Five Brazilian artists you should know
Published on 10 February 2025
A new wave of painting, sculpture, graphic design, architecture, music and literature swept across Brazil in the 20th century. Here are five artists who shaped modernism in Brazil.
Djanira
Djanira, as she signed her work and is commonly known, began painting aged 23 whilst recovering from tuberculosis. Largely self-taught, her lively paintings reflected the world around her.
Self-portraits, portraits of people close to her, and the landscapes and everyday life of Rio were Djanira’s subjects. Her style, a hybrid of figuration and abstraction, was sometimes described as naïve, a characterisation she rejected: ‘I might be naïve, but my painting is not.’
In the 1950s she travelled around Brazil to study its landscapes, peoples, customs and social realities. Notably, she travelled to Bahia, where she experienced the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé religion, and she also lived among the Canela people in Maranhão, which allowed her to reflect on her Indigenous Brazilian heritage.
Anita Malfatti
A pioneer of Brazilian modernism, Anita Malfatti's paintings faced harsh criticism at the time.
After studying in Germany and the US, she returned to Brazil in 1916 where she held a ‘modern painting’ exhibition in São Paulo. Her work depicted ordinary Brazilians going about everyday tasks, a subject deemed unworthy for art at the time. The show was the first to challenge the country’s conservative standards of academic art, and as such is celebrated as the first modernist exhibition in Brazil.
The criticism left a lasting impact on Malfatti, causing her to be a less progressive artist going forward.
Tarsila do Amaral
From tropical landscapes to depictions of favelas, Tarsila do Amaral covered a wide range of Brazilian subjects; she hoped to be ‘the painter of my country’.
Like many other Brazilian artists she was drawn to Paris in the 1920s, which was considered the artistic capital of modernism. Her art during this period became known for its vibrant colours, simplified forms and distinctly Brazilian themes.
Upon returning to Brazil and reckoning with the economic crash of 1929, her previously luxurious lifestyle dramatically changed. In 1931 she held an exhibition in Moscow, going on to attend meetings of the Brazilian Communist Party. Her paintings from this period reflect her more socially aware perspective.
Candido Portinari
Candido Portinari understood his paintings as a vehicle for social change, often depicting everyday Brazil and its people.
Having grown up in a working-class family, Portinari sought to create a national art by representing the often-harsh reality of workers’ lives. He became renowned for his socialist-realist style depicting social and racial themes prevalent in Brazilian society.
Portinari achieved great success during his career and collaborated on numerous projects with the modernist architect Oscar Niemeyer. He received various high-profile commissions including the mural he created for the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
Flávio de Carvalho
Flávio de Carvalho was a provocative force of Brazilian Modernism.
A painter, architect, performance artist, theatre producer and designer, de Carvalho initially studied civil engineering in England. Upon his return to Brazil, he entered national and international architecture competitions for public buildings with outlandishly ambitious designs, designed and staged several avant-garde theatre productions, and developed a unique style of painting inspired by Surrealism, Cubism and Expressionism.
De Carvalho is recognised as a pioneer of performance art in Brazil. In 1956 he staged Experiencia N.3, walking through São Paulo in an outfit he had designed for men in the tropics, which comprised a skirt, blouse and fishnet stockings, scandalising the crowd who gathered to watch him.
Book tickets for Brasil! Brasil!
In the early 20th century a new modern art was emerging in Brazil. See over 130 works by ten important Brazilian artists from the twentieth century, capturing the diversity of Brazilian art at the time.
Exhibition organised by the Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
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