Summary

presentation
MAM Debate: The Institution of Modernity

Cauê Alves, chief curator, MAM São Paulo

The 2025 MAM Debate takes place at a unique moment for the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM São Paulo), which is temporarily closed due to renovations at the Ibirapuera Park. Away from its main location, the museum has been developing a series of actions and exhibitions in partnership with various institutions, a program we call MAM in Motion. Among these is the 38th Panorama of Brazilian Art, inaugurated in 2024 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC USP) – an institution historically linked to MAM, created in 1963 from the donation of its initial collection. MAC USP has also generously hosted part of the MAM team, while MAM Education collaborates with a variety of activities and cultural mediation initiatives at the host museum. The São Paulo Biennial Foundation, which also originated from the MAM – responsible for its first six editions – recently housed the store and currently hosts another part of the museum's team at its headquarters. Furthermore, last July, the MAM presented part of its video collection at the Cinemateca Brasileira, another institution with which it shares a common history.

Founded in 1956, the Cinematheque originated from the Film Library of the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (MAM), which, since 1949, had brought together intellectuals, filmmakers, and artists to watch film screenings.

In celebration of its centenary, the Mário de Andrade Library (BMA), in addition to hosting the MAM Debate: The Institution of the Modern, collaborated on the exhibition From Book to Museum, which brought together the collections of the MAM and the BMA. This partnership also reflects long-standing relationships: Sérgio Milliet, director of the Library between 1943 and 1959, was involved in the establishment of the MAM and, as its artistic director, organized three São Paulo Biennials (second, third, and fourth), with the second edition being considered by critics as one of the best exhibitions of the 20th century. Alongside Maria Eugênio Franco, his work in the Library's Art Section, inaugurated in 1945, is the seed of discussions for the creation of a public collection of modern art. The drawings, prints, paintings, and artist's books collected by the BMA, along with the educational exhibitions organized to update the repertoire on European artistic avant-gardes, contributed to the training of numerous artists and to the visibility of modernist production.

More than just sharing an intellectual like Sérgio Milliet, the Library and the Museum complement each other in the dissemination and institutionalization of Brazilian and international modern art. It was in the Art Section of the then São Paulo Municipal Library, now the Mário de Andrade Library, that the modernist works donated by the American businessman Nelson Rockefeller were exhibited as an incentive for the creation of the MAM.

Back in 1938, ten years before the museum's founding, Sérgio Milliet published an article in the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo,1 in which he lamented the lack of a modern art museum in the city of São Paulo and, at the same time, pointed out the need for its creation.

The exhibition "From Book to Museum," on display during the MAM Debate 2025, is composed mostly of works from the 1940s and 1950s, a period of consolidation of modern art and spaces dedicated to it. The exhibition presents a carefully selected collection of modern books from the BMA collection, as well as works from the MAM São Paulo that reflect the tensions of Brazilian modern art production, which at that time entered into an intense dispute between abstraction and figuration. In 1949, this discussion was present in the museum's inaugural exhibition, "From Figurativism to Abstractionism," in its then neighboring headquarters of the Library, at Rua 7 de Abril, number 230.

Sérgio Milliet, who succeeded Rubens Borba de Moraes as director of the Library and inspired this edition of the MAM Debate, is present in the exhibition with two paintings of his own, and his work serves as a starting point for the design and organization of the event. The intellectual – who had already participated as a poet in the 1922 Modern Art Week and, as a critic, advocated for the free experimentation of modern artistic language – is the link between different generations of modernists. Milliet participated in the first modern art events in the capital until the consolidation of institutions dedicated to it, such as the MAM and the São Paulo Biennial.

Both the Museum and the Library share common origins: both were marked by ideologies that not only shaped their trajectories but also consolidated these spaces as centers for the dissemination of modern art. Since their inception, the institutions have held exhibitions, debates, and educational activities that have contributed to bringing new audiences closer to modern artistic production, aiming at the democratization of art. Reviewing the history of the institutionalization of modernism is also an opportunity to reflect on the imaginaries that characterized its protagonists, as well as on the works created in the 1940s and 1950s, a period of intense transformations that propelled modern art to become public and collective heritage.

This debate, held in the BMA auditorium, seeks to promote an exchange of ideas on the role of critics and artists, as well as the role of institutions in the consolidation and dissemination of modern art, connecting past and present and opening paths to new understandings of modern artistic production. Although libraries and museums have different functions, historically they were born together, sharing the mission of preserving, organizing, and mediating knowledge. Both are more than guardians of tangible and intangible heritage: they are spaces for encounter and learning, stimulating research, reflection, and imagination.

In its fourth edition, the MAM Debate: The Institution of the Modern aims to discuss the process of institutionalizing modernism around the mid-20th century, marked by the formation of the first public collections of modern art in São Paulo. Re-evaluating this past allows us to see the continuities and re-elaborate the actions of the idealizers and producers of the modernist narrative. It also allows us to understand the circulation, reception, and legitimation of modern art, situating them within a critical and contemporary perspective, since the art museum is an important part of this historical narrative.

The MAM Debate program brings together guests from different areas of criticism, curating, and academic research to highlight key elements for the debate on artistic modernism in Brazil, in dialogue with the memory and activities of MAM. The event was structured around two discussion panels, held throughout the afternoon.

The first panel, entitled "Characters and Stories between the MAM and the Mário de Andrade Library," aimed to revisit and discuss the role of central figures in the institutionalization of modernism in São Paulo, based on the connections between both institutions in the 1940s and 1950s. By highlighting the work of directors, critics, and collection organizers, as well as events in their surroundings, the panel sought to understand how individual decisions and special contexts contributed to the formation of public collections and the definition of a modern imaginary. In addition to figures like Sérgio Milliet, who articulated policies for the acquisition and dissemination of modern art, the work of Maria Eugênia Franco, responsible for the Art Section of the Library and for pioneering initiatives in exhibition and documentation, stands out in this context. Episodes such as the organization of educational exhibitions, the circulation of international exhibitions in São Paulo, and the incorporation of photographs and art books into institutional collections demonstrate the intertwining of curatorial and library science practices in the construction of a history of modern art, allowing for discussions on continuities, disputes, and legacies that are still present.

The second panel, entitled "Circulation of Modern Art," addressed the flows of works, ideas, and narratives that shaped modernism between Brazil and abroad, examining the institutional networks responsible for its dissemination in the 1940s and 1950s. Considering everything from the entry of albums by important European modernist artists into national libraries such as the BMA (Brazilian Museum of Modern Art) to the international projection of Brazilian production, the panel discussed how modern art was presented, interpreted, and absorbed in different territories and cultural contexts. The analysis of these circulation regimes reveals both the formation of a cosmopolitan repertoire and the construction of a canon marked, for example, by the sparse presence of sociopolitical minorities and women artists in emerging collections. In this process, the aim was to explore the mechanisms of legitimation, participation, and exclusion that permeated the institutionalization of artistic modernity in the country.

In this edition of the MAM Debate, the central theme was the notion of institution – a concrete entity that has the power to institutionalize something, in the sense of formalizing and structuring actions. However, more than institutionalizing, MAM and BMA carried out instituting actions, that is, they went beyond what was already established and settled. The decisions made by these institutions and by the artists and critics of the time opened up a series of possibilities, meanings, and understandings that, in turn, are always unfinished, since they should never cease to be reviewed and debated. This is what this event proposed; and, certainly, it contributed to the establishment of other ways of perceiving and understanding the emergence, development, and consolidation of modernism.

1 MILLIET, Sérgio. “Modern Painting”. O Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, July 22, 1938.

Table 1: Characters and stories between the MAM and the BMA

Helouise Costa, Lisbeth Rebollo, Pedro Nery

Table 1: Characters and stories between the MAM and the BMA Sérgio Milliet, from the Library to the MAM São Paulo.

Lisbeth Rebollo Gonçalves, curator and professor emerita, PROLAM USP.

In the early 1930s, Milliet joined the group that conceived the Department of Culture, which would become the seed of the future Secretariat of Culture of the Municipality of São Paulo. This group included Paulo Duarte, Mário de Andrade, Antônio Carlos Couto de Barros, Rubens Borba de Morais, and Tácito de Almeida, among others.

Initially, Sérgio Milliet was tasked with directing the Historical and Social Documentation Division of the Department of Culture, which was created in 1935 and incorporated the Municipal Library. In this Division, he was responsible, for example, for supporting Lévi-Strauss's research expeditions among the Bororo people and for promoting various socioeconomic profile studies, with the participation of professors from the School of Sociology and Politics and students from the Law School of Largo São Francisco.

Another relevant fact about the Division is the Archive Journal which, through Milliet's actions, ceased to be a bureaucratic record-keeping space and became a journal open to information about culture, where texts on art were published, such as "Modern Painting" by Jean Maugüé, and "Painting and Mysticism" by Roger Bastide, both French professors who came to Brazil to teach at the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH) – newly created in 1934 and in which, in its early days, Milliet promoted contact between the artistic community and the European masters who came to São Paulo.

Following this experience comes the significant moment we are interested in highlighting: Sérgio Milliet's contribution as director of the Municipal Library, which was transformed into a space of fundamental importance for the culture of São Paulo and Brazil.

With the change of mayor (Fábio Prado leaving and Prestes Maia taking office), Sérgio Milliet was transferred, in 1942, to the Library Division. He then became the director of the Municipal Public Library, now called the Mário de Andrade Library. The building in Praça Dom José Gaspar, designed by Jacques Pilon, had just been inaugurated when he took office.

While directing the Library, Milliet faced budget and staffing constraints, despite the inauguration speech presenting it as a highly relevant institution for the country and the state. Even under difficult budgetary conditions, Milliet developed a dynamic project, organizing a Rare Books Section and a Microfilming Section, reorganizing the Circulating Books Section, and creating the Art Section. In the Library's auditorium, he promoted lecture series on various topics in the humanities and on art, at a time when there were clashes between academic art and modern art. Milliet initiated the publication of the Bibliographic Bulletin (which later became the Municipal Library Magazine). Furthermore, he established an exchange program with the Library of Paris.

We will give special emphasis to the Art Section, as it is important for the future of MAM São Paulo. Inaugurated on January 25, 1945, this Section was born from the intention of bringing together books in the field for the benefit of scholars and artists – there, it was possible to access catalogs, specialized magazines, books, reproductions of works of art illustrating the main avant-garde movements and original works by modern Brazilian artists. Milliet formed a collection and organized an archive of art documentation on paper, creating a collection of original drawings and engravings that were kept in folders, to which artists and researchers could have access. He also created a collection of modern Brazilian painting.

Together with her collaborator Maria Eugênia Franco, she organized educational exhibitions on modern artistic movements, presenting to the public and young artists the aesthetic changes introduced with modern art. In this way, she provided systematized information about modern art at a time when academics dominated the Art Salons and received government support for scholarships and awards. Milliet supported modern artists and young people seeking training outside academic spaces when this debate was crucial.

Under Milliet's leadership, the Municipal Library became the first public cultural center in Brazil. And there was another important achievement: he secured a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for the School of Sociology and Politics, where he was a professor, with the aim of creating a School of Library Science that would operate alongside the Municipal Library, allowing for the training of specialized professionals.

A year after the founding of the Art Section, critic Osório César, in an article for Folha da Noite, observed:² “its organization is one of the most perfect and modern of all that exist in the libraries of Europe and America.” And he describes:

The Section consists of a spacious and hygienic consultation room with a specialized library of visual arts. In this sector, there is a special cataloging system for art books, based on a dictionary-card system, which lists titles, authors, and subjects in alphabetical order, thus facilitating consultation. Relationship cards are also used to group related books and subjects… This idea was conceived by Sérgio Milliet and began with his donation to the Art Section of all his folders of valuable magazine and newspaper clippings. Another collection that has also been created and is growing considerably is the organization of original drawings, oil paintings, and watercolors… Now the Section is exhibiting its precious collection of original drawings by our greatest contemporary painters: Candido Portinari, Clóvis Graciano, Aldo Bonadei, Rebolo, Hilde Weber, Flávio de Carvalho, Pancetti, Walter Lewy, De Fiori, Figueira, Di Cavalcanti, etc. (Folha da Noite, São Paulo, February 21, 1946).

² Cited by: SPINELLI, João. In: REBOLLO GONÇALVES, Lisbeth (org.). Sérgio Milliet 100 anos. São Paulo: ABCA/Imprensa Oficial, 2004, p. 52.

It can be said that the Art Section offered the public, in a pioneering way, a systematic and up-to-date overview of the history of Western art and critical thought on art of the time, with a formative and informative focus, and, moreover, with the concern of building an artistic memory of the city, based on a collection of works. Milliet, as an art critic, always defended the need to create an organized action for the modern art that was emerging in the city of São Paulo. As early as 1938, he said:

The absence of a modern art museum in the city is sorely felt. If one existed in our capital […] perhaps the remarkable efforts of the painters and sculptors of the current Brazilian generation would not go without permanent record (“Modern Painting”. O Estado de São Paulo, July 22, 1938).

The idea for the Art Section is related to his desire for a modern art museum in the city of São Paulo.

Before discussing his work in creating the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (MAM), it's necessary to follow the timeline and observe his leadership of two associations: the Brazilian Association of Writers (ABDE) and the Brazilian Association of Art Critics (ABCA). In 1942, at the initiative of writers opposed to the Estado Novo regime, ABDE was founded in Rio de Janeiro.

Among its founders were Otávio Tarquínio de Sousa (president), Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Astrojildo Pereira, Graciliano Ramos, José Lins do Rego, Sérgio Milliet, Mário de Andrade, Oswald de Andrade, and Érico Veríssimo. In 1944, during World War II, ABDE decided to organize a congress at the Municipal Theater of São Paulo, which began on January 22, 1945. The opening of the event, presided over by Sérgio Milliet, was a demonstration of opposition to the Vargas government, contributing to deepening the regime's crisis. In his speech, the critic spoke of the importance of intellectuals taking a stand during difficult moments in political life.

Milliet was also linked to the emergence of another association that would bring important contacts to the future MAM São Paulo and its Biennial: ABCA. He attended the meetings in Paris, at UNESCO, in 1948, 1949 and 1950, when the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) was created.

In 1949, at the second meeting, when the proposed statutes of the AICA were presented, the creation of thirteen national sections was announced – one of them being the Brazilian section. That year, a Symposium was held in which Milliet presented a paper entitled "The Marginality of Modern Painting." In the text, he discusses modernity as a social process, with a pioneering vision for the time, using resources from sociological methodology and art history. His paper was presented in French and is located in the Archives de la Critique d'Art [Archives of Art Criticism], located in Rennes, France.

At this AICA meeting, where Paul Fierens was chosen as the first president, Milliet was appointed regional secretary for Latin America. Also serving as vice-presidents were: Lionello Venturi (Italy), James Johnson Sweeney (United States), Raymond Cogniat (France), Eric Newton (Great Britain), and Jorge

Juan Crespo de la Serna (Mexico) and Gerard Knuttel (Netherlands). Simone Gille-Delafon (France) was appointed as secretary-general and Walter Kern (Switzerland) as treasurer.

Milliet was the president of ABCA from 1949 to 1959, a position he held when the Extraordinary Congress of AICA took place in Brazil in 1959, on the occasion of the founding of Brasília, the country's new capital. The Congress was held in Brasília, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo, during the 4th São Paulo Biennial (1957), and was organized, with the support of Juscelino Kubitschek, by Mario Pedrosa and Mário Barata, around the theme "Brasília, synthesis of the arts".

While consolidating his work at the Library and participating in the creation of associations, Milliet was also involved in the project to create the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (MAM), an idea he had been advocating since 1938.

The project for a modern art museum in São Paulo

The idea of ​​creating a modern art museum in São Paulo had existed since the Department of Culture, conceived within the government structure. However, times were difficult, and there were no opportunities for the museum's creation within the public sector. An opening arose when, at the School of Sociology and Politics, where he also worked,³ he came into contact with American diplomats interested in closer ties with Brazil – especially Carleton Sprague Smith, who was the cultural attaché in São Paulo and had connections with Nelson Rockefeller.

Sérgio Milliet, along with Eduardo Kneese de Mello, acted as an intermediary between the Americans and the group of intellectuals and artists interested in the creation of the museum. During this period, many meetings of Brazilian intellectuals took place, with the participation of architects, artists, journalists, and other interested parties. Milliet was very active in this group.

The critic traveled to the United States in 1942, the same year that David Stevens, director of the Humanities Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, visited the School of Sociology and Politics. Milliet corresponded with Nelson Rockefeller, and they discussed the donation of a collection of works to encourage the creation of future modern art museums in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. For São Paulo, watercolors, gouaches, and oil paintings by Georg Grosz, Marc Chagall, André Masson, Fernand Léger, Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Byron Browne, Morris Graves, Jacob Lawrence, Arthur Ovsner, Robert Gwathmey, and Everett Spruce – artists selected by Alfred Barr and Dorothy Miller – would be offered. These works, given to the Brazilian public, were presented in an exhibition at the Art Section in November 1946. The artists whose works were donated were young Americans or Europeans who had gone into exile in the United States during the war, and the donation was intended to show the importance of that country, even then, in the context of Western culture. Regarding this donation, Rockefeller says in a letter to Milliet, written in French: “My intention, in giving some art objects to Brazil, is not to found a collection, nor to increase an existing collection, but to accelerate a latent momentum.”

And it mentions an agreement to be signed between the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (MAM São Paulo), the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art (MAM Rio), and the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA).

From 1946 onwards, many meetings were held at the Brazilian Institute of Architects (IAB), which holds the donated collection. Businessmen became involved in the project around this time. Assis Chateaubriand, founder of the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), was interested, as was Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho, who began to participate in the meetings.

Apparently, the decision to accept Matarazzo's support for the creation of the MAM (Museum of Modern Art) was made with American approval. At this time, Matarazzo and Yolanda Penteado began purchasing works for the collection. There was talk of handing the directorship of the museum over to Sérgio Milliet, but he could not hold the position concurrently with his current municipal job. They sought a director from outside Brazil, and the first choice was the Belgian Léon Degand.

In the catalog of the museum's first exhibition – From Figurativism to Abstractionism – there is a text by the director Léon Degand and Sergio Milliet. Milliet would always be linked to the life of this institution and would be a key figure in the Biennial, which was created as an international event of the museum, the first one taking place in 1951.

For Sérgio Milliet, this moment in cultural history and modern art is fruitful. He says in the press: "the spirit of freedom is striking".

In 1952, he obtained a license from the City Hall to dedicate himself to organizing the 2nd São Paulo Biennial – the one for the 4th Centenary – and the same would happen in the third and fourth editions.

In his role as artistic director, he considers it necessary not only to engage with contemporary art, but also to engage with the great treasures of modern art history; that is, to have knowledge of and direct contact with works and artists connected to the key moments in the trajectory of modern art in the 20th century. In a text written for the catalog of the 2nd Biennial, he expresses himself as follows:

Alongside abstract and concrete solutions, there are figurative solutions, as the Biennial presents a broad confrontation of trends. Alongside expressionism, which expresses itself through deformation, there is cubism, which delights in geometric construction. Alongside the attempt to paint dreams and reveal the unconscious world, there is the ambition to objectively describe the world of reality, social criticism, participation, escapism, fantasies, sciences—all the culture of our time, chaotic, contradictory, attractive and hostile at once, is reflected in this discussed and debatable art, almost always polemical, sometimes constructive, but alive, present, which we cannot ignore. (MILLIET, 1953, p.16)

Once again, its cultural practice demonstrates a concern for educational action, for the training and updating of information for artists and the public, in order to foster contemporary art. The museological plan that appeared in the Art Section finds space to consolidate itself into a museum and a biennial. The infrastructure for the action is now a reality.

In 1959, he decided to retire from his activities at the Library and left the direction of the Biennials. His presence in the cultural scene became less evident, although he continued as an advisor to the Visual Arts Area of ​​the São Paulo Biennial, making contacts abroad and receiving some missions with UNESCO. He also continued writing his column on art and literature for the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo. From the 1960s onwards, he wrote mainly about recalling his memories.4 He died on November 9, 1966.

³ He was secretary-general from 1933 to 1935, and a professor from 1937 to 1944.

4 Texts collected in the books Yesterday, Today, and Forever and Of Dogs, Cats, and People.

References

CANDIDO, Antonio. Introduction. In: Critical Diary. São Paulo: Martins/Edusp, 1981.

MILLIET, Sérgio. Painters and paintings. São Paulo: Martins, 1940.

________. Marginality of modern painting. São Paulo: Ed. Departamento de Cultura, 1942.

________. Painting almost always. Porto Alegre: Ed. Globo, 1944.

REBOLLO, Lisbeth Gonçalves. Sérgio Milliet, art critic. São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva/Edusp, 1992.

________. Sérgio Milliet, cultural manager. Lecture for the Institute of Advanced Studies at USP, December 1, 2017.

________ (ed.). Sérgio Milliet 100 Years. São Paulo: ABCA/Imprensa Oficial, 2004.

SPINELLI, João. Sérgio Milliet, the visionary behind modern art museums. In: REBOLLO

GONÇALVES, Lisbeth (ed.). Sérgio Milliet 100 Years. São Paulo: ABCA/Imprensa Oficial, 2004.

Table 1: Characters and stories between the MAM and the BMA Maria Eugênia Franco: the diffusion of modern art as institutional policy.

Helouise Costa, curator and professor, MAC USP

The initial actions of the Art Section of the São Paulo Municipal Library (BMSP), now the Mário de Andrade Library (BMA), and its subsequent collaboration with the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (MAM São Paulo) constitute a systematic and highly significant institutional effort to cultivate an audience and disseminate modern art in the city between the 1940s and 1950s. Created by Sérgio Milliet in 1945, the Art Section, which from the beginning was under the direction of Maria Eugênia Franco, assumed a central role in this process by organizing educational exhibitions with reproductions of works of art, later enhanced by the partnership established with MAM São Paulo. Franco combined criticism, pedagogy, and documentation to make modern art accessible to the public. This text argues that Maria Eugênia's importance remains underestimated by historiography and contends that her work was crucial in shaping the audience and institutionalizing modern art in São Paulo, as well as establishing new methodologies for what we now call cultural mediation.11

Background: Mário de Andrade and Sérgio Milliet

Mário de Andrade was emphatic in arguing about the importance of using reproductions as a way to democratize access to art in Brazil in his text "Popular Museums," published in 1938. The critic, who at the time was the director of the Department of Culture and Recreation of São Paulo, advocated for the creation of museums of reproductions and criticized the precarious state of local art museums.

What we can truly take from the Mona Lisa, its reproduction gives us. Let's be realistic. Instead of convoluted fine arts museums, full of genuine paintings by mediocre artists, let's open, with less money, popular museums of excellent reproductions made by mechanical means. With all the art schools represented by their greatest geniuses and their main works. Clear museums. Frank museums. Loyal museums.²

It is no coincidence that Sérgio Milliet, an art and literature critic appointed by Andrade to direct the BMSP in 1943, organized a permanent exhibition of reproductions of classical and modern paintings, in parallel with the formation of a collection of original works of art on paper by modern Brazilian artists.
Appointed director of the Municipal Library, the illustrious writer could not help but imbue his important department with an interest in the fine arts. Thus, with the support of Mayor Prestes Maia, he organized an interesting permanent exhibition of reproductions of famous paintings in the entrance hall of the large building on Rua da Consolação. The initiative is useful and demonstrates an intelligent understanding of the importance of libraries as practical instruments for cultural dissemination. Given our sad precarious state regarding museums, we cannot give the people the slightest opportunity for a more or less intimate contact with art. With its permanent display of good reproductions, the Library alleviates this lack.³

These initiatives were consolidated with the creation of the Art Section of the Municipal Library in 1945, whose direction Sérgio Milliet entrusted to the writer and art critic Maria Eugênia Franco.
The didactic exhibitions were conceived by Maria Eugênia Franco as educational journeys, in which reproductions were accompanied by explanatory texts, supporting bibliography, magazines, and additional iconographic material, all available for consultation on-site. They were aimed at both artists and those interested in art in general, who were still unfamiliar with modern art. Despite the scarcity of documentation on the exhibitions organized by the Art Section, we identified the exhibition "American Painting," inaugurated in October 1945, with reproductions accompanied by excerpts compiled from art history books. Also in the second half of the 1940s, the following exhibitions were held: Impressionist Painters, Schools of Modern Painting, Influence of the Post-Impressionists Cézanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh on Cubism, Fauvism, and Expressionism; Italian Renaissance and The Precursors of Contemporary French Painting.

In the introduction to his important work *Psychologie de l'Art*, André Malraux observes that the invention of color reproduction, making possible the appreciation and comparison of works of art distributed throughout the world's museums, "opened an unprecedented Imaginary Museum." This "museum," says Malraux, has had an extraordinary influence on the development of art studies, as it allows for the filling of gaps in the incomplete confrontation of works in real museums. In order to draw the attention of art scholars – so numerous in São Paulo today – to the undeniable importance of color reproductions, the Art Section of the Library decided to present, during the intervals between the preparation of didactic exhibitions, individual series of large-format reproductions and various albums. Exhibitions of reproductions have been held for a long time, in an effort to publicize the section's collection. By now placing them under the banner of the "Imaginary Museum," we only hope that the suggestive notion of the possibility of the existence of an ideal museum, within everyone's reach through the reproduction of works of art, will further stimulate artistic studies and visits to our reading room.

It is important to note that, for Maria Eugênia Franco, reproductions were not understood as simple substitutes for the original work, but as a pedagogical instrument loaded with great informative potential when properly contextualized. This approach shifted the library from its traditional role as a repository, repositioning it as an active institution, capable of producing meaning, guiding interpretations, and building repertoires.

1 Most of the reflections gathered in this presentation were developed in three previously published texts. See: COSTA, 2014; 2016; 2018.
2 ANDRADE, 1938.

Art Section and MAM in collaboration

The founding of MAM São Paulo led to some of the exhibitions organized by the Art Section of BMSP being conceived in direct dialogue with the museum's programming. It was believed that public access to both spaces would be facilitated by the proximity of the addresses where the two institutions operated.

Among the examples of this joint action, we highlight four exhibitions that we were able to identify. The first, already mentioned, was *Origins and Evolution of Picasso's Painting*, whose reproductions presented in the Library were complemented by a selection of the artist's works, existing in private collections in São Paulo, exhibited at the MAM São Paulo in November 1949. The exhibition *The Precursors of Contemporary French Painting* was organized by the BMSP simultaneously with the exhibition from France, *From Manet to Our Days*, held at the museum. Finally, *Abstractionism and its Creators* was conceived as a complement to the Exhibition of Avant-garde Artists of the magazine *Art d'aujourd'hui*, presented at the MAM São Paulo in November 1954.

The partnership between BMSP and MAM São Paulo also extended to the circulation of other educational materials acquired by the library. This was the case with *What is Modern Painting?*, one of the so-called "multiple circulating exhibitions" prepared and marketed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA).6 Exhibited both at BMSP and at the São Paulo Biennial, which at the time was organized by MAM São Paulo, the show contributed to reinforcing the convergence of objectives between the two institutions. We can say that the joint action of the Library and the Museum consolidated a model of cultural cooperation that was unprecedented in the city. The combination of the Library's educational exhibitions and the shows of original works at MAM São Paulo, with or without reproductions, enabled an integrated educational path, aimed at making modern art accessible and understandable to diverse audiences, also contributing to the maturation of the São Paulo art scene in the post-war period.

The value of reproductions in the post-World War II context.

Despite the depreciative assessment that can be made today about the use of reproductions for learning art history or for engaging with artworks, it is possible to see, through various sources, that these materials were highly valued in the post-World War II period, especially due to the then-recent advances in color printing techniques. We can cite, as an example, a newspaper article that points to the belief in the supposed power of reproductions to transform the entire art system in the long term, an assessment corroborated by...

by Sérgio Milliet:

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