Fulfilling its commitment to sharing its celebrated Adolpho Leirner Collection with international audiences, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will send the collection to Zurich for its debut European presentation at Haus Konstruktiv this November. The Leirner Collection is the most prestigious assemblage of post-World War II Brazilian art—encompassing the finest example of geometric abstraction in paintings, constructions, drawings, posters, and graphic materials by Brazil´s foremost artists, and yielding singular insight into the history of international Modernism. After acquiring the complete collection in 2007, the MFAH organized Dimensions of Constructive Art in Brazil, a groundbreaking, comprehensive exhibition of the material. Following a successful American presentation, the MFAH will send the exhibition to Haus Konstruktiv from November 19, 2009 through February 21, 2010, where it will be installed under the direction of Haus Konstruktiv director Dorothea Strauss.
Hélio Oiticica, Brazilian, 1937-1980. “Vermelho cortando o branco” (Red going through white), 1958, Oil on canvas. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Adolpho Leirner Collection of Brazilian Constructive Art, museum purchase with funds provided by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund © Projeto Hélio Oiticica
“The Leirner Collection represents a vital chapter of Modernism which has historically been unavailable to international audiences and scholars,” said MFAH director Dr. Peter C. Marzio. “When we acquired this unparalleled collection in 2007, it was with our full commitment to sharing these works broadly. We are particularly happy to work with Haus Konstruktiv to introduce the collection to Switzerland, the birthplace of Max Bill and other Concrete artists whose work and ideas were closely linked to those of the Brazilian avant garde.”
Conceived by Mari Carmen Ramírez, the Wortham Curator of Latin American Art at the MFAH, Dimensions of Constructive Art in Brazil: The Adolpho Leirner Collection traces the development of Brazilian constructive art from early experiments in geometric abstraction by Cícero Dias (1907-2003) and the influential teacher Samson Flexor (1907-1971), through the most cutting-edge and avant-garde artists and groups of the 1950s: the Grupo ruptura in São Paulo, and Grupo Frente in Rio de Janeiro. Artists represented in the collection include Waldemar Cordeiro (1925-1973), Mauricio Nogueira Lima, the brothers César (1939-) and Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980), and Lygia Pape (1929-2004). The Neo-concrete movement is also explored through works by Lygia Clark (1920-1988), and pieces by independent practitioners—Alfredo Volpi (1896-1988), Mira Schendel (1919-1988), and Sergio Camargo (1930-1990), among others.
The presentation is a major milestone in the MFAH´s long-term commitment to sharing the collection with broad international audiences. Select works have been presented occasionally in Europe, but this November marks the first time that the entire collection has been exhibited outside of Brazil or the United States. Haus Konstruktiv is the home of the Foundation for Constructive and Concrete Art, which is the only institution and one of the first in Europe to promote constructive, concrete, and conceptual art and design.
The Collector
The son of Polish Jewish immigrants who arrived in Brazil in the 1930s, Adolpho Leirner was born in 1935 in the city of São Paulo. In 1953 he went to England to study textile engineering and design. During his four-year stay, he became acquainted with the legacy of the international Constructivist movements of the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, he developed a passion for architecture and design. Upon his return to Brazil in the late 1950s, Leirner focused his attention on Brazilian decorative arts and contemporary art. In 1961 he bought the first work of what would later constitute his unique collection: Em vermelho [In Red] (1958) by the artist Milton Dacosta (1915-1988). Naturally drawn to Brazilian constructivism, he noticed its disappearance from the public´s attention in the 1960s, as the emergence of figure-based trends such as Pop Art flourished. At that point, Leirner decided to concentrate his collecting efforts on Brazilian geometric abstraction. Largely through his direct contact with living artists and influential dealers, he was able to systematically gather exemplary works of these key movements in his country.
Exhibition Catalogue
Upon acquiring the world-renowned Adolpho Leirner Collection of Brazilian Constructive Art in 2007, the MFAH presented a symposium, “Concretismo and Neoconcretismo: Fifty Years Later.” Building on a Construct brings together twelve essays by preeminent scholars and critics who spoke at the symposium, including an introduction by Nicolau Sevcenko; an essay by Alexandre Wollner on art and design; an essay by María Amalia García on Max Bill; an essay by Aracy Amaral on curating the 1977 Projeto Construtivo Brasilero exhibition; an essay by Luiz Camillo Osório on Abraham Palatnik; an essay by Rodrigo Naves on Alfredo Volpi; and texts by Héctor Olea and Francisco Alambert on art theory and criticism. Mari Carmen Ramírez writes on the use of color in Concretismo and Neoconcretismo. Of special note is that Alexander Wollner, one of the pioneers of modern graphic design in Brazil, has designed this book. The hardcover book will retail for $70, and will be available in the MFAH shop.
Latin American Art Department and the International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The mission of the Latin American Art Department and the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) is to collect, exhibit, research, and educate audiences on the diverse artistic production of Latin Americans and Latinos, which includes artists from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, as well as from the United States. With its Adolpho Leirner collection, the ICAA also strives to significantly expand the current state of research on Brazilian Constructivism by stimulating dialogue and debate on the subject by scholars, curators, and artists. The ICAA has established the Adolpho Leirner Curatorial Fellowship on Brazilian Constructive Art and the Adolpho Leirner Brazilian Constructive Art Annual Lecture Series.
The ICAA is the research arm of the Latin American Art department, which oversees research leading to special exhibitions, lectures, and symposia. It also heads the international collaborative undertaking Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art: A Digital Archive and Publications Project, which aims to make accessible writings by artists, critics, and curators from this region in both digital and book format. Additionally, a number of important works by artists such as Joaquín Torres-García, Armando Reverón, Xul Solar, Jesús Soto, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Alejandro Otero, Antonio Berni, Oscar Muñoz, León Ferrari, Gunther Gerszo, Beatriz González, Gego, Mira Schendel, and Julio Le Parc have been acquired for the collection.
MFAH Collections
Founded in 1900, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is the largest art museum in America south of Chicago, west of Washington, D.C., and east of Los Angeles. The encyclopedic collection of the MFAH numbers more than 57,000 works and embraces the art of antiquity to the present. Featured are the finest artistic examples of the major civilizations of Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Africa. Italian Renaissance paintings, French Impressionist works, photographs, American and European decorative arts, African and Pre-Columbian gold, American art, and European and American paintings and sculpture from post-1945 are particularly strong holdings. Recent additions to the collections include Rembrandt van Rijn´s Portrait of a Young Woman (1633), the Heiting Collection of Photography, a major suite of Gerhard Richter paintings, an array of important works by Jasper Johns, a rare, second-century Hellenistic bronze Head of Poseidon/Antigonos Doson, major canvases by 19th-century painters Gustave Courbet and J.M.W. Turner, distinguished work by the leading 20th- and 21st-century Latin American artists, and The Adolpho Leirner Collection of Brazilian Constructive Art.
www.mfah.org
