Gilvan Samico, "Criação - Homem e Mulher", 1993

Gilvan José Meira Lins Samico (Recife, Pernambuco, 1928- ). Engraver, painter, draughtsman, lecturer. In 1952, together with other artists, Gilvan Samico founded the Ateliê Coletivo [Collective Studio] of the Sociedade de Arte Moderna do Recife – SAMR [Recife Modern Art Society], conceived by Abelardo da Hora (1924).

Gilvan studied wood engraving with Lívio Abramo (1903 – 1992) in 1957 at the Escola de Artesanato [School of Crafts] of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo – MAM/SP [São Paulo Museum of Modern Art]. In the following year, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he studied engraving with Oswaldo Goeldi (1895 – 1961) at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes – Enba [National School of Fine Arts]. With a great technical mastery, he dedicated himself in his work to textures elaborated with linear rhythms.

In 1965, he settled in Olinda, lecturing in wood engraving at the Universidade Federal da Paraíba – UFPA [Federal University of Paraíba]. In 1968, with the foreign travel prize won at the 17th Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna [National Salon of Modern Art], he spent two years in Europe. In 1971, he was invited by Ariano Suassuna to join the Movimento Armorial [Armorial Movement], directed towards popular Northeastern culture and the literature of the Cordel.

Gilvan Samico

His output is marked by the recovery of the poetry of the Northeast through the Cordel literature and the creative use of wood engravings. His engravings are populated by biblical and other figures deriving from myths and local stories, as well as fantastic and mythical animals. With the presentation of new subject matter, he introduced a formal simplification into his work, reducing the use of colour and textures.

Samico has works in the MoMA in New York and participated twice in the Venice Biennale with an award in one of them.

via Samico, Gilvan (1928- ).

Read Also:

• Roots: Câmara, João (1944)
• Roots: Monteiro, Vicente do Rêgo (1899 – 1970)
• Movements: O Gráfico Amador
• Roots: J. Borges (1935)
• Roots: Magalhães, Aloísio (1927)

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"Brazil: The Cultural Contemporary" at the Royal College of Art

The Royal College of Art in London held on January 21st 2011 the one-day conference Brazil: The Cultural Contemporary, as the result of research undertaken in Brazil in the previous year. According to Wired Magazine, the event aimed to inform a UK-based audience about the country’s visual culture, with a focus on areas of craft, design and social change.

Brazilian design writer and curator Adélia Borges, former director of the Museu da Casa Brasileira and design editor for the newspaper Gazeta Mercantil, presented the keynote lecture on Brazilian contemporary craft and design. Other speakers included Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation scholar Frederico Duarte, educator Kiki Mazzuchelli, graffiti specialist Tristan Manco, and Cristiana Tejo, coordinator of Education at Fundacão Joaquim Nabuco in Recife.

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'Amor' by Daiana Santana / Ednaira Mendes / Leonardo Dias, from Oi Kabum! Escola de Arte e Tecnologia, Salvador

Brazilian graphic designer Felipe Taborda has curated an exhibition of posters at Warsaw’s Rampa Art Gallery and Poster Museum as part of Poland’s 22nd International Poster Biennale.

Titled ‘Kabum! Mix’, the exhibition is the culmination of a two-year project with the Brazilian Oi Kabum! schools of Art and Technology in Rio de Janeiro, Recife, Salvador and Belo Horizonte, sponsored by Oi Futuro.

The nine posters for 2008 series, produced by the students, in conjunction with French designer, Alain Le Quernec, were exhibited throughout the world to great acclaim. For the 2009 series, the students worked with local tutors and Mexican graphic designer, Alejandro Magallanes, creating posters based on the themes of ‘love’, ‘the future’ and ‘Aids’.

The 2009 posters were spread throughout Rio by Clear Channel, the company who administrates urban advertisement in the city.

via Kabum! Mix poster exhibition, Warsaw – Art – Wallpaper.com – International Design Interiors Fashion Travel.

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"Aniki Bobo", by João Cabral de Melo Neto

Aloísio Magalhães, while still attending law school in Recife (the capital of Pernambuco), had already begun to show his fascination with graphic arts by skillfully illustrating a poetry book written by a colleague of his from the university, José Laurenio de Melo.

After graduating, he traveled to Paris to study painting and engraving at the Atelier 17, an important European center of engraving. Once back in Brazil, he met with Gastão de Holanda, a former classmate from the university, who had also been in Paris, studying literature.

Coincidentally, a famous cousin of Magalhães, the renowned Brazilian poet João Cabral de Melo Neto, moved to Recife at that time. This cousin strongly encouraged the two young artists to open their own private print shop, similar to the one he himself had had in Barcelona. It was in that print shop that Cabral de Melo Neto had produced his own books through craftsmanship, while he was in the town occupying the post of consul.

Magalhães and José Laurenio became excited about the idea of setting up a print shop and they sought other former friends from the university who were also involved in literature and graphic arts. Among the main names of those who founded O Gráfico Amador in 1954, it is worth mentioning Ariano Suassuna, José Laurenio, and Orlando da Costa Ferreira.

Brought together by their passion for books and their quests in philosophical and aesthetic issues – which were connected to Modernism, a Brazilian art movement – these individuals produced grand experimental works that combined poetry, illustration, a bold typographical style, an alternative and informal use of paper and elements in relief printing. All these ingredients greatly contributed towards creating a more pleasing relationship between text and image.

O Gráfico Amador was being closely followed by Le Courrier Graphique, from Paris, as well as by the Curwen Press, from London. Additionally, several intellectuals and artists from Pernambuco and people from the artistic milieu also contributed to the magazine.

This undertaking was a key factor in Aloísio Magalhães’ career, for he later became a pioneering figure in the history of Brazilian graphic design. Let us not forget that benchmarks were scarce at that time, especially outside of the region linking Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo. Moreover, Magalhães became a leading pioneer in the history of Brazilian typography, as he was acutely aware of the profound relationships between artistic and industrial production.

O Gráfico Amador revealed itself as being a reference in the scenario of Brazilian culture and it was displayed in an exhibition at the Brazilian National Library, in Rio de Janeiro, in 1959.

The magazine closed its doors in 1961. It had issued altogether 20 publications, including the first edition of the poem Ciclo, by Carlos Drummond de Andrade – a renowned Brazilian poet. Its patrimony was donated to Escola de Belas Artes do Recife (Recife’s Fine Arts College).

via :: REDE DESIGN BRASIL ::.

Read Also:

• Roots: Magalhães, Aloísio (1927)
• Roots: Monteiro, Vicente do Rêgo (1899 – 1970)
• Roots: Câmara, João (1944)
• Roots: J. Borges (1935)
• Roots: Fernandes, Millôr (1923)

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"Aloísio Magalhães", by Mônica Fuchshuber

Aloísio Magalhães took his first steps in the field of graphic design took place while he was still attending law school in Recife. In 1950, during his last year as a student, he made illustrations for a book of poetry, Palhano, written by a friend of his the university, José Laurenio de Melo. Having finished his course, Aloisio headed for Paris, where he intended to study painting and engraving with Stanley Hayter at the Atelier 17 studio, an important European center of engraving.

In 1954, influenced by the renowned Brazilian poet (and his cousin) João Cabral de Melo Neto – he set up, together with some friends, a modest print shop called O Gráfico Amador that, during the eight subsequent years that it was operating, published 27 books, 3 sets of fliers, 2 bulletins and a theater program.

In 1960 Magalhães founded a design office whose name was originally Aloísio Magalhães. In 1976, PVDI became its official name (this original office is still functioning, carrying out projects in the area of visual identity systems and product design).

It is only in 1970 that his office develops its first large design project in Brazil for Petrobras, the giant state-owned Brazilian oil company. The scope of the project ranged from the design of a symbol that would be stamped on oil packaging to the entire system of visual identity that would be displayed both at distribution points and on gas pumps at all of the gas stations run by the company.

In 1976, Brazil’s Central Bank commissioned him once again to render services to the institution (in fact his office had already carried out a few jobs for it in 1967 and 1972). This assignment comprised redesigning Brazil’s units of currency. Thus the project encompassed the task of defining a complex system of creation, including aspects such as selecting the most appropriate graphic motives to be used as well as key decisions regarding the technology to be adopted – amongst the types of technology available at that time. The project, as a whole, aimed to make Brazil self-sufficient in the production of its paper bills and coins.

In 1979, Magalhães takes on the post of administrating the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional – IPHAN (Brazil’s Institute of Historic and Artistic National Patrimony). His ideas regarding the management of this institution had a lot in common with the ones advocated by Mário de Andrade 50 years before. Hence, he proceeded to promote a revolution in the institute’s policies, when compared with the long-lasting, deeply ingrained policies that the IPHAN upheld at the time. His broad vision, which embodied the concept of what a cultural asset should be, and his philosophy that the custody of the shared patrimony should be transferred to the community that is primarily concerned with it, set new and unprecedented paradigms in the handling of the national memory. At that time, Magalhães — taking advantage of his talent as a designer – begins drafting a new layout for the institutional framework connected to the cultural issue in Brazil.

As the outcome of intense political maneuvers and persuasiveness, IPHAN finally becomes a Secretariat directly subordinated to MEC (Brazil’s Ministry of Education and Culture) in January 1980 and soon later the Fundação Nacional Pró-Memória (Pro-Memory National Foundation) is created. Consistent to his efforts to reorganize the infrastructure of state agencies with respect to their form of handling issues related to culture, he takes up the presidency of the Fundação Nacional de Arte (National Art Foundation) and is later invited to become Brazil’s Secretary of Culture.

He dies from a stroke in Padua, Italy, in 1982.

November 5 – Aloísio Magalhães’ date of birth – has become Brazil’s National Designers Day, a homage paid to the contributions he made in the profession.

via :: REDE DESIGN BRASIL ::.

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• Roots: Duarte, Rogério (1939)
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• Schools: Escola Superior de Design Industrial (ESDI)
• Roots: Gilvan Samico (1928 – )

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Vicente do Rego Monteiro, "As Religiosas", 1969

Vicente do Rego Monteiro (Recife, Pernambuco, 1899 – idem, 1970). Painter, sculptor, draughtsman, illustrator, graphic artist. Began his artistic studies in 1908, accompanying his sister, Fedora do Rego Monteiro (1889 – 1975) on courses at the National School of Fine Arts (Enba) in Rio de Janeiro.

In 1911, he travelled with his family to France, where he attended the Academies Colarossi, Julian and de La Grande Chaumière. In 1913, he took part in the Salon des Indépendants, of which he became a member. In Paris, he maintained contact with Amedeo Modigliani (1884 – 1920), Fernand Léger (1881 – 1955), Georges Braque (1882 – 1963), Joán Miró (1893 – 1983), Albert Gleizes (1881 – 1953), Jean Metzinger (1883 – 1956) and Louis Marcoussis (1883 – 1941).

At the start of the First World War (1914-1918), he left France with his family, settling in Rio de Janeiro in 1915. In 1918, he held his first individual exhibition at the Santa Isabel Theatre in Recife, showing his work for the first time two years later, in São Paulo, where he met Di Cavalcanti (1897 – 1976), Anita Malfatti (1889 – 1964), Pedro Alexandrino (1856 – 1942) and Victor Brecheret (1894 – 1955). In 1920, he studied the art of the Marajó culture in the collections of the National Museum of Quinta da Boa Vista. Moved by a passion for dance, in 1921 he staged the spectacle, Lendas, Crenças e Talismãs dos Índios do Amazonas [Legends, Beliefs and Talismans of the Amazonian Indians], at the Trianon Theatre in Rio de Janeiro, which was praised by the poet and critic, Ronald de Carvalho (1893 – 1935). He left for France, leaving behind eight oil paintings and watercolours for exhibition during Semana de Arte Moderna [Modern Art Week] of 1922, in São Paulo.

In 1923, he made drawings of masks and costumes for the ballet, Legendes Indiennes de L’Amazonie [Indian Legends of Amazonia]. He joined the group of artists associated with the gallery and magazine, L’Effort Moderne, of Leonce Rosemberg. He also brought the exhibition A Escola de Paris [The School of Paris] to Brazil, with showings in Recife, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In 1937, he decorated the Chapel of Brazil in the Vatican Pavilion of the International Exhibition of Paris.

In 1946, he founded the publisher, La Presse à Bras, dedicated to the publication of Brazilian and French poetry. From 1941 onwards, he published his first verses, Poemas de Bolso [Pocket Poems], organising and promoting various poetry salons and congresses in France and Brazil. Returning to Brazil, he gave lectures in painting at the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), in 1957 and 1966.

In 1960, he received the Guillaume Apollinaire Prize for his sonnets, collected in the book, Broussais – La Charité. From 1966 to 1968, he lectured at the Central Institute of the Arts of the University of Brasília (UnB).

via Monteiro, Vicente do Rego (1899 – 1970).

Read Also:

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• Movements: O Gráfico Amador
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• Roots: Duarte, Rogério (1939)

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João Câmara, "Homen Discursando", 1974 -1976

João Câmara (João Pessoa, Paraíba, 1944- ). Painter, engraver, draughtsman, graphic artist, professor and critic. Between 1960 and 1963, studied painting at the Free Course of the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Pernambuco, being elected Chairman of the Society of Modern Art of Recife (SAMR) in the latter year and studying wood engraving under the orientation of Henrique Oswald (1918-1965) and Emanoel Araújo (1940- ), at the School of Fine Arts of Salvador.

In 1964, together with Adão Pinheiro (1938- ), José Tavares and Guita Charifker (1936- ), João Câmara founded the Ateliê Coletivo da Ribeira [Collective Studio of Ribeira], and in 1965, the Ateliê + Dez [Studio +10], both in Olinda. From 1967 to 1970, he lectured in painting at the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Paraíba, in João Pessoa. In 1974, he established a lithography studio which subsequently became the Guaianases Engraving Workshop, incorporated in 1995 into the Visual Arts Laboratory of the Federal University of Pernambuco.

From the 1960s onwards, João Câmara’s output was characterised by its presentation of fragmented bodies next to human figures with structured bodies, conferring a character of strangeness on the works. During the 1970s, the artist began to execute the series Cenas da Vida Brasileira 1930/1954 [Scenes from Brazilian Life: 1930-54] (1974-1976) and Dez Casos de Amor e uma Pintura de Câmara [Ten Love Affairs and a Painting by Câmara] (1977-1983). In 1986, he executed the series O Olho de meu Pai sobre a Cidade [The Gaze of My Father over the City], in which he paid tribute to his father and the city of Recife. In 2001, he concluded the Duas Cidades [Two Cities] series, which took the cities of Recife and Olinda as its setting.

via Câmara, João (1944).

Read Also:

• Roots: Gilvan Samico (1928 – )
• Roots: Monteiro, Vicente do Rêgo (1899 – 1970)
• Movements: O Gráfico Amador
• Roots: Duarte, Rogério (1939)
• Roots: Magalhães, Aloísio (1927)

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