Marks and memories:
Almir Mavignier and the Painting Studio at Engenho de Dentro
Lucia Reily, José Otávio Pompeu e Silva and collaborators
Arts and culture in the 1940s
Maria Heloísa C. Toledo Ferraz
It was in such institutions that patients like Adelina Gomes, Raphael Domingues, Fernando Diniz (at the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional), Arthur Bispo do Rosário (at the Juliano Moreira Hospital), Aurora Cursino dos Santos, Farid Geber and Albino Brás (at Juqueri), to mention a few, discovered possibilities for expressing their feelings and motivations through art.
The way society looked at artwork produced in psychiatric hospitals slowly began to change in the 20th century. As invisible as the very circumstances of the mentally ill, this material would have remained hidden, were it not for changes in aesthetic and scientific paradigms, as well as actions taken by psychiatrists, artists and intellectuals to promote the understanding of the aesthetic qualities of the artwork produced in hospitals.
Almir Mavignier was one of the artists who had the opportunity to participate in this transformation, playing two roles at the beginning of his career–that of an artist engaged in renewing art paradigms and that of someone actively consolidating artistic and cultural participation for psychiatric patients.
This kind of involvement marked him as a special reference in the 1940s and 1950s in Brazilian art history and on behalf of understanding artwork of the mentally ill.
Art and culture in the 1940s
In the 1940s, Brazilian artists and intellectuals observed and discussed innovative aesthetic guidelines arriving from overseas, attributing new meanings to art. In major journals and newspapers, Brazilian and foreign authors published chronicles, critiques and even manifestos supporting or rejecting the new ideas. Cultural production advanced in urban environments–where a process of growth in population density was underway. It was an era that witnessed changes in urban outlines, and the erection of buildings that became signs for modernism in our country.
In this scenario, debates that defined the course of modern and contemporary art flourished. Those who defended the modernist movement in Brazil, fighting for acceptance and dissemination of modern languages were on one side; on the other, stood those who defended maintaining academic artistic traditions. The search for a new mentality was present in both Brazilian and foreign resident artists and intellectuals. Mário de Andrade called it “stabilizing the national conscience.” For some, that meant conquering Brazilian themes and aesthetic innovations, “conquering the land by images” (Navarra, 2007, p. 10), reinforcing the essential nature of being Brazilian in the working man, as Portinari did. For others, the emphasis on artistic languages, on pure visuality, such as was proposed by the followers of abstractionism, including Almir Mavignier, Abraham Palatnik, Ivan Serpa and Mário Pedrosa. Another issue was the country’s ambivalent political and social conditions. On the one side, Brazil had welcomed foreign artists during the war; on the other, the totalitarian government that advocated on behalf of a hegemonic nationalist model.
Between 1940 and 1950, the major agent championing art was the federal government, that encouraged the creation of modern buildings and the production of visual artwork in the federal capital, as well as promoting contact with other works and artists and cultural expansion. It is worth remembering that a Modern Division was created in the Salão Nacional de Belas Artes (SNBA), which enabled works and artists to be included under the heading “modern art”, even though there was still some disparity among interpretations of what was meant by modern (Palhares, 2007, p.11).
The unfolding of modernism coincided with the mobilization that affected several fields–political, social, cultural, artistic and educational. To this end, intellectuals called on artists to engage in political action and movements as a means of renovating aesthetic values and social participation.
In São Paulo, for instance, the conflux of aesthetic proposals and political actions of some critics and artists was evident when they came together to create the gallery of the Syndicate and the Clube dos Artistas e Amigos da Arte, known as “Clubinho”. At this venue, memorable exhibits and lectures were promoted, by Flávio de Carvalho, Oswald de Andrade, Osório Cesar and Tarsila do Amaral, on themes such as art of the vanguard, art of the insane etc. In several Brazilian capitals, groups were formed that assembled to discuss art and the country’s and the world’s political or social situation. In the opinion of several authors, among them Aracy Amaral, critic and art historian, in Rio de Janeiro, ever since 1935 when the Club de Cultura Moderna was created, there was a movement in favor of “social” art. Besides being a venue for meetings and organizing exhibits and lectures, the Club was also a means for propagating the philosophical, social and cultural agenda of its members through its journal Movimento, Revista do Club de Cultura Moderna, the first number of which included a conference by Dr. Nise da Silveira, under the title of “Philosophy and social reality.”(1)
Nevertheless, the war had to come along in order to strengthen bonds among intellectuals, educators and artists as they discussed democratic and humanist ideals. As a result, manifestations of groups that were committed to such issues began to emerge. This led to actions that were divulged in meetings, in which art and society or art and politics were debated, resulting, for instance, in an anti-German axis movement during the war period.
Meetings were also held in family homes, and were frequented by critics such as Mário Barata and artists such as Tiziana Bonazzola, who had been connected to the Women’s Federation of Brazil, with clearly leftist positions (Morais, 1986).
However, of all the mobilizations, the one that had the greatest repercussions in Brazil and abroad was the Exposição de Pintura Brasileira Moderna held in London in support of the Royal Air Force/RAF– perhaps because it brought together Brazilian artists as well as foreign artist residents along with the “modern” approach. The fact is that this 1944 exhibit brought together 150 painting, drawings and prints produced by the most renowned artists, including Portinari, Flávio de Carvalho, Clóvis Graciano, Cícero Dias, Di Cavalcanti, Lívio Abramo, Axl Leskoschek, Oswaldo Goeldi, Tomás Santa Rosa, Tarsila do Amaral, Lasar Segall, Djanira da Motta e Silva and Arpad Szenes. Two years later, Arpad Szenes would be Almir Mavignier’s teacher in Rio de Janeiro, followed by Axl Leskoschek.
Meanwhile, the 1940s would witness other movements–such as art criticism, debating new art experiences, artistic creation and relations with society. Visual arts critics defended their ideas in exhibit catalogues, in the daily press and in cultural and scientific journals and magazines.
According to Aracy Amaral (1987, p. 48), the importance of the cultural magazines lay in the fact that at the time they were able to analyze cultural events “in the light of political positions, be that of a cultural producer, be it of the consumer public.”
The critics of the time, among whom were Osório Cesar, Quirino da Silva, Tomás Santa Rosa, Geraldo Ferraz, Sérgio Milliet, Lourival Gomes Machado, Ruben Navarra and Mário Pedrosa, were active not only on theoretical and critical approaches but also in social participation. Often, the roles they played were broadened and some assumed political militancy. In their daily work, the critics also followed the formation of artistic groups that were made up primarily of laborers and artists that emerged from working class and immigrants. There were artisans, primitivists such as José Antonio da Silva, for instance, and artists that had studied in studios with painting teachers of the period such as Anita Malfatti, Takaoka and Bonadei, but there were also other groups like the Paulista Artistic Family, the Santa Helena Group in São Paulo and the Núcleo Bernardelli in Rio. Gradually new artists began to occupy the spaces that had been dominated by the academic, more informed elite and by the illustrious modernists. Among the São Paulo critics, Osório Cesar (2) had another relevant role–that of opening the discussion on the art of the mentally ill.
This moment in Brazilian art criticism produced reflections and polemics that reached the general public. Some critics, such as Osório Cesar, in São Paulo, and Ruben Navarra and Mário Pedrosa, in Rio de Janeiro, worked directly within the daily press, which enabled them to reach a larger number of people.
The right to free aesthetic research–as Mário de Andrade has noted so well, one of the movement’s coryphaei–was established as normal and natural, to the point that the new generation is surprised to find that it has not always been so (Navarra, 2007, p. 89).
Ruben Navarra was a critic that paid attention to modern artistic movements and to the cultural life of Rio de Janeiro. However, one of the most influential voices that marked carioca criticism and Brazilian art history was, without a doubt, Mário Pedrosa, (5) because of the breadth of his thinking and his intellectual uptodatedness. After graduating in Law, Mário Pedrosa studied Philosophy, Sociology and Aesthetics in Berlin, Germany. At this time, he came into contact with the surrealist group in France.
Consistent with his chosen political perspective and concerned about the direction Brazilian society was moving, Mário Pedrosa was an intellectual with a leftist position, while also being open to new artistic tendencies. He followed the vanguard movements, but his political ideas emerged in his writings and lectures. This can be seen in his first essay-conference on visual arts presented at the Clube dos Artistas Modernos (CAM) in São Paulo, in 1933.(6)
With the Estado Novo coup, Pedrosa was obliged to exile himself to Europe and the United States, from whence he only returned in 1945. His analysis of the artistic object and his critical approach gained new dimensions, including concern for the making of the oeuvre and for structural form. As the writer of a specific visual arts section of the Correio da Manhã newspaper, he was able to discuss such issues within the scope of the daily press. The newspaper’s public at large could follow specialized criticism, including issues such as the “virgin art” produced by the Engenho de Dentro “artists”. Pedrosa enthusiastically defended artistic modernization and breaking with academic tradition, and hoped to promote changes in aesthetic thinking that were still resisted by the general public.
The distance between cities was one of the main factors that handicapped the contact among people, especially affecting youth. Where art and culture were concerned, most attempted to follow the latest trends, and even visual artists that already participated in studios debating themes of this nature were always avid readers of news from the press or in specialized journals.
With the economic changes and technological advances that occurred in Brazil, including the communication media, artists from cities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo expanded their experiences and narrowed the gap between the two groups. While they had been relatively isolated before, painters and sculptors began to circulate between the metropolises and to promote exchanges as well as individual and collective exhibitions. It should be pointed out, however, that from the first decades of the 20th century, a number of artists had been seeking ways to achieve this kind of integration on their own–painters such as Antonio Parreiras, Henrique Bernardelli and Eliseu Visconti are some of the examples of carioca artists that also held exhibits in São Paulo. At this time, the venues where paulista artists and those from other places could promote exhibits were few and far between. Among them:
“Casa das Arcadas [at the Faculdade São Francisco–USP], Salão da Galeria São Jorge, Salão do Clube Comercial on São Bento Street, Salão on 69 Líbero Badaró Street, or at the Palácio das Indústrias for the collective exhibitions.” (Amaral, 1983, pp. 92-93).
And when they wanted to exhibit in Rio de Janeiro, they were obliged to look for space in places such as the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes, famous hotels and a few galleries. It was only after the 1930s that appropriate venues were created for art showings, such as the Heuberger Gallery, founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1936, and the São Paulo gallery on the corner of Marconi Street with Barão de Itapetininga, that was the second floor of the “Casa e Jardim” commercial trade-hall (1938). That is where academic and modern artists from both cities, such as De Fiori, Aldo Bonadei, Di Cavalcanti, Orlando Teruz to name a few held their exhibits (Amaral, op cit., p. 100).
From the beginning of the 1940s on, the exhibitions of the paulista and carioca artistic scene were mainly held at the Salões Paulista de Belas Artes, Salões de Maio, Salão Nacional de Belas Artes (SNBA) and at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (MNBA), that were officially recognized institutions, that, nevertheless enabled many artists to improve their skills and continue their studies. Thanks to the travel abroad prize sponsored by the Paulista and National Salons, many Brazilian artists such as José Pancetti and Maria Leontina, to name a few, were able to travel in the country or go abroad, mainly to Europe.
Almir Mavignier also had a golden opportunity and he knew how to take advantage of it. In 1949, he signed (7) up for a scholarship offered by the French government, and two years later, it was approved, and he made his way to Paris, where he participated in several art salons, visited exhibitions of the new tendencies and visited the Grande Chaumière Academy. This study trip launched him into the international art world and made it possible for his artistic creations to gain a consistent standard. He extended his trip to other countries in Europe and also travelled to the United States. He came into contact with young artists in Switzerland, Germany, France and Italy. After various cultural tours, he came to establish himself in Ulm, Germany, where he attended the Hochschule für Gestaltung, in the visual communication department; he also set up his own studio there (1959-1971). The career he had begun in teaching at Engenho de Dentro continued in Germany. After 1965, he went on to teach at the Fine Arts School of Hamburg (Hochschule für Bildende Kuenste), the city where he chose to work and live the rest of his life.
Even though he lived abroad, Almir maintained contact with Brazilian artists and also with Nise da Silveira, at Engenho de Dentro. In this way, he was able to follow and promote the work that was being done at the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional. He was the curator of several exhibits and he helped Nise at key times, as in Zurich, when the exhibit of the Engenho de Dentro artists was set up during the II World Congress of Psychiatry, held from September 1 to 7, 1957. The exhibit of paintings and drawings by schizophrenics was important for consolidating the painting studio and was a significant landmark in Nise’s achievements in the fields of psychiatry and art. It was presented in five rooms and due to its artistic content and acknowledged value, the idea was to transfer the showing to the Kunstgewerbemuseum, also in Zurich, but this did not happen. It went directly 9 on to Paris.
Mavignier reports that it was his idea to set a room especially for the mandalas and another with Raphael Domingues’ drawings: “I set up a room in Zurich with mandalas for Jung, as I knew he was going to open the exhibit (...). Nise studied with Jung.” Fascinated by the artwork, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung took upon himself the role of exhibit guide, but we do not know if he was informed that Almir was responsible for supervising the work at the studio as well as organizing the exhibit.
At this time, Mavignier had produced a series of paintings and photographs that became part of his personal collection, all of which are remarkable records of his works and of the first exhibits held outside of Brazil. Some of these photographs were widely distributed in scientific circles because they refer to the exhibit of the Engenho de Dentro artists in Zurich and a few portray Jung among works by Brazilian patients.
Professional development and achievements: Freedom to create
Almir Mavignier began working professionally at the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional in 1946 when he was 21 years old; his motivation was the need for a fixed job to help maintain his painting studies that had begun a year earlier. His first job at the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional was as an aid,
“...I was employed to calm the insane in the infirmaries.” (Mavignier, 1989).
Later he was sent to gardening duty. As in the earlier job, Almir did not get too involved because he knew very little about this field of work; however, as a young man that had connections with artists and architects in Rio de Janeiro, including Roberto Burle Marx, he was able to ask him for some advice on the tasks he needed to carry out.
[Paulo Elejalde] “charged me with reforming the hospital garden; naturally this was a lovely task, with one setback: I knew nothing about gardening. So I looked up Burle Marx and interviewed him... how does one make a garden, etc., so that I could do the gardens.” (Mavignier, 1989).
The most important moment for Almir was when he met the psychiatrist Nise da Silveira who was directing the Praxitherapy Service at the center, that was later referred to as the Seção de Terapêutica Ocupacional e Reabilitação (Stor) [Occupational Therapeutics and Rehabilitation Section]:
During a craft exhibit done at the praxitherapy sector, I proposed to the director, Nise da Silveira, that we could organize a painting Studio with the patients. The idea was well received as this had been an old project she had wanted to set up. (10)
According to this report, the creation of a “painting studio for patients” had been the young artist’s idea and was welcomed by Dr. Nise da Silveira who already foresaw the possibilities of creative artwork as an appropriate enterprise.
The inauguration of the studio was held on September 9, 1946, and Almir participated from the onset until November, 1951. His qualification at the time was that of monitor; he was viewed in that function, to this day he is referred to in this way by some authors (Mello, 2000, p. 38). However, if at that time Mavignier accepted such a designation, he later rebelled, stating that he was a “therapist of that service” (11) and he also considered himself a supervisor at the center, responsible for the Studio.” (Mavignier, 2006).
In several documents, as well as in publications (Mavignier, 2000, p. 247) and also in a recent interview (2005), he said that his job was
“to discover artists (...), looking for them in the courtyards and in the hospital infirmaries.”
As a painter, Mavignier was able to take advantage of this experience conducting the artwork of the patients that were sent to the studio. He organized painting and modeling activities, with special care for the use of artistic materials and techniques. The activities varied according to the interest and to the capacity of each patient. There were those that drew well, such as Carlos Pertuis and those that enjoyed modeling, like Adelina Gomes, or painting, like Emygdio de Barros, but they did so “without theoretical orientation and without knowledge of artwork, in order to preserve the direct projection of forms and symbols from the unconscious.”(Mavignier, 2009).
Nise da Silveira herself harbored concerns of this nature and was intent upon uncovering a pathway to access the world of the unconscious. She never considered the work at the studio as art.
Visual language is a form of expression. I do not call it art, far from such a pretension. I cannot guarantee that the work done by those that attend the studio is art. I’m not the one to decide whether it is art or not. The function of this work is not artistic, rather it is expressive (Pires Ferreira, 2008, p. 8).
To her understanding, the language of images could be more effective than the difficult verbal communication that was carried on between therapist and patient.(12)
As for Almir, in the beginning there was merely the search for those interested in painting; but later, the discovery of talented people among the patients renewed his motivation:
The studio was set up in 1946 under my supervision, and I worked there until 1951. (...) The first task consisted of finding people interested in working in painting, seeking them out in the infirmaries and in the hospital courtyards among hundreds of patients. It was only by chance that certain personalities were revealed, such as Arthur Amora, Emygdio de Barros, Fernando Diniz, Raphael Domingues, Adelina Gomes, Isaac Liberato and Carlos Pertuis. Nevertheless, what impressed us the most was the good luck that enabled us to find them, while misfortune left other personalities undisclosed. This frustration increased the obsession to search. The patients worked regularly, which contributed to their growing command of pictorial technique (Mavignier, 2009).
The studio rooms were chosen by the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional director, Dr. Paulo Elejalde, and they occupied a whole floor of one of the hospital complex buildings (Mavignier, 2005). There was a large spacious room connected by a corridor to other smaller rooms, where the offices of the director Dr. Nise da Silveira and that of the social worker were. Besides the large room where the patients worked, there was a small room where Almir was able to produce his own artwork at his leisure. However, in the beginning, when Almir was conducting the activities, the creative environment was not limited to the space between the four walls that had been set aside for this. Some patients extrapolated this space, supported by Almir, who surmised their creative needs. Emygdio sometimes painted in Almir’s personal studio, because he was not comfortable with the confusing noisiness of the collective space.
After he was discharged, Emygdio kept on painting with Mavignier’s incentive; he took him paints and paper and even received him at his home for a while. Stimulated by Mavignier, some patients were directed to work outside the studio, which enabled them to come into closer contact with the environment, aiding in their expressive process. Adelina and Emygdio often worked outside, as did other patients. Raphael was a case apart, as he had been discharged and continued to draw at home. Mavignier reported that he maintained constant contact with him, because he didn’t want him to lose his enthusiasm; he visited him often accompanied by Mário Pedrosa, Ivan Serpa and even Murilo Mendes, the poet (Mavignier, 2006).
But the clearest example of his intention of teaching based on motivation and freedom and knowing how to recognize the capacities or intentions of each one of the artists is quite evident in Mavignier’s report on Arthur Amora. This patient wanted to participate in the group, but stated that he did not know how to paint or draw. Almir tried to give him space, which enabled him to experiment and devote himself to geometric shapes. As a result of his work, there are only a handful of paintings and drawings, but these highlight the uniqueness of an abstract-concrete oeuvre.
If one compares his works to those of concrete painters in Brazil from the same time (1950/51), some of Arthur’s works stand out as concrete paintings of impressive consequence and rigor with fascinating optical contrasts in black and white, typical colors of “op-art” painting. The formal originality of Arthur’s pictures endures to this day. (13)
During this time, Almir lived in Vila Isabel and he was already a restless young man who was never satisfied with the academic art teachings prevailing in traditional courses. His artistic career had been a personal choice, and teaching was a consequence.
“In middle school, I was the drawing teacher’s assistant. At the Vera Cruz middle school, I assisted the teacher, I mean, (...) when he couldn’t teach class, I [did] in his place.” (Mavignier, 2006).
After high school, he tried to get into the Faculdade Nacional de Arquitetura in Rio de Janeiro. When that didn’t work out, he decided to enroll in a course in drawing at the Associação Brasileira de Desenho (ABD), where he met Ivan Serpa.
Even as a beginner, Almir felt he needed new impetus. This motivated him to seek the guidance of people connected to the artistic milieu. Through friends, he approached a group of modern artists. Almir reports that he was referred to a teacher who was one of the most renowned artists in Rio de Janeiro. Through the Benedictine friar D. Gerardo’s intervention, he was presented to Arpad Szenes, the Hungarian painter(14) and to his wife, the Portuguese visual artist Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, during an exhibit at the Ministry of Education and Health.
Arpad Szenes and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva were respected and admired by Brazilian and foreign artists and intellectuals, some of whom were representatives of the artistic vanguard. The couple arrived in Brazil in 1940, leaving Europe because of the growth of fascism. Like them, other foreign painters and engravers came to Brazil during wartime and they moved to Santa Teresa. During this period, Arpad worked on portraits and illustrations for books, among them works by Murilo Mendes, Cecília Meireles, Mário de Andrade and Jorge de Lima.
Their warm welcome in Brazil helped the couple feel at home, though Maria Helena had trouble adapting to the climate and she missed the friends she had left in Europe. Arpad was able to hold his first exhibit in Rio de Janeiro one year after arriving in the country, at the “Sala dos Arquitetos”, and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva held hers the next year at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes. Over the following years, they participated in other exhibits, both in Rio and in Belo Horizonte.
Apparently, his first contact with the couple was very meaningful to Mavignier. He always came back to this moment to say that Maria Helena intervened in order for Arpad to receive him.
I couldn’t pay anything at all. So he told me to go to the International Hotel, because he wanted to get to know me better (...) [but it was] Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (.) [who] convinced her husband, Arpad Szenes, to be my teacher.” (Mavignier, 2006).
Mavignier recounts that he was accepted into Arpad Szene’s studio in 1946. Heeding his teacher’s guidance, he began at that time with oil painting.
According to Mário Pedrosa (1950), the first painting was Composition study. “And that is just what the title indicates, but one can also notice, in the fabric on the figure, a very pronounced concern with the material and color.” As Arpad’s student, Mavignier dedicated himself to painting and to exploring color. He did several portraits, and among them the portrait of his teacher (1947) stands out–a work that is in the Gilberto Chateaubriand (Villas Bôas, 2008, p. 212) collection–and that was considered impressionist by Mário Pedrosa (1950) with “... an almost irreverent freedom before his master and his teachings.”
Arpad Szenes’s studio was in the basement of the International Hotel, a mansion on a Santa Teresa hilltop in Silvestre, described by many as a hotel in ruins, with a view of paradise. From the veranda, one could look out to the Guanabara bay, the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas and Sugar Loaf Mountain in the background. (...) next to the boarding house, connected to a garden that was half thicket and half immense beautiful trees. The hotel was practically in ruins. Empty, large, yellow. It was condemned as hazardous. After getting past the broken staircase, one reached the Studio:
what beautiful paintings I saw at this Studio. I remember Arpad saying: “I need a lot of time for painting. And time for looking and thinking about what has been done” (15)
Built during the first years of the 20th century, the hotel was a favorite resort of foreigners that visited Brazil. That is also where theater and dance groups stayed and, during the war, intellectuals and refugees. Among them were the couple Arpad Szenes and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, and the visual artists Wilhelm Woeller and Henrique Boese. Besides the Europeans, some Americans also chose Brazil at this time (Polly McDonell and the pianist Milton Goldring), as well as the Japanese (Kaminagai, Fukushima, Flávio-Shiró’s father) (Morais, 1986, s/p).
When the hotel was closed, the surrounding houses and cabins were used to make up a complex that became the Pensão Internacional [International Boarding House]. Arpad Szenes and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva lived in the central room of one of these houses, where Maria Helena also had her studio. The critic Ruben Navarra
lived in a room in one of the smaller houses and Carlos Scliar lived in one of the cabins. All the rooms were occupied by artists, scientists and intellectuals. On weekends, they received guests who never missed these meetings.
According to Frederico Morais (1986), the hotel and the neighborhood formed a community:
There was sensitivity and intelligence to the neighborhood. (...) Music and poetry were inhaled during conversations or during meals, people talked about art and literature, discussions were lively. Far from Europe at war, these artists created in Santa Teresa a cultured, sensitive, intelligent European community (op cit.).
In general, the climate of the meetings at the Hotel overflowed to other places. Art was inhaled, as Ruben Navarra put it.
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva remembered this time as very meaningful:
We lived as a butterfly does. As I said, we had little money, but at the same time, we had in Santa Teresa, a little streetcar that came by all the time and was never full. It was cheap. We lived at the boarding (16)
The social contact with the artists reached Arpad and his students. The environment was contagious and quite distinct from that of the Academy. The students had freedom to paint what they wished and were not influenced by the teacher. At this time, besides Almir, Arpad’s other students were: Polly McDonell, Frank Schaeffer, Eduardo de Moraes Rego and Germano Vidal. After Arpad left for Paris, Lygia Clark and Teresa Nicolao also studied under him.
According to Frederico Morais (1986), Arpad apparently had no definite method for teaching art. Nevertheless, many of his old students and friends spoke of his human qualities and education. Others referred to the couple as special people. Among them, Schaeffer made a comment that can help us understand Arpad’s process of artistic supervision, whereby he conducted the student’s sensitive perception: “his insistence on the issue of sensitivity and his preoccupation with color.” (Morais, op cit.). For Almir Mavignier, there was climate of freedom and research: “The students were there to study, beside each other and doing what they wanted to do” (Mavignier, 2006).
Without a doubt, the artistic freedom that Almir experienced during his development with Arpad Szenes influenced his career and perhaps was the meeting point with his patients at Engenho de Dentro and for his abstract experiments.
According to Mavignier, one year after beginning his studies, he was able to participate in a collective exhibit with Arpad students at the Instituto dos Arquitetos do Brasil. While he was still at Arpad Szene’s studio, one of his paintings won a bronze medal at the Salão de Belas Artes [Fine Arts Salon]; he also participated of the Salon in the collective show. One of the members of the jury of the Salon was the architect Lúcio Costa, who introduced him to the critic Tomás Santa Rosa, who wrote a flattering article on the young and promising artist (Mavignier, 2006).
After Arpad left for France (1947), Mavignier continued his painting studies with the Austrian engraver Axl Leskoschek, until 1948, when this artist also went back to his home country. From then on, he studied with Henrique Boese,17 at his studio on Aprazível Street. In Mário Pedrosa’s opinion (1950), Leskoschek was a follower of post-impressionist research, which made him a master that paid attention to form, movement and chromatic modulation.
For the young artist, to experience modern movements and artists was essential to his search of a personal language that evolved toward experimentation.
Almir Mavignier and his commitment to art
During the post-war period, there were advances and changes in the field of art and culture. Although many foreign artists returned to their original countries, others stayed among us and established new groups in several Brazilian states. But the advancement that contributed the most to interactions between the artistic and cultural environment of the country and other parts of the world was the creation of art museums in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where many exhibits were held, including the art from Engenho de Dentro, as well as Juqueri. Before this time, among the paulistas, the only venue especially devoted to contemporary art was the Domus Gallery inaugurated in 1946. It was only in 1947 that the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) was founded, followed by the inauguration of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM–SP) one year later. The first was founded by the journalist Assis Chateaubriand and directed by the Italian critic Pietro Maria Bardi, and the second by Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho. In 1948, Rio de Janeiro witnessed the inauguration of its own Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM–Rio).
With the emergence of these institutions, the art circuit grew. Intellectuals and artists that circulated in other countries started coming to Brazil to participate in debates about art and cultural themes. Among those that came to São Paulo, besides Lina Bo Bardi, Pietro Maria Bardi’s wife, there were Roberto Sambonet, Gastone Novelli and Leopold Haar who brought over their European experiences in the field of architecture and “other modes the paulistas had explored very little, such as furniture design, poster production, magazine and newspaper layout, booth projects, showcasing production etc.”(Haag, 2009, p. 85). The debates held in museums addressed shaping taste in art, specifically modern art, new contemporary tendencies in visual art and the museums themselves.
It is important to remember that in the 1940s and in subsequent years, there were a number of artistic meetings and soirees in the intellectual, scientific milieu and also among the bourgeoisie, stimulated by people involved in the cultural realm, such as the journalist Assis Chateaubriand. These encounters were places to meet and promote artists, both Brazilian and foreign, and their works. This promoted greater understanding and interest of intellectuals, artists, and scientists for art in general and in collecting artistic productions of various kinds, including drawings by children and the insane. In São Paulo, Osório Cesar gave several conferences on the art of the insane, showing drawings and paintings he had collected during the 1930s by patients interned in asylums. Most of the drawings had been done in graphite and colored pencils, on various kinds of paper, revealing figurative themes, multiplicity of form, composed with emotion. What was innovative were the comparisons Osório Cesar drew between the artwork of these patients and modernist and vanguard art.
In Rio de Janeiro, the same process was underway. Artists with progressive vision were getting together with people from various fields, among them architects, especially those of modernist tendencies. They formed groups with whom they shared ideas and projects and their partners included people such as Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer, the landscaper Burle Marx18 and the engraver Fayga Ostrower. From these encounters, many shared projects were born that resulted in important works. But no other intellectual knew how to bring people together as well as the art critic and political militant Mário Pedrosa. Artists, poets and intellectuals visited his apartment on Visconde de Pirajá Street, where they debated art and politics. Almir Mavignier was one of the artists close to him at the time, who had the chance to understand the breadth of his thinking.
Almir Mavignier’s first encounter with Mário Pedrosa happened in February 1947, during an exhibit of the works of the artists from the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional. It was the first exhibit held outside the hospital walls, at the Ministry of Education and Health gallery, and there had been great impact in the press, including commentaries by Pedrosa19 himself. In chronicles published in the Correio da Manhã, he analyzed the singularity of the paintings shown by the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional and their creators; it is interesting to note that in one article he uses the term “unconscious art”. Later in 1949, he held a debate with the critic Campofiorito, also in the press, defending the Engenho de Dentro artists.
As an artist and artistic supervisor of the patients, Almir Mavignier followed closely the reception of the public that was visiting the works, that were made up of paintings and drawings (by children and adults) and women’s craftwork.
To Almir, the people’s reactions and comments communicated much. The paintings and drawings of the patients left the hospital to enter a cultural venue in Rio de Janeiro. However, it was the way the artist and Mário Pedrosa met that brought them together: “I saw that man kneeling down in front of Emygdio’s and Raphael’s drawings (...).
And that kneeling man was the public.” (Mavignier, 2006).
After this exhibit, their meetings continued. Pedrosa visited Engenho de Dentro a number of times and manifested his impressions in articles, essays and conferences. From the first visit, he showed that he could uphold Nise da Silveira’s work, even though they did not share the same philosophical and political thinking. As a studious and cultivated man, he understood the importance of art in people’s lives, and he saw it as “a factor in the recovery of the sick.” Just as Osório Cesar, in São Paulo, Pedroso considered that artistic creation was a capacity that was common to all human beings, including, therefore the art of the mentally ill. For him, there was an approximation between primitive art and modern art arising from the discoveries of the former by European civilization and the experiments into modern art by western society.
The importance of the critic for the process of legitimation of the art of the mentally ill at the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional in Engenho de Dentro and of other artistic modalities, such as children’s artwork was not merely circumstantial. Throughout his life, he broached various subjects, from art history, to sociology of art and to art education. Much of his work and study was dedicated to furthering knowledge, as can be clearly seen in the words of his friend the poet Ferreira Gullar (2000):
We became friends. In our conversations and in the books he lent me, I developed the basis of my understanding of contemporary art. He taught me how to see a picture, how to perceive its qualities, but mainly, he broadened my view of art so as to include in it not only the innovations of the vanguard, but also the “virgin art” of Emygdio, Raphael, Diniz, great artists revealed in the Centro Psiquiátrico Nacional at Engenho de Dentro, and the artwork of children, to which he dedicated his attention during the visits he made to the courses Ivan Serpa was teaching.
According to Almir Mavignier’s interpretation, Mário Pedrosa’s cultivated personality was one of the factors that influenced his painting and his understanding during that period:
(...) Pedrosa’s thesis on “the influence of the theory of gestalt on the work of art” taught me that the content of form does not reside in its association to forms in nature; it resides in the very character of form. This knowledge enabled me to abandon naturalistic painting.
in order to begin painting through concrete research of forms free from associations. Ivan Serpa and Abraham Palatnik were likewise influenced by this work by Mário Pedrosa, who practically produced the first group of abstract-concrete painters in Rio de Janeiro, perhaps in Brasil (20)
The abstract-geometric art developed by this group was one of the branches that broke with figurativism at the time. According to Aracy Amaral, abstractionism was entering the country by means of two important exhibitions: one was the Alexander Calder exhibit (1948) held at the Salon of the Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro, and the other presented Max Bill’s21 “Tripartite Unit” (1950) at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo in São Paulo. One year later, the 1st International Biennial of São Paulo reinforced the current tendencies of these exhibits, revealing specific features of abstractionism. These tendencies were expanding in the United States and in Europe, which is why they attracted a number of Brazilian visitors, mainly young artists such as Almir Mavignier, Mary Vieira, Palatnik, and critics such as Mário Pedrosa, among others. Alexander Calder’s exhibition in Rio was marked by constructions driven by movement and presented a fully innovative proposal amongst us, i.e., the “environmental relationship”, while the São Paulo display of Max Bill’s work was developed according to European tendencies of constructive art. For Aracy Amaral, these were the first signs of the neo-concretist movement in Rio and the concretist movement in São Paulo, as the first groups of Brazilian abstract artists began to organize themselves soon after in the 1950s, and they began to assert themselves in the following decades.
Max Bill was the starting point for Brazilian and Argentinian artists in the formation of the concretist movement.
The 1st International Biennial of São Paulo in 1951 represented the acknowledgement of the abstract-geometric group. Besides the Swiss sculptor Max Bill, who received the top prize for sculpture, other Brazilian artists of the objective tendency such as Almir Mavignier, Ivan Serpa and Abraham Palatnik were able to exhibit their works and were even rewarded with a prize (Serpa won the young artist prize).
Mário Pedrosa argued in favor of the autonomy of art, represented by abstract art as opposing realistic, figurative art, which he declared to be characteristic of bourgeois and reactionary societies. He also presented important considerations about the intrinsic character of the work of art and the relations that are processed within it. He defended intuition and artistic freedom. With his support, the young artists Almir Mavignier, Ivan Serpa and Abraham Palatnik developed their experimentation and established their group as the first nucleus of concrete art in Rio de Janeiro. After 1949, the “Form Group” gained strength and was able to produce the first “concrete” paintings, that is, works that were not naturalistic, but rather made up of shapes and pure color.
Pedrosa’s ideas about the autonomy of plastic language and the value of inventive processes that could intervene in the artwork coincided with the research and activities of the group. Almir Mavignier conducted his work in search of new creations and he shared his experiences at Engenho de Dentro with his colleagues. Ivan Serpa, on the other hand, supervised a drawing course for children, besides continuing to meet with his friends. However, Almir Mavignier’s journey was just beginning. He had always realized the importance of his painting, and he also recognized how important his role as the artistic supervisor at Engenho de Dentro in 1946 was:
“... and these works made me into a teacher at the Fine Arts School [Hamburg]” (Mavignier, 2006).
Today’s artist/teacher is deeply rooted to his past, feeding on the passion and enthusiasm of youth and on the creative spontaneity of the Engenho de Dentro artists.
One’s first contact with the life and works of the artist Almir Mavignier can bring forth nuances of his various phases and centers of interest. However, one must gain a deeper understanding in order to perceive his social engagement, revealed in his concern for art and for the Engenho de Dentro artists, in his struggle to preserve cultural rights and citizenship. To this day, Almir demonstrates his complete commitment to protecting the works of his students of old–not as a zealous master of his apprentices, but as someone that recognizes the importance of artistic works as part of the culture belonging to Brazil and to the world.