Candido Portinari

Candido Portinari

Son of Italian immigrants from the province of Vicenza, Cândido Portinari, here in his self portrait ….

… and on the bill … 5000 Cruzados

…. born in St. Paul in 1903.
Established artist already at the age of twenty years’, Portinari is not only Brazilian artist to have won the most internationally famous, but it is also one of the symbols of the most recognized and beloved artists in Brazil.
His painting is the result of a continuous evolution

passing from the picture … ..

… to the Allegory …

from the landscape …

… to the images of workers on the plantations …

… and the scenes of life ….

…. finally, to get closer to the Mexican murals.

One of the most famous works by Cândido Portinari is “War and Peace”, a series of 14-meter high panels …….

… that is the war not on the side of soldiers and weapons, but showing the suffering of the people.

Peace instead finds himself in tumblers, in games, in joy, in children.

The work for which he employs four years of work, has been exposed for more than half a century at the United Nations in New York, designed by another Brazilian, carioca architect Oscar Niemeyer.
The artist has never been able to see his greatest work on display at the UN because after its registration with the Brazilian Communist Party, the US government refused to grant him a visa.
After 57 years, “War and Peace” is back in Brazil and, after restoration, will be located in the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro, the only place where it was exposed before leaving for the United States and one of the few large enough to accommodate all mounted panels .
In 1962 Portinari exhibits 200 paintings in Italy, in Milan.

He died that same year, intoxicated by the lead content in the colors he used.

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