Biography candido portinari
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He would pass away in early 1962 due to the intoxication.
Regarded by Portinari himself as his finest work, the Guerra e Paz panels will be presented in December at the Municipal Theatre of Rio de Janeiro, the city where they were shown to the Brazilian public only once before being shipped to the United States 53 years ago.
This immense work was not limited to compiling the artworks; we also gathered over 30,000 documents.
What is the nature of this documentation?
All kinds of documents, including 9,000 letters that Portinari exchanged with intellectuals and artists of his time, such as Mário de Andrade, Manuel Bandeira, Graciliano Ramos, José Lins do Rego, Luís Carlos Prestes, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Cecília Meireles, Jorge Amado, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, and many others.
He drank lemonade constantly just to survive,” he recalls.
According to João Candido, his father spent four years preparing studies for the works and painted them in just nine months.
Guerra e Paz were the last and largest panels created by Portinari. Here is the interview:
I imagine that bringing Guerra e Paz to Brazil must have been quite complicated, both due to the scale of the work and the negotiations involved.
He told Agência Brasil that he enjoyed the panel representing peace the most.
São Paulo: Lemos, 1999. They work; they marry and raise families; their children play. Portinari makes three tile panels: Frevo and Fish, for the Pampulha Yacht Club, designed by Oscar Niemeyer, and Doves, for a building in Paris.
1962
Portinari dies on February 6, poisoned by the heavy metals in his paints.
Completed in 1956, the work was Portinari’s last and ultimately led to his death. p. 28.
Portinari: his thoughts, his quotes
"I ran, still managing to catch the train in motion. It was then aligned on the still-damp wall, allowing the lines to be transferred. The federal government issues a death notice and three days of mourning are declared in Guanabara State.
My father’s work was marked by relentless experimentation—to the point that critics often claimed there were ten different painters within his oeuvre. Preface by Arie Aroch. But the priority is presenting the work to children. All of this is consolidated in a website, where anyone can access the entire documentation.
Does the Portinari Project have a physical headquarters, or is it mainly virtual?
Our headquarters are at PUC-RJ in Rio de Janeiro, but you are right to say that it is primarily virtual.
The painting Mestizo is purchased by the São Paulo State Pinacoteca, the first public institution to include a work by Portinari in its collection. I felt the urge to follow him and say: You have already given us so much. But this proximity allows constant innovation, keeping us in contact with all new developments, including science and technology that can be applied to our project.
To conclude our interview, is there a message you would like to leave for our readers in São Paulo, regarding what they can expect from the exhibition starting tomorrow?
They should not miss it, because it is deeply moving.