Appreciating Some "Rio" Artistry: Tarsila do Amaral and Modern Art in Brazil (including numerous examples from the MNBA in Rio de Janeiro)

Tarsila do Amaral. Abaporu, 1928.

Art Exploration
focusing on:

Tarsila do Amaral
Inventing Modern Art in Brazil
Exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago
Thru January 7, 2018
Exhibition website

Paintings in the collection of the
Museu Nacional de Belas Artes
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Visited March 2014
Museum website | Brazilian paintings

On an early December visit to the Art Institute of Chicago--I go at least a few times each year--I noted and perused an exhibition on the Brazilian painter Tarsila do Amaral, with whom I was not previously familiar.

Known primarily by just her first name, Tarsila lived from 1886-1973 and per the exhibit's subtitle--Inventing Modern Art in Brazil--she was among the first, and most influential, modern artists in Brazil.

I enjoyed the thorough but relatively compact exhibition within the AIC's Modern Wing, and appreciated Tarsila's vibrant use of color.

Tarsila do Amaral. Anthropology, 1929

Having opened in October, the exhibit is closing tomorrow, so this article doesn't provide much of a chance for you to go see it, even if you're in the Chicago area. (In my defense, I traveled to New York City soon after my Art Institute visit and then got caught up in my barrage of Best of 2017 posts.)

But while I found my brief exploration of some of Tarsila's art worthwhile, I spent less than 30 minutes in the exhibit space, as part of a membership visit (i.e. no direct cost), and a bit short of being blown away, I wouldn't advocate that the showcase is (or was) in itself a reason to rush down to the AIC. (Though do check it out if you get there tomorrow.)

Besides liking, if not quite loving, the paintings on an acute level, what intrigued me about the Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil exhibition are the memories it stoked of seeing and enjoying modern art on my trip to Rio de Janeiro in the spring of 2014.

Tarsila do Amaral. Postcard, 1929

Although I love exploring art museums almost anywhere I travel, I can't say visiting the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes was the highlight of my time in Rio, what with Copacabana and Ipanema beaches and boardwalks, Sugarloaf mountain, Christ the Redeemer statue upon Mount Corcovado, the Selarón Steps, soccer game at Maracana stadium, some fine food and more.

But though supposedly not even the most popular art museum in Rio de Janeiro, nor as good as some in São Paulo, the MNBA--the Portuguese translates to National Museum of Fine Arts--provided, along with the Confeitaria Colombo and some other sights, strong justification for venturing to downtown Rio.

And though the museum's collections don't represent many well-known French, Italian, Spanish and other international artists, much of what I saw was enticing...and surprisingly familiar.

Tarsila do Amaral. Carnaval em Madureira, 1924

Not familiar in terms of having seen those particular paintings previously--even as print or electronic reproductions--or other work by the same artists.

But stylistically.

Especially in terms of work dating from the 1880s to 1960s--roughly the delineation of "Modern Art" as I know it--there seemed to be high quality paintings rather analogous to many I well-knew and liked, but by Brazilian artists I never even knew existed.

Academically, this shouldn't be so shocking, as talented artists everywhere have long followed what was being created in Paris and later New York, and often even relocated there. (The Art Institute's exhibit on Tarsila do Amaral, "the first major museum exhibition in North America devoted to the artist, focuses on her work in the 1920s, when she traveled between São Paulo and Paris.")

But I recall that I was walking through the MNBA in Rio, it almost felt as if I'd entered a parallel universe, seeing paintings that could have fit into the fine Abstract Expressionist collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum, or hung near those by Mark Rothko in dozens of museums, or rivaled many fairly recognizable practitioners who followed in the wake of Monet, Manet, Picasso, Matisse, O'Keeffe, Rivera and Hopper--and yet were by Brazilian artists presumably unknown even to devoted art lovers in the United States.

Tarsila do Amaral. Workers, 1933

So with apologies for publicizing it in my small little corner of the world with just one day remaining, the Art Institute's Tarsila do Amaral exhibit--it will run at New York's Museum of Modern Art from Feb. 11-June 3--makes for a good excuse to now share images of "modern" Brazilian art seen in Rio back in 2014.

All of the paintings shown thus far in this post--click on any to see it larger--are of works in the AIC/MOMA exhibit.

Those from here on out--including another by Tarsila--are those I saw at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes.

I do not mean this to be a comprehensive survey in the realms of modern art of Brazil, the MNBA collection or even what I saw of it. These are largely just some paintings I liked and photographed (permissibly). I didn't photograph all the placards, and regretfully in some cases am not able to provide the artist's name, painting title and/or year of creation.

Candido Portinari (1903-61), Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 1944

Belmiro de Almeida (1858-1935), Tiffs, 1887

José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior. The Model's Rest, 1882

Georgina de Albuquerque. Summer Day, circa 1928

Painter/Title unknown by author

Tarsila do Amaral. Self-Portrait, 1923

Alberto Guinard, Léa and Maura, 1940

João Fahrion, Interior with Figures, 1939

Seemingly signed by "Juima" or "Tuima" in 1950; other details unknown by author

Jose Borges da Costa, Beaten Harlequin, 1947

Artist, subject, title, date unknown by author

Firmino Saldanha, Composition

Loio-Persio, Composition No. 22, circa 1959

Emiliano di Cavalcanti, Slave Ship, 1961

Rubens Gerchman, La Television, 1967

Great Depression -> Great Expression: Art Institute's 'America After the Fall' Rises Beyond Hopper, Wood, etc. -- Art Exhibit Review

Art Exhibition Review

America After the Fall:
Painting in the 1930s
The Art Institute of Chicago
Thru September 18
@@@@

(Note: Clicking on images will enlarge them.)

I've always been stirred by the contemplative melancholy in the paintings of Edward Hopper, likely my favorite American artist.

So the inclusion of three borrowed Hopper masterworks--as shown nearby--was alone sufficient for me to visit, value and enjoy the Art Institute of Chicago's moderately-sized exhibition, America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s. (The AIC's own, brilliant Nighthawks by Hopper dates from 1942 so wasn't part of the exhibit in the Modern Wing, but is a must-see on any visit to the museum.)

But in addition to a nice curatorial bent--with informative wall text noting how following the stock market crash in 1929 that begat the Great Depression, painters re-examined American values, cast a spotlight on newfound hardships, looked back through depictions of American history and captured rural landscapes, urban entertainments, Dystopian visions and more--what made the exhibit quite worthwhile was the number of fine pieces by artists I'd never heard of, or only little knew.

It is cool that an artist like Grant Wood--who by virtue of his quirky American Gothic (1930) being a mainstay of the Art Institute's permanent collection well may be the first painter many Chicagoland schoolkids come to know--is also represented in the exhibit through at least five less-famed works (at least in these parts).

While patrons may see familiarity in Wood's Daughters of Revolution, works like Young Corn, Fall
Plowing and even the grisly Death on the Ridge Road show that he was just as much--if not more so--a landscape artist as a portraitist.

And although I've always assumed that American Gothic depicted an Iowa farmer and his wife, the placard accompanying the painting in the exhibit informed that the woman is rather the man's daughter.

With noted regional/rural American painters Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry also represented, it was fun to see Wood's landscapes accompanied by the whimsical Erosion No. 2--Mother Earth Laid Bare by Alexandre Hogue, an artist with which I wasn't familiar.

Alexander Hogue, Erosion No. 2--Mother Earth Laid Bare, 1936,
The Philbrook Museum of Art

Similarly, while I relished seeing a Stuart Davis abstract I hadn't seen previously (see below)--even in compiling a fairly in-depth online exhibition about him--and works by Jackson Pollack, Georgia O'Keefe and Ivan Albright, my eyes were opened just as much by several far less known artists.

These included names I knew but whose oeuvres I haven't much surveyed--Marsden Hartley, Reginald Marsh, Archibald Motley, Charles Sheeler, Walt Kuhn--and several that were completely new to me, including:

Paul Cadmus, Federico Castellon, Aaron Douglas, Joe Jones, Helen Lundeberg and William H. Johnson, among others.

Peter Blume, The Eternal City, 1934-39, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

I'll include exhibition pieces by many of these painters below, but one of the works that most beguiled me was The Eternal City by Peter Blume, whose The Rock I've long loved at the Art Institute, but from whom I knew no other paintings.

It's probably hard to tell unless you click to enlarge The Internal City, but along with images of ancient Rome and much else, Blume surrealistically depicts Benito Mussolini as a green-headed Jack-in-the-Box.

Rather than taking up numerous galleries in the Art Institute's Rice Building like most of their major exhibition, America After the Fall fits into the Modern Wing's considerably smaller first-floor exhibition space.

Paul Cadmus, The Fleet's In, 1934, U.S. Navy Art Collection

Even those stopping to read all of the thematic and painting-specific explanations should get through all these fine works from the 1930s in an hour or less.

Which makes it about perfect for members to peruse if downtown for other reasons--as I was--or for tourists and other less-frequent visitors to comfortably add onto an exploration of the Art Institute's staggering and diverse permanent collection.

Not only should you get a good sense of the disparate tenors and themes depicted during a time of domestic turmoil between the the World Wars, you should discern that some of the most compelling artists to bring these perspectives to light are those about whom you--perhaps like me--have been kept largely in the dark.

Aaron Douglas, Aspiration, 1936, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Federico Castellon, The Dark Figure, 1938, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Helen Lundeberg, Double Portrait of the Artist in Time, 1935, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Reginald Marsh, Twenty Cent Movie, 1936, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Georgia O'Keefe, Cow's Skull: Red, White & Blue, 1931, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Stuart Davis, New York-Paris No. 3, 1931, Private Collection

Jackson Pollack, Untitled, 1938/41, The Art Institute of Chicago

William H. Johnson, Street Life Harlem, about 1939-40, Smithsonian American Art Museum

George L.K.. Morris, Indian Composition No. 6, 1938. Brooklyn Museum

Marsden Hartley, Mt. Katahdin (Maine), Autumn No. 2, 1939-40, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Joe Jones, Roustabouts, 1934, Worcester Art Museum

Please Share: The Joy of Being Turned on to Cool New Things - Documentaries, Artists, Comedians and More

There is little in life that excites and delights me more than learning of things I should "check out"--particularly within an artistic realm--and which I wind up loving, or at least being happy to know about.

So although 2015 has been somewhat slow so far in a variety of ways, including not yet attending any live events of any kind or seeing any movies in a theater, it has been really rewarding thanks to friends--old and new, verbally and virtually--introducing me to works, artists, etc. that I've really enjoyed.

However archaic or digitally-reinvented it may seem, the concept of "word of mouth" is alive and well among those I know, and I'm much the better for it.

So in hopes of paying it forward and perhaps enlightening others, here are some cool things I've been turned onto over the past few days, as well as a few that I found on my own.

Good Ol' Freda (Netflix link) - I had never heard of this 2013 documentary nor its subject--Freda Kelly, secretary to the Beatles throughout their career--until a friend and former co-worker mentioned it tangentially in a text. Even then I didn't know what the title was referring to until I looked it up.

Fortunately the film is currently streaming on Netflix, and is well worth the time of any serious Beatles fan--and anyone who admires people who do their jobs, at any level, with great diligence and little fanfare or self-promotion.

Sign Painters (Amazon link) - This is another excellent documentary suggested by a former co-worker, albeit one that I didn't actually know when we worked together. In complimenting my entertainment and culture-infused Facebook
posts, a fellow former colleague likewise cited this other guy's for being highly enlightening. I'm glad he accepted my Friend request for this has proven to be the case, with Sign Painters being one prime example of what he has turned me onto in just a few weeks. 

As the appropriately concise title conveys, the 2014 film explores--and celebrates--the declining art of hand-painted signs and its remaining practitioners. The erosion of artistry due to technology is a theme I have long echoed, but filmmakers Faythe Levine and Sam Macon have done a great job of finding a wonderfully motley crew of sign painters across the USA who come off prouder of their increasingly rarefied expertise then angry or bitter about the changing times. The well-made and designed film dovetails well with my recent fascination with "Ghost Signs" that adorn many brick buildings in Chicago.

It isn't yet on Netflix, but Sign Painters can be rented or purchased for online streaming through Amazon. 

The same former co-worker also had posted the video below--featured on Adweek.com--and I similarly found it fascinating, even without being anymore a logo designer than I am a sign painter.

Logo Design Tutorial Clip - Lynda.com, a online library of video tutorials and courses, had a logo design contest, and Aaron Draplin, a freelance designer in Portland, OR put together this video showing how he went about designing a logo for a concrete company. It's really pretty fascinating--and well worth 16 minutes of your time--even for non-designers.

John Altoon, 1950s-60s painter - Although I only lived in Los Angeles from 1990-92, I have maintained several friendships including with a good handful of the many talented artists I came to know. One is Mark Vallen, who maintains an outstanding blog called Art-for-a-Change, featuring his art and others' worthy of awareness. Another is Ray Cuevas, a rather accomplished painter whose work you can see here.

Both Mark and Ray shared their outstanding artistic insights in recent days, with Mark providing excellent suggestions on artists for me to appreciate on an upcoming trip, which I may showcase afterwards. Despite long living well north of Los Angeles-proper and rarely venturing to the city, Ray shared that he was glad he had done so last year to see an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on John Altoon, a Southern California painter from the 1950s until his death in 1969 at age 43.

Now over, this was the first major retrospective on Altoon, who seems to roughly fit in with the Abstract Expressionists, but not precisely. Unfortunately, the exhibition website does not seem to include a gallery, but I've liked some of what I've found via a Google Image search, including: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

James Ensor (+ Lucy McKenzie, Bridget Riley and Toshusai Sharaku), Art Institute of Chicago - I never need much reason to visit the Art Institute, but hadn't been there since September. The other day, my friend Paolo obliquely referenced hearing good things about an exhibition on a contemporary artist somewhat reminiscent of M.C. Escher.

He couldn't cite the artist's name, but from the Art Institute website, I guessed he was referring to Lucy McKenzie, about whom it says "her primary mode is trompe l’oeil (literally, “deceive the eye”)."

The exhibit in the Modern Wing closes on Sunday, and with an open Tuesday I decided to go check it out. 

The exhibition on the Scottish-born, Belgium-based artist McKenzie is worth perusing, but not extensive or distinctive enough to justify a special visit and/or full-price Art Institute admission in itself.

And while the now just 37-years-old McKenzie employs some visual whimsy--the nearby painting called Manhattan depicts that and other New York boroughs through the arrangement of leaves--I wasn't really reminded of Escher's much more inventive optical illusions (as seen on WikiArt.org).

So I still don't know if that is who Paolo meant. Stopping in the gift shop on my way out of the museum, I noted a book on another, older, female British artist named Bridget Riley.

On paper, her paintings still didn't seem quite Escheresque, but perhaps more so than McKenzie's, so I wandered back through the Art Institute and over to the Modern Wing, where there was a single-gallery, 4-work exhibit on Riley.

One sculptural painting that you walked through was rather innovative, and a piece called Ascending and Descending Hero holds a certain appeal.

This exhibit will be up to March 8, and while worth a glance, also doesn't mandate a special trip.

But I am glad that--however ambiguously, still--Paolo's recommendation prompted me to visit the Art Institute, for I genuinely enjoyed their largest current exhibit, which runs through January 25.

Titled Temptation: The Demons of James Ensor, the exhibition centers on a monumental drawing called The Temptation of St. Anthony, which the Belgian artist (1860-1949) created across 51 separate sheets of paper.

This artwork was interesting, accompanied by an interactive guide to the various components of the
drawing, but I much preferred many of Ensor's paintings that the Art Institute curated to show his work before and after the monumental drawing of the 1880s.

I enjoyed the somewhat odd piece (shown here) called The Intrigue, and others such as The Oyster Eater and The Lady with Fan.

Overall, I would give the Ensor exhibit @@@@ (out of 5) and do suggest it may be worth getting to specifically before it closes. Especially as it can provide an excuse to explore the Art Institute's great permanent collection and other special exhibits.

Along with Impressionism masterworks, on this trip I especially enjoyed seeing the work of Toshusai Sharaku in the Japanese Prints gallery. 

Bill Burr, comedian - I recently struck up a new Facebook Friendship with a woman who is the niece of a close friend of mine. In messaging back and forth, I pointed her to a recent blog post highlighting some of my favorite writings of 2014 (as well as one piece by her uncle).

In reading the remembrance of Robin Williams I penned upon his death, in which I rued the relative lack of new, younger comics I knew and liked, she commented about Bill Burr, a comedian I did not know.

Turns out he has three stand-up specials on Netflix, all of which she recommended. I watched the newest one called Bill Burr: I'm Sorry You Feel That Way, and found it rather enjoyable. Like all first-rate comedians, Burr offers a nice mix of jokes and insights, and largely held my attention and interest across 80 minutes. He tackles a variety of current events, offers a rather shrewd take on religion and relates a rather shocking--and yet terrifically funny--story about an old guy who threw himself out of a helicopter.

Even if you don't have Netflix, you can see the entire special on YouTube.

Bob Dylan: The Other Side of the Mirror, Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965 - I have long appreciated the musical and cultural magnitude of "Dylan going electric," referring to his playing with a full band at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival to the outrage of folk traditionalists.

But I only came to know of this DVD (and Blu-ray) showing Bob Dylan's full performance at Newport in 1965--as well as 1963 and 1964--because a trailer for it accompanied the DVD of I'm Not There, a 2007 film in which 6 different actors (including most famously, Cate Blanchett) embody Dylan at various points in his life.

I probably should have seen I'm Not There long ago, but I never had until it was recently mentioned and extolled at a Chicago Film Discussion Meetup Group lunch. I always get great movie recommendations from friends like Dave, Brad and Al, but truth be told I didn't really love I'm Not There. It didn't teach me much new about Dylan, and my favorite parts were simply his songs (this was also true about the Scorsese documentary on Dylan, No Direction Home).

But especially as there's little of Dylan's '65 Newport appearance on YouTube, I was tickled to learn there was a DVD of it, and I bought it instantly. (It came out in 2007.)

Rather than containing any explanatory narration, The Other Side of the Mirror is simply a film by director Murray Lerner capturing Dylan's performances at the Newport Folk Festival over the course of 3 years. It's interesting to note that even within the same fest, Dylan played on multiple stages, including ones shared with Joan Baez, who he was dating around that time. There is also a clip of Johnny Cash playing a Dylan song after speaking about him.

The music is obviously outstanding, from each festival, and it's pretty fascinating to see how Dylan's persona, stature and confidence grew over just three years. And the electric performance is scintillating; with no fanfare, Bob took the stage with a recently cobbled together band including Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper, and played wondrous versions of "Maggie's Farm" and "Like A Rolling Stone," each followed by loud "Boos!"

He was convinced to then play a couple acoustic songs, ending with a notably acerbic, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," after which he was heavily applauded.

Though only 83 minutes long, The Other Side of the Mirror makes for an altogether illuminating yet unadorned glimpse into a storied moment in music history.

Glenn's Diner - Although it has been in the same spot on Montrose, just west of Ravenswood, for 10 years, I came know of this Chicago restaurant only last year, when I visited Margie's Candies (the other location) just across the street.

Even then it looked pretty nondescript, but in walking past, I was intrigued by all the fresh fish preparations written on chalkboards lining both sides of the interior.

So when my friend Dave and I were looking for somewhere new to eat on Saturday, ideally near an L stop as he'd be coming from downtown, I suggest we try Glenn's.

We both found it excellent, with first-rate food in a comfortable, low-key atmosphere adorned not only by chalkboards, but a display of cereal boxes. 

I got Pretzel-crusted Walleye Pike and Dave got Lake Superior Whitefish. Both came with roasted potatoes and garlicky broccoli, which actually made me want to eat my broccoli (and even take home Dave's). We also shared a creme brulee for dessert and concurred that we would gladly revisit Glenn's Diner.

Ironically, just the next day, Dave forwarded me an article from the Chicago Reader revealing that the
original proprietor, Glenn Fahlstrom, had been booted from his titular diner two years ago after a legal battle with a partner, and now runs the similar Fahlstrom's Fish Market (which the Reader writer seems not so wild about).

That concludes my recap of new things discovered in just the last few days, but in the same spirit I offer a few more quick recommendations. 

A Band Called Death, documentary (Amazon) / Death - For the Whole World to See, album (Amazon) - Although oddly similar to that of another long-forgotten Detroit musician--Rodriguez, as told in Searching for Sugar Man--the story of a band that really was called Death is remarkable in its own right. In 1974, three African-American brothers were playing and recording punk music, before most anyone had heard the Ramones or other punk pioneers. The documentary is terrific and the album, compiled in 2009 from old recordings, is really phenomenal. Unfortunately the movie doesn't appear to be on Netflix anymore, but you can find it through Amazon.

Ida (Netflix link) - I recently named this 81-minute, black & white Polish film the best new movie I saw in 2014, and I wasn't alone in my acclaim. Several critics bestowed similar praise, and two friends who heeded my suggestion separately conveyed that it felt like watching a series of Vermeer paintings, give the beautiful compositions employed by director Pawel Pawlikowski in telling a rather poignant and insightful tale. Ida is currently streaming on Netflix and is my top recommendation for anyone looking for a "good movie to watch."

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - The Agora, Cleveland 1978 (purchase here) - The Boss is my favorite musical artist of all-time, and by far my favorite live performer, so that I'd love the acoustically-pristine new release of a classic show from before I started going to them is kind of obvious. But Rolling Stone just called this "official bootleg" of a long-storied concert from the Darkness on the Edge of Town tour Springsteen's greatest live album, and I think they're right. For just $10 for the MP3 download, it's a gimme for fellow fans, and a pretty good place for neophytes to start beyond the studio albums that are on Spotify.