an icon of Brazilian art exhibited in Paris

The self-portraits of Tarsila do Amaral: a Brazilian icon in Paris

Wrapped in a flamboyant red coat, a woman with dark makeup and hair pulled back in a bun faces us, straight and proud: it is Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973), in the trappings that Parisian social circles of the early 20th century knew him well. Enthroned in the heart of theexposition personal of the Brazilian painter Museum of Luxembourgin Paris, this self-portrait from 1923 seems to revive the memory of an artist who became an icon in the French capital, both through her work and her appearance. “In Paris, where people dress discreetly, Tarsila’s vanity caused a sensation” ; “We stood in ecstasy contemplating Tarsila’s masterpiece, which is her personality!” we then whisper in the aisles of the Théâtre du Trocadéro where some have encountered her.

Born in 1886 into a bourgeois family in the state of São Paulo at the head of a farm (agricultural coffee estate), the Brazilian aspiring to a life as an artist escapes from a marriage imposed in her country by traveling to France to study at the Julian school and take classes from eminent Cubist artists, such as Andre Lhote et Fernand Léger. As for many non-European artists, Paris, then the epicenter of modernity, represented in his eyes an essential step to begin his career, shape his identity and ensure his fame at the start of the 20th century.

Far from his country, Tarsila do Amaral understands that his character fascinates Westerners and plays on this exoticism with his self-portraits deliberately stylized – his most famous, painted in 1924, isolates his face from any context -, which will illustrate the covers of numerous catalogs of his exhibitions inaugurated in Paris (the first, in 1926). From her lipstick to her long earrings, including her colorful clothes, the young woman makes her appearance a standard-bearer for her native country, mixing the paragons of Parisian elegance – she is often seen draped in a Patou coat – the idealized image of an “authentic” and cosmopolitan Brazil.

An idealized Brazil, conducive to syncretism

While she established herself as an artist across the Atlantic at the end of the 1920s, Tarsila do Amaral traveled extensively between Paris et São Paulo. Among the self-portraits which complete his personal “mythology”, she simultaneously produces an image of the country where he grew up, and will soon become the major subject of his painting. As evidenced by Caipirinha (1923), a painting tinged with her Cubist influences in which she depicts herself as a child, playing in her garden in the Brazilian countryside.

During her stays in her country, Tarsila do Amaral began to paint the landscapes that had surrounded her since her childhood, and mixed within brightly colored canvases of urban buildings with abundant nature and animals drawn from indigenous beliefs. Like his Postcard (1929), whose motifs summarize his visual vocabulary cultivated since the beginning of the decade. The sea rubs shoulders with the cacti of the desert, the Sugarloaf Mountain, the tropical plants of the Amazon forest and the palm trees of southern Brazil, while an astonishing monkey in the hands of humans overlooks urban dwellings…

Co-founder of groupe des Cinq (The Group of Five) alongside four other Brazilian artists, the painter integrates the aesthetic codes encountered in Europe to reinvent them and initiate a new artistic modernity on the other side of the Atlantic. A pictorial hodgepodge which reflects a certain idealization of his national belonging but also the influence of discussions with his companion at the time, the poet Oswald de Andrade.

In his work The Anthropophagous Manifesto (1928), illustrated by the artist, the latter encourages Brazilian visual artists to “feed” on the European avant-gardes to “swallow” their own style and identity, deliberately employing images linked to cannibalism in his text. The work of Tarsila do Amaral is thus defined as “anthropophagous”, nourished both by his artistic training in Paris and his palpable nationalist convictions canvas after canvas.

Social realism: the late commitment of Tarsila do Amaral

In 1929, the modernist revival that nourished Brazil’s young artistic scene came to an abrupt interruption after the New York stock market crash and the military coup overthrowing the Old Republic in 1930. Financially impacted and revolted, Tarsila do Amaral then traveled to the Soviet Union, where she discovered socialist realism and in particular the committed work of Valentina Kulagina. His new political beliefs (and his stay in prison in 1932) had a profound impact on his work, which was completely transformed upon his return to Brazil in the mid-1930s.

The artist then opts for a colder chromatic palette, tinged with gray and ocher colors, and uses his brush in the service of the workers’ cause, in constant rebellion for more than a decade. His famous painting Workers (1933) is alone representative of this new artistic turn, also influenced in its imposing proportions by Mexican muralism (such as the painter Diego Rivera). Within a pyramidal composition that she borrows from Kulagina, the painter represents the faces of the workers encountered at São Paulofacing the viewer. Their distinct features allow the singularity of identities to stand out from the group.

Among the crowd of anonymous people are also found great figures of Brazil of the time, such as Gregory Warchavchikwho revolutionized the architecture of the city, or even the journalist Eneida de Moraesimprisoned with Tarsila do Amaral in Soviet Unionand the administrator of the farm family of the artist. If this painting testifies to a late commitment by the artist, she nevertheless moved away from this more political painting the following decade, returning to her abundant landscapes and her style influenced by the cubism of her early years.

“Tarsila do Amaral”, exhibition until February 2, 2025 at the Luxembourg Museum, Paris 6th.