Av. Pedro Álvares Cabral, s/n° - Parque Ibirapuera, São Paulo - SP, 04094-000, Brazil
Museum of Modern Art
Paris, France
Academie Julian
Av. Pedro Álvares Cabral, s/n° - Parque Ibirapuera, São Paulo - SP, 04094-000, Brazil
Museum of Modern Art
Oswald de Andrade, Tarsila do Amaral's second husband
William Ferdinand Zadig
Pedro Alexandrino Borges
Fernand Léger working at his Parisian studio. Photo by Reitz/ullstein bild.
Assis Chateaubriand
Tarsila do Amaral was born on September 1, 1886, Capivari town, Sao Paulo, Brazil to a family of José Estanislau do Amaral, a prosperous landowner who grew coffee, and Lydia Dias de Aguiar do Amaral.
Tarsila was raised at her family’s lands – Sao Bernado and Sertao farms.
She had three brothers whose names were Osvaldo Estanislau do Amaral, Milton Estanislau do Amaral, José Estanislau do Amaral, and a sister Cecília do Amaral.
Tarsila do Amaral began her artistic training in 1902 at the school Sacre-Coeur de Jésus in Barcelona where she had moved with her parents. There, she produced her first painting. It was the replica of Sagrado Coração de Jesus (Sacred Heart of Jesus).
Since the age of thirty, Amaral started to learn painting in São Paulo and received some sculpture lessons from William Ferdinand Zadig. Two years later, she became a pupil of the painter Pedro Alexandrino in whose studio she got acquainted with Anita Malfatti.
The teachers seemed too conservative for Tarsila, and soon, she moved to Paris to pursue her studies.
At the capital of France, she began her studies under the tutelage of Émile Renard. She left the teacher in 1920 and enrolled at the Académie Julian where she had stayed till 1922.
The following year, Tarsila took some lessons from the French cubist masters Fernand Léger, André Lhote and Albert Gleizes.
Tarsila do Amaral started her artistic career from the Group of Five (Grupo dos Cinco) which she joined in 1922 in São Paulo. The main goal of the group was to develop Brazilian culture.
The next year, Amaral travelled to Paris where she explored Cubism, Futurism, and Expressionism. Due to the interest of the European public to the African and primitive cultures, Amaral started to use in her creations the forms typical for her motherland combing them with the modern styles. One of the examples of this period was her famous painting titled A Negra.
Tarsila do Amaral became involved in the cultural life of the city and got acquainted with many notable artistic personalities of the time, including poets and authors Blaise Cendrars, Jean Cocteau, musicians Igor Stravinsky, Eric Satie, Villa Lobos painters Pablo Picasso, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti as well as many art dealers and patrons.
To find new subjects for her nationalistic art, Amaral along with Oswald de Andrade travelled through Brazil. During the trip, the artist produced a lot of sketches of various Brazilian places which later became a base for her creations. Tarsila tried her hand as an illustrator: she created the pictures for Andrade’s poetry collection Pau Brasil (1924) and Feuilles de Route by Blaise Cendrars. Amaral’s paintings of this period became more coloured, like her E.C.F.B. (Estrada de Ferro Central do Brasil), Carnival in Madureira, The Hill of the Favela, The Papaya Tree, and Fisherman.
The debut solo exhibition of Tarsila do Amaral took place at the Galerie Percier in Paris in 1926. She demonstrated to the public São Paulo (1924), A Negra (1923), Lagoa Santa (1925), and The Hill of the Favela (1924) which were met with good critical reviews.
Since 1928, Tarsila shifted to urban landscapes and scenery in which she often used some surrealist elements. It was this year when the artist produced one of her masterpieces which revolutionized the Brazilian Art – Abapuru, a gift to her husband Andrade. The latter, impressed by the painting, wrote his Anthropophagite Manifesto calling Brazilians to elaborate their own style and culture and not to obey European influences. This period dubbed Anthropophagic became the most fruitful in Tarsila’s career. The same year, she held her second solo show, again at the Galerie Percier in Paris.
The next year of this Tarsila’s success, she held her first solo shows in Brazil organized at the Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro and at the Salon Gloria in São Paulo. In 1930, the painter participated at some group expositions in New York City and Paris.
The last phase of Tarsila do Amaral’s artistic journey started after her trip to the Soviet Union in 1931 where she exhibited her paintings in various museums, including the Museum of Modern Western Art in Moscow. The artist reflected her impression by the poor state of the Russian people in her painting Workers (1933). That year, Tarsila had a retrospective of her creations at the Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro.
The same period, Tarsila do Amaral contributed to the Diários Associados newspaper owned by her friend Assis Chateaubriand. She had worked as a columnist there from 1936 till 1952.
In 1950, the painter presented her canvases at the Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo. Other significant expositions of the last period of artist’s career included São Paulo Art Biennial in 1951, the Venice Biennale in 1964, and the retrospective called “Tarsila – 50 years of painting” organized by the art curator Aracy Amaral in 1969 at the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro.
Tarsila do Amaral played an important role in the development of the Latin American art bringing modernism to its culture. So, she inspired the creation of famous Antropofagia Movement.
Tarsila’s unique style influenced her many contemporaries in Latin America as well as the artists of 21st-century all over the world who used the elements of Brazilian culture as their main subject.
During her artistic journey, Amaral produced 230 paintings, a great number of drawings, illustrations, prints, murals, and five sculptures.
The recent retrospective of her artworks took place at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2018.
On Mercury, there is a crater named in Tarsila do Amaral’s honour.
Cityscape
São Paulo
Self-Portrait
Angels
A Caipirinha
Nu
Workers
Blue Hat
Pastoral
Brazilian Religion
The Egg
Postcard
The Papaya Tree
Vendor of Fruits
The Bull
Second Class
Rio de Janeiro
São Paulo
Famíly
Abaporu
The Moon
The Doll
Portrait of Mario de Andrade
Anthropophagy
Still Life
A Negra
Carnival in Madureira
Maternity
The Hill of the Favela
Manacá
Portrait of Oswald de Andrade
Idyll
Untitled
The Lake
Market
E.F.C.B. (Central Railway of Brazil)
A Cuca
An Angler
Landscape with Taurus
Self-portrait
Forest
The Station
In the middle 1930s, Tarsila do Amaral took an active part at the São Paulo Constitutional Revolt and became involved at the communist activity of the country. Communism was forbidden there, so, the artist was arrested for a month. After that, she left the political field and never joined it again.
Quotations:
"I want to be the painter of my country. I am so thankful to have spent the whole of my childhood in the fazenda. My memories of that time have grown precious to me."
"Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it."
"You just have to do your own thing, no matter what anyone says. It’s your life."
"At all costs, you must love what you do."
"You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel."
"The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything."
"We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have."
"Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it."
Quotes from others about the person
"The Brazilian painter who best achieved Brazilian aspirations for nationalistic expression in a modern style." Edward Lucie-Smith, an English author and art critic
Tarsila do Amaral was married twice.
Her first husband became Andre Teixeira Pinto in 1906. The couple had lived together for seven years and had one daughter, whose name was Dulce. She was an only Amaral’s child. She didn’t survive her mother and died in 1966.
In 1926, the artist married a Brazilian poet Oswald de Andrade. They broke up in 1930.
Later, the artist had romantic relationships with the communist doctor Osório Cesar and with the writer Luís Martins in the middle of 1930s. The latter had lasted for 18 years.
