo Guanabara Exhibition, at Galeria Domus
1951 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Grupo Guanabara Exhibition, at Galeria Domus
1953 - São Paulo SP - 3rd Grupo Guanabara Exhibition, at Galeria Domus
1958 - São Paulo SP - 4th Grupo Guanabara Exhibition, at Galeria Domus
1959 - São Paulo SP - 5th Grupo Guanabara Exhibition, at Galeria Domus
1951 - São Paulo SP - 1st São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão do Trianon
1951 - São Paulo SP - 1st São Paulo Salon of Modern Art
1952 - São Paulo SP - 2nd São Paulo Salon of Modern Art
1952 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st National Salon of Modern Art
1960 - São Paulo SP - Exhibition of the Seven, at Cooperativa Agrícola de Cotia
1962 - Bragança Paulista SP - Exhibition of the Six, at Clube Dois
1965 - Washington (United States) - Traveling group show Pintura Nipo-Brasileira Atual [Current Japanese-Brazilian Painting]
1965 - Oakland (United States) - Traveling group show Pintura Nipo-Brasileira Atual [Current Japanese-Brazilian Painting]
1965 - Tokyo (Japan) - Traveling group show Pintura Nipo-Brasileira Atual [Current Japanese-Brazilian Painting]
1966 - São Paulo SP - Japanese-Brazilian Artists, at MAC/USP
1966 - São Paulo SP - 10th Grupo Seibi Visual Artists Salon, at Sociedade Brasileira de Cultura Japonesa
1976 - São Paulo SP - The Salons: of the Família Artística Paulista, the Salão de Maio and the São Paulo Visual Artists Union, at Museu Lasar Segall
1977 - São Paulo SP - Grupo Seibi - Grupo do Santa Helena: 1935 to 1945, at MAB-Faap
1982 - São Paulo SP - From Modernism to the Bienal, at MAM/SP
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: A Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1986 - São Paulo SP - Six Times: 80 Years, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1987 - São Paulo SP - Spring, at Liberdade Garô Galeria de Arte
1988 - São Paulo SP - Life and Art of the Japanese in Brazil, at Masp
1988 - São Paulo SP - Brasiliana: Man and the Land, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1988 - Manaus AM - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1988 - Brasília DF - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts
1988 - Belém PA - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at Fundação Romulo Maiorana
1988 - São Paulo SP - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at MAB-Faap
1988 - Recife PE - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at Fundação Joaquim Nabuco/Instituto de Cultura
1988 - Curitiba PR - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at MAC/Curitiba
1988 - Porto Alegre RS - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at Margs
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Heritage of Japan: Aspects of Japanese-Brazilian Visual Arts, at MNBA
1992 - São Paulo SP - Grupo Guanabara: 1950-1959, at Renato Magalhães Gouvêa Escritório de Arte
1993 - São Paulo SP - Luso-Japanese-Brazilian Exhibition, at MAB-Faap
1995 - São Paulo SP - Brazil-Japan Art, at Fundação Mokiti Okada M.O.A.
1995 - Niigata (Japan) - Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, at The Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art
1995 - Tokushima (Japan) - Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, at Centro Cultural de Tokushima
Posthumous Exhibitions
1996 - Gifu (Japan) - Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, at The Museum of Fine Art Gifu
1996 - Tokyo (Japan) - Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, at Azabu Art Museum
1996 - São Paulo SP - Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, at Masp
1997 - Jacareí SP - Exhibition of Contemporary Japanese-Brazilian Painters, at Oficina de Artes Santa Helena
1997 - São Paulo SP - Tomoo Handa Retrospective Exhibition, at Museu de Arte Nipo-Brasileira
1998 - São Paulo SP - Seibi Group, at Jo Slaviero Galeria de Arte
1998 - São Paulo SP - São Paulo: The Japanese-Brazilian View, at Museu Lasar Segall
1998 - São Paulo SP - São Paulo Iconography in Private Collections, at Museu da Casa Brasileira
2001 - São Paulo SP - Japanese-Brazilian Art: Moments, at Galeria Euroart Castelli
2004 - São Paulo SP - New Acquisitions: 1995 - 2003, at MAB-Faap
Source: Itaú Cultural
