Wega Nery (Corumbá MT 1912 - Guarujá SP 2007)
Wega Nery was a painter, designer, poet and teacher. In the 1930s, he published poems in the magazine O Malho (Parnaso Feminino), under the pseudonym Vera Nunes. Between 1946 and 1949, he studied drawing and painting at the School of Fine Arts, in São Paulo. In the 1950s, he took classes with Joaquim da Rocha Ferreira (1900-1965) and Yoshiya Takaoka (1909-1978), with whom he joined the Guanabara Group (1950-1959). In 1953, he attended the Atelier-Abstraction, by Samson Flexor (1907-1971), where he produced his first abstract paintings, with a geometric trend. In 1955, he exhibited drawings at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP).
He participated in several editions of the São Paulo International Biennial, being awarded as the best national designer in 1957 and receiving special rooms in 1963, 1973 and 1989. Also in 1963, he began to teach drawing and painting at the Civic Society of Santos, in São Paulo. Still in the same decade, he created the first "imaginary landscapes", which he would continue to paint until the end of the 1980s.
From 1969, he participated in several editions of the Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo (MAM/SP). In 1975, the art critic Geraldo Ferraz (1905-1979), his companion, published the book Wega Liberta em Art: 1954-1974. In 1993, the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo held an individual exhibition of the artist, and the following year, a retrospective was presented at the Centro Cultural São Paulo (CCSP).
Critical Comment
When the Wega Nery Special Room at the 7th São Paulo International Biennial, in 1963, she chooses to show paintings. In Lunar Landscape (1963), Poppies Field (1963) and Green Landscape, among others, there are characteristics that will permeate all the artist's work from then on: they are gestural, expressive paintings, which obey both something occasional and the a previously articulated composition. Vigorous brushstrokes, which cross the screen horizontally, are broken down by other verticals. Often possible referents, such as boats and houses, or elements of nature - a river, the raging sea, the moon -; also objects of the titles of the works.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, the titles of the paintings began to suggest fantastic elements, such as the so-called "imaginary landscapes".
The artist's work can be seen in the key. abstract, informal or even abstract-lyrical expressionist - important terms for the debate of abstraction in the 1960s, through which criticism opposes artists with a geometric tendency to those of gestural orientation. In the work of the latter, it was understood that the expression was effective through gesture and, therefore, individual creation was valued. However, for Nery, the presence of gestures does not completely rule out the existence of a project.
Criticism
"Romantics, also, but in a more traditional way, are the expressionist paintings of the Brazilian Wega, whose explosions Savages of visual energy take the form of transcendent, intersecting landscapes, of evanescent mountains, inducing a sprint of interpretations, gradually undoing our sense of visual reality. Its pictorial dynamism, although it takes the traditionalist way, it is as convincing as any adrede essay foreseen to provoke emotional states".
Geraldo Ferraz
FERRAZ, Geraldo. Wega Liberta in Art: 1954-1974. São Paulo: Author's Edition, 1975, p. 68.
Testimonies
"Since I was a child I had a mania for drawing and painting. I thought I should study painting. But at home they wanted me to be a pianist. Since I was 5 years old, they made me study piano. My husband, I decided to enroll me at the School of Fine Arts. It was a day of great happiness for me. (...) At the same time, I looked for a private teacher: Renée Lefèvre. I studied later with Professor Rocha Ferreira. painting, either in the atelier or in the surroundings of São Paulo. I took my easel and my paints and went to Canindé. I took a snack and stayed there all day. I only came back at night. I also painted in Vila Maria, in Santos, Bertioga, and throughout the coast. (...) That's when I met the great Takaoka. He thought I knew how to paint but that I didn't know the use of colors. And then it started for me an important phase, where I learned to draw by taking everything from the line, highlighting the line, feeling the figure. and learning to use colors. These were formidable classes I had with Takaoka. (...) But it was Sérgio Milliet who made me decide to dedicate myself to painting, and only to her. I decided to take some drawings and also my poetry for him to see them one day. And I asked which way, I thought, I should go. Sérgio replied that I conveyed more through drawings than through poetry. And from then on I abandoned the literature and I was left with the painting alone. I didn't miss poetry because painting, for me, has a lot of poetry and a lot of music. (...). Then I started studying with Flexor. In his studio, since the first drawing I felt free, in creation. On the other hand, Flexor began to organize me, I began to feel the discipline of drawing. I exposed with the group Abstraction shortly afterwards, also at the Instituto dos Arquitetos. But it didn't take long for me to disinterested in the discipline of abstractionism in the same way that I had disinterested in figurativeism. I wanted to paint things absolutely free."
Wega Nery
Nery, Wega. [Testimony. Art for Art]. In: The abstract path of Wega Nery: Reviews and Testimonials. São Paulo: MAC/USP, 1994, P. 41-42. Excerpt from an interview originally published in A Gazeta, São Paulo, 24 Sep. 1955.
Individual exhibitions
1955 - São Paulo SP - Wega Nery: Drawings, at MASP
1957 - São Paulo SP - Wega Nery: Drawings, at Petite Galerie
1957 - São Paulo SP - Wega Nery: Drawings, at MAM/SP
1959 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, at Galeria Adorno
1960 - Campinas SP - Individual, at Galeria Aremar
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Wega Nery: Paintings, at the Bonino Gallery
1964 - São Paulo SP - Paintings of Wega, at Galeria Solarium
1965 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Individual, at Galeria Lascaux
1965 - Montevideo (Uruguay) - Wega Nery: Oils y Gouaches, at Centro de Artes y Letras
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Wega Nery: Paintings and Drawings, at MAM/RJ
1966 - Porto Alegre RS - Individual, at Galeria Leopoldina
1966 - Porto Alegre RS - Wega Nery: oils and gouaches, at Galeria Leopoldina
1966 - Santos SP - Individual, at the Art Club
1966 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Cosme Velho Gallery
1967 - District of Columbia (United States) - Wega Nery of Brazil Oils, at the Pan American Union Gallery
1967 - New York (United States) - Wega Nery: Imaginary Landscapes at Galerie Foussats
1967 - Punta del Este (Uruguay) - Individual, at Hotel Cantegril
1967 - Washington D. C. (United States) - Wega Nery of Brazil Oils, at the Pan American Union Gallery
1968 - Paris (France) - Wega Imaginary Landscapes, at the Galerie Debret
1968 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Wega Nery: Paintings, in the gallery Bonino
1969 - Campo Grande MS - Individual
1969 - Corumbá MS - Individual
1969 - Cuiabá MT - Individual
1969 - Munich (Germany) - Wega Nery: Brasilien Abstrakte Gemälde, at the Schumacher Gallery
1970 - United States - Individual, in the exhibition hall of the Embassy of Brazil
1970 - London (England) - Wega Nery: Imaginary Landscapes, at the Embassy of Brazil in England
1970 - Santos SP - Individual, at the Brazil Cultural Center Brazil United States
1970 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at the Cosme Velho Gallery
1970 - Washington D.C. (United States) - Wega Nery: Imaginary Landscapes, Embassy of Brazil
1971 - Campinas SP - Imaginary landscapes of Wega Nery, at the Girassol Gallery
1971 - Guarujá SP - Wega Imaginary Landscapes, At Clube Samambaia
1971 - London (England) - Individual, at Drian Gallery
1971 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, at the Bonino Gallery
1971 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Wega Nery: Paintings, at the Bonino Gallery
1972 - São Paulo SP - Wega Imaginary Landscapes, at the Documenta de Arte Galeria
1973 - Brasília DF - Wega: 20 imaginary landscapes, at the Mainline Hotel Nacional
1975 - São Paulo SP - Wega Nery: 30 imaginary landscapes, at the Documenta de Arte Galeria
1976 - Brasília DF - Wega Nery: 30 imaginary landscapes, at Oscar Seraphico Art Gallery
1978 - São Paulo SP - Wega Nery: Drawings and Paintings, at the Documenta Galeria de Arte
1979 - Brasília DF - Individual, at the Cultural Foundation of the Federal District
1981 - Santos SP - Individual, at the Banco do Brasil Gallery
1983 - Santos SP - Individual, at the Centro Cultural Brazil United States
1985 - São Paulo SP - Wega Nery: Passages and Landscapes, at Masp
1986 - São Paulo SP - Wega Nery: Paintings, in the commercial sub-district of art
1989 - Campo Grande MS - Individual
1989 - São Paulo SP  - Wega Nery: Paintings, at the São Paulo Art Office
1989 - São Paulo SP - Wega Nery: Paintings, at the São Paulo Art Gallery
1993 - Brasília DF - The Green Island of Wega, at MAB/DF
1993 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at the Pinacoteca do Estado
1994 - São Paulo SP - 20 works on the abstract path of Wega Nery, at MAC/USP
1994 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at CCSP
2005 - Brasília DF - Individual, at MAB/DF
Source: Itaú Cultural
