by Mariana Leão
The 1st Bienal de São Paulo, held in 1951, was a fundamental milestone in the history of Brazilian art, inaugurating a model for exhibiting modern art on a large scale and with international aspirations. Before becoming an independent foundation in 1962, the Bienal was organized by the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM), both the brainchild of Italian businessman Ciccillo Matarazzo. Lourival Gomes Machado, then artistic director of the museum and its Bienal exhibition, expressed his main intentions in the presentation of the event’s exhibition catalogue: “to place modern art in Brazil not only in confrontation, but in active contact with the art of the rest of the world,” while at the same time São Paulo would seek to conquer the position of an international artistic center.
Although São Paulo did not achieve the same status as the great art metropolises, the Bienal played a decisive role in putting Brazil on the international art circuit and was even the first biennial to be held in the so-called Global South. This desire for projection abroad was primarily in the interest of the local economic elite—mobilized by the figure of Ciccillo Matarazzo—who sought to reinforce the modernist image of the state capital, São Paulo, and to consolidate it as Brazil’s industrial center. The project was also supported by the government, which saw the Bienal as an opportunity to promote Brazil abroad.
In its early years, and following the model of the La Biennale di Venezia, which had been taking place since 1895, the Bienal de São Paulo was divided into national representations, organized independently by the invited countries themselves. For the first edition of the show, Yolanda Penteado, Ciccillo’s wife, who played an important role in his many cultural ventures, had the support of President Getúlio Vargas to tour European countries in search of participants. Yolanda was a diplomatic and decisive figure in this context of liaison with foreigners, as well as acting as hostess at the social events related to the event. The Brazilian representation was made up of artists selected by the jury¹ through an application process, as well as special guests selected by the board of the former MAM. For the first edition, the painters Candido Portinari, Lasar Segall and Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, the sculptors Victor Brecheret, Bruno Giorgi and Maria Martins, and the printmakers Oswaldo Goeldi and Lívio Abramo were invited.
Also following the model of the Venice Biennale of Art, the Bienal de São Paulo held an awards ceremony that was decided by a jury composed of prestigious Brazilian and international critics, the latter usually emissaries of foreign delegations.² The awards were divided into national and international prizes for each category—painting, sculpture, printmaking, and drawing. There were also regulatory prizes and acquisition prizes. The regulatory prizes, also called first prizes or grand prizes, were awarded to the best works in their category, according to the jury, and received a larger sum of money as well as more prominence. The acquisition prizes, on the other hand, had a smaller monetary value and were awarded to more works per category. The works were also to be included in the collection of the former MAM in São Paulo.³ Thus, these prizes meant the permanent entry of these works into this other institution and contributed to the enrichment of the museum’s collection.
At the 1st Bienal de São Paulo, 36 artists received awards, of which only four were women—the Brazilians Maria Leontina and Tarsila do Amaral, the French Germaine Richier, and the British Prunella Clough. By looking at these awards, and understanding the limitations of a case study perspective, we can examine the performance and space of women artists at the time, as well as bring to light aspects that have remained on the margins of the main narratives about the Bienal and shed new light on understanding the event.
A first aspect that emerges when we look at these four prizes is the fact that the group of winners shows the strength of modern figurative languages in the artistic community of the time. The history of Brazilian art considers the 1st Bienal as a milestone in the dissemination of abstract practices in the country, with particular emphasis on the Swiss delegation and Max Bill’s Tripartite Unity, winner of the first prize for foreign sculpture. This contact, made possible by the Bienal, is often highlighted as an important factor in the beginnings of Brazilian concretism. And it is this teleological vision that dominates these narratives, even when a more complete scenario is presented, with the still significant presence of figurative strands and the intense debates and positions against abstractionism. In this context, it is important to note that many of the works awarded in the edition—chosen by a specialized jury whose main criteria were quality and novelty—presented a figurative poetics that was relevant and appreciated at the time.
A second aspect highlighted by this selection is the acquisition prizes, an element that has been little studied and neglected by traditional historiography, but which deserves greater recognition because it reveals a lasting dimension to an event characterized by its ephemeral nature. In addition to the four artists from the 1st Bienal who received acquisition prizes, an analysis of the prizes awarded until the seventh edition in 1963 shows a clear predominance of women in the national acquisition categories. This relationship is particularly evident in the painting prizes, which were the most popular at the event. In those years, women artists won 55% of the acquisition prizes in the national painting category, while in the regulatory category, only one woman was awarded out of eight winners (12%).⁴
This association between acquisition prizes and women artists can be analyzed from two perspectives. First, in the context of the time, acquisition prizes were considered secondary to regulatory prizes, reflecting a relative gender inequality. Women did receive awards, but rarely in the most prestigious categories. Secondly, the acquisition prizes should be considered in the long term, since the works of these artists were incorporated into the museum’s collection, guaranteeing their preservation. Historically, however, these works, which are now part of the collection of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC USP), have received little recognition. Apart from Tarsila do Amaral’s painting, the others have not received the visibility they deserve. In recent years, the museum has taken steps to revalue this group of works, which is particularly interesting because it was selected by a prestigious jury, based on the critical context of the time, and because it represents a rich source for the study of art of that period, free from the filters of later art historical narratives.
Maria Leontina’s Award
Maria Leontina won a prize of 50,000 cruzeiros, donated by the company Moinho Santista, in the acquisition category. The prize was awarded for her work Natureza-morta [Still Life] (1951), which reflects a modern figurative language, with post-Cubist influences in the geometrization of the composition, as well as a dialogue with the work of Giorgio Morandi and metaphysical painting. Although it was an important milestone for an artist still emerging on the national art scene, the prize also meant second place in a fierce competition for the Regulatory Prize for National Painting, the largest in its category, worth 100,000 cruzeiros, sponsored by the São Paulo Jockey Club. This prize was awarded to Danilo Di Prete’s work Limões [Lemons], which caused a great deal of controversy. Criticism focused on his work—questioning its quality or simply its lack of modern and innovative language—but also on the fact that the National Prize was dedicated to an Italian immigrant.
The case of Maria Leontina is interesting for reflecting on the relationship between acquisition prizes and women artists, because the controversy generated a rich source of documentation based on the press of the time. In addition, the artist was awarded the Acquisition Prize twice in subsequent editions of the Bienal, making her a notable example for the quantitative data collected. Although she lost the first prize to Di Prete, her time at the event proved to be more fruitful for her career than that of the winner. Leontina was widely praised and attracted the attention of the French critic Jacques Lassaigne—a member of the prize jury—who guaranteed her a travel grant from the French government in 1952. The study of this case reveals a very complex reality that cannot be reduced to an analysis of neglect.
Tarsila do Amaral’s Award
Tarsila do Amaral received the third prize for painting, 50,000 cruzeiros, sponsored by the Dean’s office at USP, for her work Estrada de Ferro Central do Brasil (E.F.C.B.), from 1924. The work is part of Tarsila’s pau-brasil production, a period in which she developed a cubist-inspired poetics that sought to combine signs of modernity with a primitivism considered national. This prize has a historical character that contradicts the event’s premise of novelty and underscores the purpose of expanding the collection of the former MAM, which can be seen both in the fact that the work was not considered for the regulatory prize due to its historical character, and in the fact that its selection perfectly complements other acquisitions of the artist made by the museum that same year. In 1951, A negra [The Black Woman] (1923) and Floresta [Forest] (1929) were added to the collection of the former MAM. Thus, with the inclusion of E.F.C.B. through the acquisition prize, the museum began to respond to a narrative of Tarsila’s production in the 1920s, considered the most important in the artist’s career.
It is interesting to note that the work responded to the Bienal’s values of modernity, not because of its timeliness—it was made in the 1920s—but because of its subject matter. E.F.C.B. evokes an urban and modern image immersed in the stereotypical Brazilian environment. In this way, there is a dialogue between the modernity portrayed in her composition and the cosmopolitan image that the Bienal wanted to build for Brazil. In 1951, Tarsila was in a period of relative marginality, when the centrality of the artist had not yet been consolidated in narratives about modernism. Nevertheless, her award shows that there were already important figures who defended her relevance, such as the critic Sérgio Milliet, who was part of the jury. The award gave the artist some visibility but had little impact on her career in the 1950s.
Prunella Clough’s Award
The British artist Prunella Clough received the second prize for foreign printmaking, 10,000 cruzeiros, donated by T. Janer Comércio e Indústria. Her series of lithographs, Jelly Fish, from 1949, Maize, from the same year, Still Life with Pear, from 1950, and Plant in a Greenhouse, also from 1950, entered the collection of the former MAM as an acquisition prize. On this occasion, the lithograph Eel Net, 1949, also entered the collection as part of a set of prints donated to the institution by the British Council. This set was exhibited at the Bienal by the British delegation to compensate for the reduced and improvised shipment of works due to the coincidence of the Brazilian event with the organization of the Festival of Great Britain.
Interestingly, Clough’s lithographs, although awarded together at the Bienal, do not seem to have been conceived as a whole. They are all figurative with a modern lexicon and explore experimentation with lithographic technique and the still life genre, which was quite common at the time. From one work to the next, however, the themes and imagery vary widely. Recognized by her peers in her own country, Clough remained active, producing and teaching throughout her life. She is the only artist to have participated in the British delegation to this edition of the Bienal, as well as in the British Council’s donation to the former MAM. At the same time, she is the British artist who has won the most awards at the event, so although she is an exception, her achievements should be read in the context of recognition.
Germaine Richier’s Award
Germaine Richier’s work La Forêt [The Forest] from 1946 was chosen as third place in the International Sculpture category, with an acquisition prize of 30,000 cruzeiros, donated by A Equitativa Cia. de Seguros. The sculpture, which represents a hybrid creature, half human and half plant, is related to Surrealism and Expressionism. The work is part of the artist’s post-World War II production and is linked to the poetics that sought to express the feelings of fear and desolation related to the catastrophes that marked that period.
Richier was a French sculptor who was well known in her time, but lost visibility after her death in 1959. She was little remembered by the historiography of modern art until her recent revival in the context of the appreciation of women artists that has taken place in recent years. Despite the apparent consensus on the quality of her work, the press and critics of the time paid little attention to her award, even though it appears in studies of the artist as one of the milestones of her visibility in the 1950s. Another very positive indication of the award’s impact was the allocation of a special space to the artist at the 2nd Bienal de São Paulo in 1953. Although overshadowed (as were the other participants) by the famous French Cubism-oriented special gallery––which included Picasso’s Guernica (1937)––MAM Rio acquired a work by the artist for its collection during the 2nd Bienal. The acquired work, titled La Ville (1951), is the result of a collaboration between Germaine Richier and Hans Hartung in 1951, and features a plaque positioned as a backdrop with a gestural painting by the artist.
¹ For the 1st Bienal, the selection jury was made up of Tomás Santa Rosa, Quirino Campofiorito, Clóvis Graciano, Luís Martins and Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho.
² The jury for the 1st Bienal was composed of Lourival Gomes Machado, Tomás Santa Rosa, Sérgio Milliet, Emile Langui, Eric Newton, Jan Van As, Jacques Lassaigne, Jorge Romero Brest, Marco Valsecchi, René D’Harnoncourt and Wolfgang Pfeiffer.
³ This collection is currently housed at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC USP), as Ciccillo donated his entire collection to USP in 1963 during the troubled process of separating MAM and the Bienal, with the intention of dissolving the museum.
⁴ This selection, taking into account the first seven editions of the Bienal, corresponds to an initial phase in which the acquisition prizes functioned consistently. The numerical survey also reveals other important issues, such as the clear disparity in the presence of women artists between the national and international categories, with a drastically lower participation of women in the latter.
About the author
Mariana Leão holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and a master’s degree from USP’s Inter-University Postgraduate Program in Aesthetics and Art History, with her thesis: “Maria Leontina, Tarsila do Amaral, Prunella Clough and Germaine Richier: Women Artists and Acquisition Prizes at the 1st Bienal de São Paulo.” She is currently involved in the cataloguing and management of art collections, as well as research on modern and contemporary art.
