“The Restlessness of Imagination: Paintings by Chico da Silva and Ceramics by Francisco Brennand.”

Described by the New York Times as a “visionary artist” just being rediscovered, Da Silva is now rightly recognized for his unique and important contribution to Brazilian modernist art, as well as causing a reexamination of the role of the indigenous artist in art history. This rare group of paintings, many with their original or period frames, depict in vivid imagery the surrealist and mythological flora and fauna for which the artist is famous. Bright colors and highly detailed painting techniques reflect the artist’s deep appreciation and interaction with nature and the Amazon region. Animal figures, some real and most imagined, are often shown in various states of combat and torturous rapture, mixing popular cosmologies from the north of Brazil.
Da Silva was included in the 1966 Venice Biennial and was recently the subject of a major museum retrospective, “Chico Da Silva and The Pirambu Studio”, at the Pinacoteca de Sao Paulo in 2023.
Occupying an equally outsized position in twentieth century modernism in Brazil, Francisco Brennand began as a painter. However, on a trip to Europe in 1949 he discovered the works in ceramic of Picasso, Miro and other European artists and subsequently devoted himself solely to the medium of ceramics, which he had previously considered a minor medium.
Like Da Silva, Brennand’s art embraces nature, depicting flora and fauna also often in bright colors and as well of a surrealist or mythological nature, creating his own cosmologies surrounding the nature of existence. “Not only the artist, but every human being experiences a concern about the enigma of existence,” he said.
Additionally, like Da Silva, Brennand’s work appeared to exist outside the mainstream of twentieth century Brazilian modernism as exemplified by artists such Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark and others. Today, his ceramic works, many on a heroic scale and as seen at his intervention in the space at Ceramica Sao Joao, a former ceramics factory started by his father and now known as Oficina Brennand, are highly prized for their role and contribution to ceramics as an important artistic medium and to the ongoing reexamination of what constitutes twentieth century modernist Brazilian art.