São Paulo, Brasil
08/06/2017 - 10/07/2017

Considered one of the most important sculptors in the country and creator of one of the most iconic and significant monuments in the city of São Paulo, Victor Brecheret has his work celebrated by Dan Galeria, which receives, from June 8, the exhibition Brecheret: Enchantment and Força, curated by Daisy Peccinini, specialist in the artist's work.

The exhibition includes creations by the sculptor from 1916 to 1955, presenting the public with a very comprehensive panorama of Brecheret's artistic career, including the various possibilities and aesthetic moments that the artist experienced and incorporated into his work. There are 46 works, including sculptures and drawings, which are divided into nuclei and sub-nuclei. “The feminine, the masculine and the idyll”, “Indigenous art”, “Sacred art” and “Horses” are the themes that overlap with the sculptures. “Drawings” is presented as the fifth core of the exhibition, in turn subdivided by themes equivalent to those of the sculptural groups.

For the curator, two qualities are imposed as permanent stylistic marks in the sculptor's work, regardless of the theme or code listed: enchantment and strength. "Enchantment, a special seduction for the impeccable bill, making the eyes slide through the flexible volumes, interacting with the sensitivity and pleasure of each one who contemplates them", says Daisy. “And if there are enchantments on the one hand, on the other there is an élan that integrates the parts in a centrifugal drive, so that the seductive volumes have strength and tension that bring them together and generate a monumental aura”, he adds.

A predominant theme in Brecheret's production, the female figure invites the public, already outside the gallery, to immerse themselves in its creative universe: the monumental Morena (c. 1951), bronze sculpture over 2.4 meters high, welcomes you as a hostess of space.

The feminine of Greek mythology takes shape in Três Graças (early 1930s), with the representation of the goddesses of dance, grace and love, which in their reproduction symbolize the three races according to the theories then in force – black, yellow and white. Joined by the shoulders, the figures defied the mentalities of the time, marked by European Nazism and Fascism, who preached the superiority of whites over others. “A bold plastic and political work, which in that context exalted harmony and fraternity”, adds the curator.

The bronze Cabeça de Marisa (c. 1955) was cast from plaster modeled by the artist hours before his death. Dedicated to printing on him the portrait of his niece, Brecheret, by means of strict and refined ordering, uses in the work simplicity, purity and plastic strength of forms, characteristics so common in his portraits.

Beijo (c. Dec. 1930) brings one of the rare pieces in his production representing the idyll between a man and a woman. The polished bronze takes on an oval, elongated shape, broken by small horizontal incisions, suggesting to the spectator the couple's intertwined hands.

Aware of the importance of the peoples of the land for the formation and territorial expansion of the Brazilian nation, the artist also dedicated himself, mainly from the 1940s, to the universe of the primitive forms of the country's indigenous culture. Daughter of terra roxa (c. 1947-1948) was one of her first works with the theme. Modeled initially with purple earth, the terracotta was exposed in 1948 at Galeria Domus, the first to expose Brazilian modernists. At the Dan Galeria exhibition, the piece presented is cast in bronze.

Although he was not religious, the artist had a great admiration for sacred art, present in his production in the most diverse eras. In this context, The Virgin with the Child Jesus was one of the most worked on by Brecheret, having been made in different compositions and materials. In Virgem (c. 1923-1925), he innovates the iconographic tradition, placing the Virgin on his knees, building a complex set of curves and counter-curves, which dance under the action of light on the polished metal.

The Cavalos relief (c. 1953) brings the model of one of the travertine marble panels that cover the entrance facades of the Jockey Club of São Paulo, where the artist carried out a true saga of racehorses, their life cycle, of victories and end of career. In the piece presented at the exhibition, the volumes combine the tension and the furor of competition with the exaltation of the elegance and beauty of the animals.

Finally, the set of drawings presented in the exhibition has a unique quality and condition, since many of them prefigure the sculptural work that would appear later. Três Graças (c. Early 1930s), in a pen and paper version, is one of these examples. The drawing exudes the freshness of subconscious appearances, as a first expression that will later assume three-dimensional materiality in the sculptural work.

San Michelle (c. 1916), a portrait of Saint Michael the Archangel, is one of the highlights of the nucleus. It is a drawing, previously unheard of, produced by the artist during his formation in Rome. The essay, made from an altar painting by Guido Reni, already foreshadows his great capacity and the artist's plastic look. “It impresses the ability of the faithful transcription of the painting and its ability, with the use of crayon alone, to be able to model the reliefs and depressions of the bodies, maintaining a tension and dynamism in the scene”, says Daisy.

The artist

Victor Brecheret was born on December 15, 1894 in Farnese di Castro, Italy, arriving as a boy in São Paulo, a city he adopted as his own. As a young man, he attended classes at the Lyceum of Arts and Crafts of São Paulo. At the age of 19, he left for Rome, coming into contact with the artistic avant-garde of the 1910s and 1920s. He was a disciple of Arturo Dazzi, who offered him technical training in modeling and the principles of human and animal anatomy. Even while on Italian soil, he was influenced by post-Auguste Rodin sculptors, such as Ivan Meštrović and Émile-Antoine Bourdelle.

Shortly after returning to Brazil, at the end of the First World War, he was discovered by young futurists, thirsty for the modernity of art and culture. Di Cavalcanti, Oswald de Andrade and Menotti Del Picchia were enchanted by the modernity of their sculptures. Along with Anita Malfatti, Brecheret came to be considered the precursor of Modernism in Brazil and the avant-garde thinking that culminated in the Modern Art Week of 1922, with the exhibition of 20 sculptures in the lobby and in the corridors of the Municipal Theater of São Paulo.

In 1921, the artist received a scholarship from the Pensionato Artístico from the Government of São Paulo and left for Paris, in a dream, to improve himself technically to create the Monument to the Flags – conceived in the previous year, presented until then only in model. While in Europe, the artist received the highest award from the French Republic, the title of Knight of the Legion of Honor of France. The designation placed him among the most important modern and avant-garde sculptors of the time, mainly in the eyes of Brazilian artists and intellectuals.

The commission for the execution of the Monument to the Flags by the Government of the State of São Paulo came only in 1936, after the defeat of São Paulo in the face of the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932. The monument exalted a feeling of pride before the State and the bandeirante expeditions. The artist dedicated himself to the realization of this project for almost 20 years, being considered his greatest work, which was completed in 1953, becoming one of the icons of the city.

In 1951, the artist was awarded the best national sculptor at the 1st Biennial of the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo. Brecheret passed away in the city of São Paulo, on December 17, 1955.