Zina Aita (Belo Horizonte MG 1900 - Naples, Italy 1967)
Pinter, ceramist and designer.
Tereza Aita travels to Florence, where she remains between 1914 and 1918, and carries out studies with the artist Galileo Chini (1873 - 1956) at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze [Academy of Fine Arts of Florence]. Returning to Brazil, he gets in touch with the modernists Manuel Bandeira (1886 - 1968) and Ronald de Carvalho (1893 - 1935). She becomes a friend of the painter Anita Malfatti (1889 - 1964) and the writer Mário de Andrade (1893 - 1945). It holds the first individual exhibition in Belo Horizonte, in 1920, being considered a precursor of modernism in Minas Gerais. Participates in the Modern Art Week, in São Paulo, in 1922. At that time, he made illustrations for the magazine Klaxon, a publication of the modernists from São Paulo. His production remains little known, and much of his works is not dated. For some scholars, his painting of this period is close to the Art Nouveau movement and post-impressionism. He performs individual exhibition at the bookstore O Livro, in São Paulo, in March 1922, and participates, in the following year, in the 1st Salão da Primavera, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1924, he moved to Italy, he resides in Naples, where he runs a ceramics factory. For the next six years, he conducts studies in Rome, Florence, Milan and Venice. In Italy, he becomes known as a ceramist, participating in several press conferences. In 1990, it takes place at the Pampulha Art Museum - Map The Jeanne Milde Exhibition, Zina Aita: 90 years old. 1914 and 1918, with the artist Galileo Chini (1873 - 1956). He returns to Brazil, and participates in the Modern Art Week, encouraged by his friends Ronald de Carvalho (1893 - 1935) and Manuel Bandeira (1886 - 1968). As the art historian Marta Rossetti Batista points out, through the titles of the works that appear in the catalog of the week of 22, one can notice the artist's interest in the decorative character and the human figure, and the connection with impressionism. The decorative trend in his production is revealed in the titles of three of the eight works exhibited in 1922.
In the opinion of art historian Walter Zanini, during his stay in Florence, Zina Aita identifies with the Italian artistic environment, where The Art Nouveau movement predominates and mainly the tendency of return to order. of the artist, the scene of workers wearing a street, made with the use of the divisionist technique, men working [the shadow], is known. 1922. A watercolor with a female nude is also identified, which reveals her talent as a designer and the affinity with the production of Degas (1834 - 1917). The painting frieze, ca.1928 reaffirms the artist's interest in the decorative aspect and reveals her appreciation of the work of Klimt (1862 - 1918). Most of its production is neither identified nor dated.
Criticism
"What Zina Aita's painting reveals is largely a consequence of studies carried out in Florence, where they moved as a teenager, and contains Various assimilations of the Italian environment, by Art Nouveau, 'brain' ingredients of post-impressionist Parisian modernism, imposing more than anything the observance of the Retour line to L'Ordre, of wide dominion in the decade of 1920, that is, the abandonment of the vanguard idea and the re-assimilation of figurativeness of classical patterns. of three of the eight works exhibited in the Week of Modern Art: the one of nº 47, the decorative landscape, the one of nº 48, Siames masks and the that of the number 51, the decorative panel. The material presented was dispersed but the small and well-known scene of workers wearing A street, which subsisted, documents the use of outdated divisionist technique. Yan de Almeida Prado brought the testimony of Zina Aita as an exhibitor from 1922 that most pleased the public. It is very likely that the decorative side of the painter would compete for this, a characteristic feature of her personality. Of this interest that aroused is evidence still the successful shows in the bookstore of Jacinto Silva. His presence in the week was certainly marked by the non-recurrence of the isms. She was a little behind her, to her impulse. A watercolor representing a female nude, from the following year, influenced by Degas, denotes her designer virtues, visible in other works from 1923, Nanjing or Watercolors. of his inspiration in Gustav Klimt and his refined decorative sense, is later, when he lived outside Brazil, the frieze, with images of compunged women, who dedicated to Mário de Andrade".
Walter Zanini
Jeanne Milde, Zina Aita: 90 years old Belo Horizonte: Belo Horizonte Art Museum, 1990. p. 28.
Individual exhibitions
1920 - Belo Horizonte MG - First individual, at the Palace of the Deliberative Council
1920 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios
1922 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at the bookstore the book
1950 - Naples (Italy) - Individual, at the Chamber of Commerce of Napolis
1957 - Naples (Italy) - Ceramiche di Zina Aita, at Galleria d'Arte Vanvitelli
Collective exhibitions
1920 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 27th General Exhibition of Fine Arts, at ENBA
1922 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 29th General Exhibition of Fine Arts ENBA
1922 - São Paulo SP - Modern Art Week, at the Municipal Theater
1923 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Spring Hall
1952 - São Paulo SP - Angelicum
1954 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary Art: Exhibition of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, at MAM/SP
1955 - Rome (Italy) - Midday Exhibition
1956 - Naples (Italy) - Exhibition of Sacred Art, at the Palace Real
1957 - Rome (Italy) - Exhibition of the Nativity Scene, at the Braschi Palace
1957 - Naples (Italy) - Manifestation of national art, at the Royal Palace
1961 - Naples (Italy) - Exhibition of the Nativity Scene, at the Royal Palace
1967 - Rome (Italy) - 4th National Art Exhibition
Postombious Exhibitions
1971 - São Paulo SP - 11th International Biennial of São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1972 - São Paulo SP - The Week of 22: Background and Consequences, at MASP
1979 - São Paulo SP - Portraits of Mário de Andrade, at the Mário de Andrade Municipal Library
1982 - São Paulo SP - From Modernism to Bienal, at MAM/SP
1986 - Belo Horizonte MG - Modernism in Minas: the 1936 Salon, at the Casa do Baile Cultural Space
1990 - Belo Horizonte MG - Jeanne Milde and Zina Aita: 90 years old, at MABH
1993 - São Paulo SP - 100 masterpieces from the Mário de Andrade collection: painting and sculpture, at IEB/USP
1993 - Poços de Caldas MG - Collection Mário de Andrade: Modernism in 50 works on paper, at the Casa da Cultura de Poços de Caldas
1996 - Belo Horizonte MG - Emergency of Modernism, at the Mineiro Museum
2000 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Brazil-Brazil: notable and amazing things. Modernist looks, at the Chiado Museum
2001 - Belo Horizonte MG - Modernismo in Minas: reference icons, at Itaú Cultural
2001 - Penápolis SP - Modernismo in Minas: reference icons, in the Itaú Cultural Gallery
Source: Itaú Cultural
