Vasco Prado (Uruguaiana RS 1914 - Porto Alegre RS 1998)
Vasco Prado was a printmaker, sculptor, tapestry maker, illustrator, draftsman and teacher. In 1940, he studied briefly at the Escola de Belas Artes de Porto Alegre. He began his research in sculpture as a self-taught artist and, in 1941, set up his first studio, assisted by the painter Oscar Boeira (1883 - 1943). In 1947 and 1948, he studied in Paris on a French government scholarship, where he was a student of Fernand Léger (1881 - 1955) and attended the printmaking studio of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. During his stay in Paris, he came into contact with the Mexican artist Leopoldo Méndez (1902 - 1968), head of the Taller de Gráfica Popular. He returned to Brazil in 1949 and, the following year, founded the Clube de Gravura de Porto Alegre [Porto Alegre Printmaking Club], together with Carlos Scliar (1920 - 2001).
He taught sculpture at the Ateliê Livre of the Porto Alegre City Hall in 1966. In 1968 and 1969, he held a residency as a guest artist, traveling around Europe. From 1987 to 1991, he was part of the management team of the Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul Ado Malagoli – MARGS. His sculptures and murals are installed in public spaces both in Brazil and abroad. In 1994, the retrospective Vasco Prado, 80 Anos [Vasco Prado, 80 Years] was held at the Usina do Gasômetro, in Porto Alegre. His home in Porto Alegre was turned into a memorial in 2000, with the aim of preserving the artist's documents, personal belongings and works. Books on his production were published in 1984 by MARGS and in 2001 by the publisher Animae.
Critical Commentary
Vasco Prado produces works that show the influence of Auguste Rodin (1840 - 1917) and in which he already reveals an interest in regional themes, such as the Negrinho do Pastoreio, frequently reworked in his production.
In 1947 and 1948, he studied in France with Fernand Léger (1881 - 1955) and Étienne Hajdu (1907 - 1996), attending the printmaking studio of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. His contact with the Mexican printmaker Leopoldo Méndez led him to take an interest in printmaking. In 1950, together with Carlos Scliar (1920 - 2001) and other artists, he founded the Clube de Gravura de Porto Alegre. At the same time, he continued his research in sculpture. In 1960, he made a bronze sculpture for the city of Pelotas, in which he returns to the theme of the Negrinho do Pastoreio, presented, however, with a freer conception, in which formal sparseness is evident.
The artist seeks themes linked to regional values, such as the theme of the rider and the horse, in which the human figure is represented with a broad sense of dignity, and the animal with attributes of strength and pride, but also with gentleness.
Critiques
"Among the sculptors of Rio Grande do Sul, Vasco Prado holds a privileged place, for it can be said that with him southern sculpture began its modernizing course, confronting the problem of a national and up-to-date art. Vasco in fact belongs to that generation of artists who in the early 1940s and later, in the 1950s and 1960s, set out to renew, breaking with the old, timid framework within which art in Rio Grande had developed until then. From the beginning, however, a striking note of his work was a certain attachment to the theme of the land and the gaúcho man, which allows us to find in his work a link of continuity in this process with the best of the artistic past, not forgetting the sculptor's apprenticeship, albeit brief, with the painter Oscar Boeira. And if in sculpture the artist is seen, from the start of his career, engaging with folklore themes, such as the legendary Negrinho do Pastoreio, this tendency developed in his activity as a member of the Clube de Gravura, from 1950 onward, in which gaúcho legends and themes, but also aspects of working life and even political themes, were frequently presented. (...)
Later, his art would break away from the objective and historicist discipline of socialist realism, following the paths of the expressionist simplification of forms, which brought him closer to abstractionism and to the tendencies then in vogue in Europe".
Carlos Scarinci
SCARINCI, Carlos. Depoimentos. In: PRADO, Vasco. Vasco Prado. Porto Alegre: Margs, 1984. p.66.
"Vasco Prado's sculpture is tied to two main sources: Henry Moore and Constantin Brancusi. They seem, in a way, contradictory sources. And in fact they are. But cultural syntheses have this character. From Moore, Vasco Prado took the rounded forms, the openings, the vitalization of voids, the idea of monumentality. From Brancusi, he took the idea of synthesis, the taste for simplicity and the essential. Later, he drew close to the Italian sculptor Marino Marini. But in this case not in a formative way, as with the first two. With Marini the affinity lay in a taste for the same themes, in the gaúcho love for the figure of the horse and rider, a constant in Vasco Prado's work. In examining his work, I think these three sculptors prove fundamental".
Jacob Klintowitz
KLINTOWITZ, Jacob. Vasco Prado: gravador, desenhista, escultor: ele aprende as coisas que seu coração dita. Skultura, 1984. p.11.
"Vasco Prado sometimes seems to me to have managed to tie together, in his own way, the ends of the long, millennia-old thread of sculpture, giving his works a form that recalls archaic Greek art but is at the same time irrevocably modern and personal.
For the inveterate fiction writer that I am, each of these sculptures suggests or sums up a story: Os Amantes Equestres [The Equestrian Lovers] - let us call it that -, the woman on horseback with one child in her arms and another in her womb, the man mounted backward like the clowns of the old-time circuses, the horseman carrying a woman behind him on the saddle, probably stolen from someone... All these themes are, in my view, universal, while still bearing a strong mark of Rio Grande, its customs and its people. Fortunately Vasco Prado has escaped the narrow formulas of a photographic, 'official' regionalism and has resisted, with brave artistic honesty, the temptation of the easy and the picturesque".
Erico Veríssimo
VERÍSSIMO, Erico. Depoimentos. In: PRADO, Vasco. Vasco Prado. Porto Alegre: Margs, 1984. p.72.
Testimonials
"In Paris, both Scliar and I, on meeting Méndez, the Mexican printmaker, became very enthusiastic about his work. I myself, who until then had always made sculpture and was there on a scholarship for a sculpture course, on returning met up here with Edgar Koetz, who was in turn coming back from Argentina, and we began preparing some works in this technique. I dreamed of a Negrinho do Pastoreio, which would be complemented by vignettes, initials, openings and closings made by him. That is how, also with Scliar, we began making prints, and the Club came into being, with premises I rented in a small two-story house on Avenida Farrapos, next to the Hotel São Luís. That was when the idea of club members came about, which helped us a great deal to keep the work going. (...)
The Clube de Gravura de Montevidéu, founded following our example, is still alive today and is celebrating its 25th anniversary. They acquired their own premises, and only recently they wrote asking me to send a print for a commemorative album they were preparing. Last year they also made a very beautiful edition dedicated to Pablo Neruda, which they sent me. Once our club was founded here (...) we soon had influence across the country and in the River Plate region, and also in the interior. At that time, Glênio Bianchetti was holding an exhibition at the Galeria do Correio do Povo, when Scliar and I met him. He joined us, and soon the Clube de Bagé came into being, where there was already intense artistic activity. (...)
The whole problem of the end of the Clube de Gravura, in my view, was political. When Scliar left, I was more or less alone to keep things going, since the others in the group also began to follow their own paths. Those were difficult times in Brazil, the year 1955, when there was a great deal of repression, with pressure on left-leaning political parties. The magazine we had founded, Horizonte, had a clearly socialist political character, although it dealt with art, and although I see today that it was somewhat sectarian in its way of seeing things and should have been more open in order to survive. Socialist realism was the fashion then, and some of us, in this eagerness to discover things, may have lost our way a little, misapplying its principles. Moreover, another serious problem that cannot be forgotten, and which persists even today, is that in general the visual artist in Brazil reads little, is ignorant of the things around him, has no theory. So, if the Club filled the gap in discipline and technical training, it did not manage to fill the gap in theory for all of us, which was very harmful later on. (...)"
Vasco Prado a Antonio Hohlfeldt
HOHLFELDT, Antonio. Vasco Prado: importância do Clube de Gravura se mede na repercussão atual. Correio do Povo, Porto Alegre, 11 jan. 1976. In: GRAVURA Brasileira. São Paulo: Cosac & Naify/Itaú Cultural, 2000. p.88 [Depoimento realizado em 11 de janeiro de 1976]
Collections
Casa de Cultura Mário Quintana - Porto Alegre RS
Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado - Faap - São Paulo SP
National Gallery Prague - Czech Republic
Museo Americano de Maldonado - Uruguay
Museu da Fertilidade do Chile
Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo - MAC/USP - São Paulo SP
Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul
Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM/SP - São Paulo SP
National Museum in Warsaw - Poland
Museu Regional de Feira de Santana - Bahia
Utsukushigahara Museum - Tokyo (Japan)
Solo Exhibitions
1949 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Galeria do Jornal Correio do Povo
1965 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Espaço Galeria
1965 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Goeldi
1966 - Córdoba (Argentina) - Solo, at Galeria de Arte Moderna
1966 - Montevideo (Uruguay) - Solo, at Galeria U
1966 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Espaço No Galeria Chaves
1966 - Porto Alegre RS - 25 Years of Sculpture, at Margs
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Goeldi
1966 - Salvador BA - Solo, at Galeria Convivum
1966 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Solarium
1970 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1976 - Rome (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria d'Arte della Casa do Brasil
1978 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Skultura Galeria de Arte
1980 - Porto Alegre RS - Vasco Prado 40 Years of Drawing: 1940-1980, at Centro Municipal de Cultura
1980 - Porto Alegre RS - Vasco Prado: Terracottas, at Atelier Vasco Prado e Zoravia Bettiol
1982 - Montevideo (Uruguay) - Solo, at Galeria América Latina
1982 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Galeria Masson
1983 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo Exhibition of Terracottas, at Atelier Vasco Prado e Zoravia Bettiol
1983 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Galeria Tina Presser
1984 - Porto Alegre RS - Vasco Prado: 70-Year Retrospective
1984 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Galeria Singular
1984 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Skultura Galeria de Arte
1985 - São Paulo SP - The Work of Vasco Prado: A Retrospective, at MAB/Faap
1987 - São Leopoldo RS - Solo, at Gestual Galeria de Artes Ltda
1988 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Galeria Scherer Artes
1988 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria de Arte Toulouse
1990 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Bublitz Decaedro Galeria de Artes
1990 - São Paulo SP - Vasco Prado: Ceramic and Bronze Sculptures, at Galeria Skultura
1991 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Galeria Marisa Soibelmann
1992 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Galeria Alencastro Guimarães
1994 - Porto Alegre RS - Vasco Prado: Eighty Years, at Usina do Gasômetro
1994 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Skultura Galeria de Arte
1995 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Cezar Prestes Arte
1997 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Galeria Marisa Soibelmann
1998 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Margs
1998 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Galeria Gravura
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Espaço Cultural dos Correios
Group Exhibitions
1941 - Porto Alegre RS - Group show, at Galeria do Instituto de Belas Artes
1943 - Porto Alegre RS - Salon of the Instituto de Belas Artes do Rio Grande do Sul
1948 - Paris (France) - Foreign Artists' Salon
1951 - Porto Alegre RS - 5th Salon of the Associação de Artes Plásticas Francisco Lisboa - silver medal in sculpture
1953 - Porto Alegre RS - 4th Salon of the Instituto de Belas Artes
1954 - Goiânia GO - Exhibition of the National Congress of Intellectuals
1954 - Porto Alegre RS - 6th Salon of the Associação de Artes Plásticas Francisco Lisboa - acquisition prize in sculpture
1956 - Porto Alegre RS - 8th Salon of the Associação de Artes Plásticas Francisco Lisboa - acquisition prize in sculpture
1957 - Porto Alegre RS - 4th Salon of the Porto Alegre City Council - 2nd prize in sculpture
1957 - Porto Alegre RS - 9th Salon of the Associação de Artes Plásticas Francisco Lisboa - acquisition prize in printmaking
1958 - Porto Alegre RS - 10th Salon of the Associação de Artes Plásticas Francisco Lisboa
1960 - Porto Alegre RS - 12th Salon of the Associação de Artes Plásticas Francisco Lisboa - acquisition prize in sculpture
1961 - Porto Alegre RS - Rio Grande do Sul Art: From the Past to the Present, at Galeria do Instituto de Belas Artes de Porto Alegre
1962 - Porto Alegre RS - 3rd Rio Grande do Sul Visual Arts Salon, at UFRGS
1962 - Porto Alegre RS - 9th Salon of the Instituto de Belas Artes
1962 - Washington (United States) - Spotlight in Brazil, at the OAS exhibition hall
1966 - Belo Horizonte MG - 20th Municipal Fine Arts Salon - 2nd prize in sculpture
1966 - Belo Horizonte MG - 21st Belo Horizonte City Fine Arts Salon, at MAP
1966 - Porto Alegre RS - Art Today in Rio Grande do Sul, at Margs
1966 - Salvador BA - 1st National Visual Arts Biennial
1966 - São Paulo SP - 13 Gaúcho Artists, at MAC/USP
1966 - Tokyo (Japan) - Printmakers from Rio Grande do Sul, at Embaixada do Brasil no Japão
1966 - Sakata (Japan) - Printmakers from Rio Grande do Sul
1966 - Osaka (Japan) - Printmakers from Rio Grande do Sul
1966 - Kanazawa (Japan) - Printmakers from Rio Grande do Sul
1966 - Suzu (Japan) - Printmakers from Rio Grande do Sul
1966 - Nikko (Japan) - Printmakers from Rio Grande do Sul
1967 - Campinas SP - 3rd Campinas Contemporary Art Salon
1967 - São Paulo SP - 9th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1968 - Arezzo (Italy) - Medal and Plaque Biennial
1968 - Warsaw (Poland) - 1st Metal Biennial - silver medal
1970 - Porto Alegre RS - 1st UFRGS Visual Arts Salon, at UFRGS
1972 - São Paulo SP - 4th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1973 - Budapest (Hungary) - 2nd Small Sculpture Biennial
1975 - Brasília DF - Gaúcho Art/74
1975 - São Paulo SP - 7th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1975 - São Paulo SP - 13th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1977 - São Paulo SP - 9th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1978 - Penápolis SP - 3rd Noroeste Visual Arts Salon, at Fundação Educacional de Penápolis. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Penápolis
1978 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Sculpture in Urban Space: 50 Years, at Praça Nossa Senhora da Paz
1978 - São Paulo SP - 10th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1979 - Goiânia GO - Ten Brazilian Sculptors, at Casa da Cultura da América Latina
1979 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Sculptors, at Galeria Aktuel
1980 - Curitiba PR - 2nd Brazilian Drawing Exhibition, at Teatro Guaíra
1980 - Goiânia GO - Nine Sculptors, at Casa Grande Galeria de Arte
1980 - Washington (United States) - Eight Brazilian Sculptors, at Brazilian-American Cultural Institute
1981 - Guarujá SP - Open-Air Sculpture, at Hotel Jequitimar
1981 - São Paulo SP - 3rd Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1982 - Milan (Italy) - 13th Mostra Internazionale di Scultura All'Aperto Sissa Pagani, at Museu D'Arte Moderna
1982 - São Paulo SP - A Century of Sculpture in Brazil, at MAM/SP
1983 - Porto Alegre RS - 35 Years of Independence of the State of Israel, at Margs
1983 - Porto Alegre RS - From the Past to the Present: The Visual Arts in Rio Grande do Sul, at Cambona Centro de Arte
1983 - Porto Alegre RS - Francisco Stockinger/Vasco Prado, at Galeria Tina Presser
1983 - Porto Alegre RS - Gaúcho Artist's Book: 1950/1983, at Margs
1984 - Curitiba PR - 6th Curitiba City Printmaking Exhibition. Woodcut in the History of Brazilian Art, at Casa Romário Martins
1984 - Hakone (Japan) - 3rd Kotaro Takamura Grand Prize, at the Open-Air Museum - acquisition prize
1984 - Porto Alegre RS - Prints: A Journey Through Time, at Cambona Centro de Artes
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Woodcut in the History of Brazilian Art, at Galeria Sérgio Milliet. Funarte
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Recent Donations 82-84, at MNBA
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: A Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - Penápolis SP - 6th Noroeste Visual Arts Salon, at Fundação Educacional de Penápolis. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Penápolis
1985 - Porto Alegre RS - Iberê Camargo: Trajectory and Encounters, at Margs
1985 - São Paulo SP - 18th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
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
1987 - São Paulo SP - 20th Contemporary Art Exhibition, at Chapel Art Show
1989 - Porto Alegre RS - Arte Sul 89, at Margs
1993 - João Pessoa PB - Woodcut: From Cordel to the Gallery, at Fundação Espaço Cultural da Paraíba
1994 - São Paulo SP - The Printmaking Clubs of Brazil, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1994 - São Paulo SP - Woodcut: From Cordel to the Gallery, at Metrô
1996 - Passo Fundo RS - Museu de Artes Visuais Ruth Schneider: Inaugural Exhibition, at Museu de Artes Visuais Ruth Schneider
1996 - Porto Alegre RS - Sesc Sculpture: International Open-Air Sculpture Exhibition, at Sesc Campestre
1996 - São Paulo SP - Off Bienal, at MuBE
1997 - São Paulo SP - Three-Dimensionality in 20th-Century Brazilian Art, at Itaú Cultural
1998 - Belo Horizonte MG - Three-Dimensionality in 20th-Century Brazilian Art, at Itaú Cultural
1998 - Brasília DF - Three-Dimensionality in 20th-Century Brazilian Art, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
1998 - Penápolis SP - Three-Dimensionality in 20th-Century Brazilian Art, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
1998 - São Paulo SP - Skultura Collection 98, at Skultura Galeria de Arte
Posthumous Exhibitions
1999 - Porto Alegre RS - Garagem de Arte: Inaugural Exhibition, at Garagem de Arte
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Mostra Rio Gravura: Brazilian Modern Printmaking: Collection of the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, at MNBA
2000 - São Paulo SP - Investigations. Brazilian Printmaking, at Itaú Cultural
2001 - Brasília DF - Investigations. Brazilian Printmaking, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
2001 - Penápolis SP - Investigations. Brazilian Printmaking, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
2001 - Porto Alegre RS - Liba and Rubem Knijnik Collection: Brazilian Contemporary Art, at Margs
2001 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Tracing Printmaking, at Museu da Chácara do Céu
2002 - Porto Alegre RS - Drawings, Prints, Sculptures and Watercolors, at Garagem de Arte
2003 - Porto Alegre RS - Humanities, at Galeria Tina Zappoli
2003 - São Paulo SP - Art and Society: A Controversial Relationship, at Itaú Cultural
2004 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Múltipla de Arte
Source: Itaú Cultural
