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Lot Essay
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by Elisabeth di Cavalcanti Veiga, dated 16 October, 2017.
In 1953, Di Cavalcanti shared the prize for best Brazilian painter (with Alfredo Volpi) at the II Bienal de São Paulo and was further honored with a grand retrospective of his work the following year at the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro. Among the luminaries of modern art in Brazil, Di Cavalcanti celebrated the local customs and culture of his country across more than five decades of painting, portraying his people in their everyday lives and traditions in vibrant colors. Di Cavalcanti played a leading role in launching Brazilian modernism in the 1920s as he was one of the key organizers of São Paulo’s Semana de Arte Moderna with Anita Malfatti and Oswald de Andrade, among others.
The present lot teems with Di Cavalcanti’s women, in an estancia where they are center stage while multiple horsemen, who are noticeable in the background, help form a vivid scene against a dark blue sky. Conflating women and men in nature, recall encounters with the European avant-garde—Matisse, Braque, and above all Picasso—during earlier trips abroad, but no doubt they embody the Brazilian countryside. “Brazilian art depends on Brazilian reality and at the same time reveals that reality.” Di Cavalcanti encapsulates that palpable reality in this painting. (1)
1) F. Gullar et al, Di Cavalcanti—1987-1976: Pinturas, Disenhos, Jóias, Rio de Janeiro: Sindicato Nacional dos Editores de Livros, 2006, 21.
In 1953, Di Cavalcanti shared the prize for best Brazilian painter (with Alfredo Volpi) at the II Bienal de São Paulo and was further honored with a grand retrospective of his work the following year at the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro. Among the luminaries of modern art in Brazil, Di Cavalcanti celebrated the local customs and culture of his country across more than five decades of painting, portraying his people in their everyday lives and traditions in vibrant colors. Di Cavalcanti played a leading role in launching Brazilian modernism in the 1920s as he was one of the key organizers of São Paulo’s Semana de Arte Moderna with Anita Malfatti and Oswald de Andrade, among others.
The present lot teems with Di Cavalcanti’s women, in an estancia where they are center stage while multiple horsemen, who are noticeable in the background, help form a vivid scene against a dark blue sky. Conflating women and men in nature, recall encounters with the European avant-garde—Matisse, Braque, and above all Picasso—during earlier trips abroad, but no doubt they embody the Brazilian countryside. “Brazilian art depends on Brazilian reality and at the same time reveals that reality.” Di Cavalcanti encapsulates that palpable reality in this painting. (1)
1) F. Gullar et al, Di Cavalcanti—1987-1976: Pinturas, Disenhos, Jóias, Rio de Janeiro: Sindicato Nacional dos Editores de Livros, 2006, 21.