From book to museum: MAM São Paulo and the Mário de Andrade Library

He holds a master's and doctorate in Philosophy from FFLCH-USP. A professor in the Department of Arts at FAFICLA-PUC-SP, he is the chief curator of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo and coordinator of the research group in Art History, Criticism and Curatorship (CNPq). He has published numerous texts on art, including in the catalog. Schendel sight (Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Pinacoteca de São Paulo and Tate Modern, 2013). He was chief curator of the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture and Ecology (MuBE, 2016-2020), assistant curator of the Brazilian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and adjunct curator of the 8th Mercosur Biennial (2011).

He is a museologist and curator. He holds a degree in History and a master's degree in Museology from the University of São Paulo, where he worked as a researcher and curator at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo (2011-2019), organizing retrospectives. Rosana Paulino: Memory Sewing (2018-2019) and Marepe: Strangely Common (2019). He is currently a museologist at the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM São Paulo) and collaborates in the implementation of the museum's Documentation and Memory Center.

Arthur Luiz Piza was born in São Paulo, SP, Brazil (1928) and died in Paris, France (2017). He studied painting and fresco with Antonio Gomide and, from 1951 onwards, lived in Paris, where he perfected his metal engraving techniques. Although he also worked as a draftsman and sculptor, he excelled primarily as an engraver, establishing this language as a field of technical and chromatic experimentation. He innovated by deeply excavating the matrices, creating bas-reliefs that introduced different planes, volumes, and textures, expanding Brazilian printmaking toward geometric abstraction and the exploration of color and light. He received the Grand National Prize for Engraving at the 5th São Paulo Biennial (1959) and the David Bright Prize at the Venice Biennale (1966). Among his recent retrospectives, the highlights are The Engraving of Arthur Luiz Piza, Pinacoteca de São Paulo (2015), and Homage to Piza, MAM São Paulo (2018). MAM São Paulo has 94 of the artist's prints in its collection.

Alberto da Veiga Guignard was born in Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1896) and died in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil (1962). He studied painting in Europe, attending prestigious academies in Munich and Florence before returning to Brazil in 1929. He worked as a painter, draftsman, illustrator, and teacher, and is recognized as one of the great names of Brazilian modernism. His work is notable for its landscapes of Ouro Preto and other historical cities in Minas Gerais, where baroque churches, colonial houses, and festive balloons emerge in dreamlike and poetic atmospheres. He also produced portraits of family, friends, and cultural figures, remarkable for the delicacy of their lines and decorative richness. He was invited by the then mayor of Belo Horizonte, Juscelino Kubitschek, to direct the newly created School of Fine Arts (1944), where artists such as Amilcar de Castro and Lygia Clark studied. The institution was renamed the Guignard School after the artist's death. Among his recent retrospectives, highlights include Guignard: the plastic memory of modern Brazil, at MAM São Paulo (2015), and The Passion According to Guignard, at Palácio das Artes, Belo Horizonte (2024).

Antonio Henrique Amaral was born and died in São Paulo, SP, Brazil (1935–2015). He began his training at the MASP School (1952), and furthered his studies in engraving with Lívio Abramo at MAM São Paulo (1956). From the 1960s onwards, he approached the new figuration, incorporating elements of advertising, mass culture, and graffiti into works with a strong political charge. In this context, the banana became a striking image in his production. Frequently represented cut, tied, or pierced by knives, the fruit is used as a critical visual synthesis of the tensions of the military dictatorship, an economic and cultural metaphor for Brazil, or even an image with erotic connotations. In parallel, he also developed portraits marked by fragmented and distorted faces, exploring a more experimental and expressionist side of his painting. Among his recent exhibitions, highlights include Aglomeração – Antonio Henrique Amaral, Instituto Tomie Ohtake (2020), and Antonio Henrique Amaral: Pelo Avesso, Casa Triângulo (2021). He participated in numerous editions of the Panorama da Arte Brasileira (1969, 1970, 1973, 1976, 1979, 1980, 1983 and 1986). His works are part of collections such as MAM São Paulo, MAM Rio, Acervo Sesc de Arte and Itaú Cultural.

He studied at the Institute of Contemporary Art (IAC) in São Paulo with Lina Bo Bardi, and then at the Ulm School in Germany under Max Bill. He was a pioneer and central figure in modern graphic design in Brazil. In the 1950s, he joined the Rupture Group, drawing on the trends of concretism. He founded Form-Inform, the country's first design firm, and was one of the founders of the Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial (ESDI) in Rio de Janeiro. He produced posters, paintings, and drawings in abstract geometric style, as well as celebrated visual identity programs, such as the logos for companies like Itaú, Ultragás, Hering, and Philco. In 2010, he was awarded the Order of Ipiranga by the São Paulo State Government. His work was celebrated in the retrospective exhibition. Alex Wollner Brazil: Visual Design, at the Museu da Casa Brasileira (2019). Its photographic archive is preserved by the Instituto Moreira Salles.

He graduated from the National School of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro. Recognized as one of the greatest names in Brazilian art, he divided his production between painting, drawing, engraving, and muralism. His work addresses social and historical issues, highlighting symbolic themes and figures that shaped the national imagination, such as workers, migrants, children, and festive scenes. His compositions are marked by the expressive use of color, simplified figuration with strong graphic impact, and the synthesis of popular traditions and modern pictorial solutions. Through official commissions, he created several panels for public and government institutions, in dialogue with iconic modern architectural projects, such as the murals for the building Gustavo Capanema of 1943 in Rio de Janeiro, in which the idea of ​​art as a collective good is consummated. Among recent exhibitions, the following stand out In Portinari’s studio: 1920-45, MAM São Paulo (2011), and popular portinari, MASP (2016). His legacy is preserved by the Portinari Project, a reference in heritage conservation and artistic research in Brazil.

He graduated in architecture from the Polytechnic School of São Paulo, an experience that was reflected in his artistic career through his attention to spatial rationality and formal balance in compositions. A theorist of functional architecture in Brazil and co-founder of the Club of Modern Artists (CAM), he was part of the São Paulo modernist movement of the 1930s. As a painter and printmaker, he developed a body of work permeated by social and urban concerns, depicting workers, crowds, transportation, factories, and scenes of the modern city. His works combine technical architectural procedures with a constructive geometric synthesis, unfolding into a singular artistic language that seeks to reconcile form, space, and content. His work is included in the collections of MAM Sao Paulo, the State Art Gallery, MASP and the Institute of Brazilian Studies at USP.

Di Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil (1897) and died in São Paulo, SP, Brazil (1976). He graduated from the Largo São Francisco Law School (USP) and studied drawing and painting in Rio de Janeiro and Paris, where he encountered the European avant-garde movements, particularly Cubism and Expressionism, which influenced his artistic expression. A painter, illustrator, and muralist, he was a central figure in the 1922 Modern Art Week and created a body of work marked by the synthesis of intense color, robust volumes, sinuous design, and a play of light that emphasizes the atmosphere of his scenes. He allegorically represented elements of Brazilian culture, such as popular festivals, Carnival, music, and religion, as well as urban scenes that portrayed social and racial issues, such as the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, informal workers, and collective life in the cities, articulating modernist aesthetics with a critical perspective. He also created murals for public and private spaces, bringing his work closer to modern architecture. His trajectory was revisited in the exhibitions In the suburb of modernity – Di Cavalcanti 120 years, Pinacoteca of São Paulo (2017) and Di Cavalcanti, muralist, Tomie Ohtake Institute (2021).

He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Ghent, where he received academic training in painting and drawing. A key figure in politically oriented graphic art, he worked as an engraver and illustrator for newspapers and magazines. He was a pioneer in developing wordless woodcut visual novels, exploring social and political critique, the contradictions of capitalism, and the humanist ideal of justice. His work is marked by the strong influence of German Expressionism and the introduction of this language in Belgium with the group Les Cinq and the magazine LightThe dramatic use of black and white, with interplays of light and shadow, lends narrative tension and graphic impact to his compositions. In addition to engravings, he illustrated books by authors such as Thomas Mann and Émile Zola. His legacy was revisited in the retrospective. Frans Masereel, at the Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2022).

Franz Weissmann was born in Knittelfeld, Austria (1911) and died in Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil (2005). He arrived in Brazil in 1921 and studied at the National School of Fine Arts, which he abandoned due to its excessively academic character, complementing his training in studios and at the Escola do Parque in Belo Horizonte. He was a member of the Grupo Frente and one of the founders of Neoconcretism. He was one of the main innovators of Brazilian sculpture, developing a language of geometric abstraction marked by the use of metal sheets subjected to cuts, folds, and overlaps. His sculptures incorporate emptiness as an active element in the construction of form, articulating space and matter, and employ flat colors to intensify volumes, rhythms, and visual tensions. The artist also created large-scale works in squares and public buildings, conceiving works that not only occupy but redesign urban space. He participated in numerous editions of the Panorama of Brazilian Art (1972, 1975, 1981, 1985 and 2008) and was awarded prizes at the 3rd and 4th São Paulo Biennials (1955 and 1957). Among recent exhibitions, noteworthy are the retrospectives Franz Weissmann: the void as form, Itaú Cultural (2019), and Franz Weissmann: rhythm and movement, Casa França-Brasil (2023).

He arrived in Brazil in 1934 and studied graphic arts at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, taking woodcut and metal engraving classes with Carlos Oswald. In the 1940s, he produced figurative prints in Expressionist and Cubist styles, focusing on social themes. From 1953 onward, he dedicated himself to abstraction, developing a unique vocabulary in which colored planes and rhythmic lines create balanced tensions and luminous spatialities. His prints explore the synthesis between constructive rigor and poetic lyricism, distinguished by their formal clarity and the use of color as a structural element. He taught at the MAM São Paulo between 1954 and 1970 and taught courses in Brazil and abroad, in addition to publishing theoretical works of a pedagogical nature, such as Creativity and creative processes (1978). Among recent exhibitions, the following stand out: Fayga Ostrower: Tangible Imagination, Pinacoteca of São Paulo (2021) and Fayga Ostrower – Centenary, Museum of the Republic (2021).

One of the leading artists of the 20th century, he studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and gravitated towards Cubism, developing his own style characterized by the decomposition of forms into cylinders and tubular volumes, known as "tubism." Deeply influenced by industrial modernity, he translated machines, gears, human figures, and modern architecture into compositions of solid colors, firm contours, and circular dynamism. As a painter and illustrator, he explored the relationship between art, technology, and urban life, creating images of powerful graphic impact. A professor at Yale University in the United States, he passed on his vision to new generations. In 2009, the Pinacoteca de São Paulo presented Fernand Léger: Brazilian relationships and friendships, which highlighted his interaction with national artists.

He was a multifaceted artist who worked as a photographer, painter, illustrator, and furniture designer. He gained notoriety by promoting abstract photography in Brazil with Photoforms, a series in which he directly intervened in the negatives through cuts and overlays, creating images that transformed fragments of urban architecture into geometric and dynamic compositions. A member of the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante, he explored photography as an experimental field in dialogue with abstraction. He subsequently co-signed the Rupture Group, fundamental to the consolidation of concrete art in the country. In design, he founded the Unilabor cooperative and Hobjeto, pioneers in the creation of modern furniture for collective use. His career also includes participation in the Rex Group in the 1960s, where he explored approaches to pop art and new figuration. Recent exhibitions include Geraldo de Barros – Imagination, Construction and Memory, Itaú Cultural (2021), and Geraldo de Barros and Photography, Moreira Salles Institute (2014).

He began his artistic training with Enrico Vio and later graduated in industrial chemistry from the Mackenzie Institute. In 1954, he founded the Graphic Design Studio with Willys de Castro, developing visual identity projects for publications and exhibition posters. His artistic research explored the dynamic possibilities of form, creating illusions of three-dimensionality through the asymmetrical arrangement of vibrant chromatic fields. The artist stood out for his use of unusual formats in his paintings, often conceived as diamonds, hexagons, and circles. In the 1950s, he moved towards concrete art and, in 1959, joined the Neoconcrete Group in Rio de Janeiro. His last major retrospective, Hercules Barsotti: Non-Color Color, was organized by MAM São Paulo (2004).

He began his training at MAM Rio, in Ivan Serpa's studio. He is considered one of the greatest artists in the history of Brazilian art, with color, spatiality, and the incorporation of the public as an agent of the work as his main focuses. He was a signatory of the Neoconcrete Manifesto, advocating an art that transcended geometric rigidity and opened itself to sensory experience. His early works, Metaschemas, present colorful geometric shapes that dance on the two-dimensional surface, research that unfolded in penetrable, installations in which these same elements become three-dimensional, creating environments that require the active presence of the viewer to be realized. In the late 1960s, he approached Estação Primeira de Mangueira and designed the Parangolés, colorful capes and banners that transform the body and movement into a living work. In this context, he also conceived Tropicalia, an installation that became an icon of Brazilian art and gave its name to the cultural movement protesting the military regime. His work was revisited in the exhibition Hélio Oiticica: dance in my experience, a collaboration between MASP and MAM Rio (2020).

He initially studied law but abandoned his career to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, under the guidance of Gustave Moreau. An icon of 20th-century painting, he is considered the ultimate exponent of Fauvism, an avant-garde movement that championed the use of pure colors, intense contrasts, and formal freedom. His work is recognized for transforming color into an autonomous and structural element of composition, capable of generating rhythm and balance without relying on naturalistic representation. Late in his life, he developed a technique of cutouts and collages of colored paper, expanding his pictorial research to new dimensions of scale, texture, and spatiality. His work remains an essential reference for modern art, revisited in exhibitions such as Matisse: The Cut-Outs [Matisse: the cutouts] at MoMA, New York (2014), and the major retrospective Henri Matisse, Fondation Beyeler, Switzerland (2024).

He trained with the engraver Axl Leskoschek in 1946 and, since the 1950s, has established himself as one of the leading figures in abstraction and Brazilian art of the second half of the 20th century. He was the founder and leader of Grupo Frente, a landmark of Neoconcretism in the country, alongside artists such as Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Hélio Oiticica, and Abraham Palatnik. His abstract production is characterized by the use of flat geometric shapes, intense colors, and ordered compositions, which later unfolded into series with sharp curves and visual rhythms. A professor at the MAM in Rio de Janeiro since 1952, he trained generations of artists and was a pioneer in integrating children into museum practices, experiences reflected in his celebrated book. Growth and Creation (1954), written jointly with critic Mário Pedrosa. Among recent retrospectives, the following stand out: Ivan Serpa: the expression of concrete (CCBB, 2021) and Ivan Serpa: Documentary (IAC, 2023).

He studied art in Paris at the Académie Colarossi and the École des Beaux-Arts, interacting with artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. He is recognized as one of the key figures responsible for the renaissance of European tapestry in the 20th century, reclaiming its autonomy from painting and proposing a modern language inspired by medieval tradition. His tapestries are characterized by the use of broad weaves, large stitches, and vibrant colors, which reinforce the two-dimensionality and lend monumentality to the compositions. Recurring themes include nature, mythology, and the Christian apocalypse, conceived as large-scale works in dialogue with modern architecture. In addition to tapestry, he worked as a painter, ceramist, and book illustrator, always with expressive strokes and poetic imagination. His legacy is preserved by the Jean Lurçat Museum of Contemporary Tapestry in Angers, France, dedicated to the appreciation of modern and contemporary weaving.

A self-taught painter, he became known for his depiction of rural life in the interior of São Paulo. His work depicts open landscapes and scenes of everyday life in the countryside, such as crops, harvests, livestock, festivals, and community life. His work balances observation and imagination, with a style characterized by subverted proportions, intensified colors, and symbolic elements that bring the real scene closer to a universe of personal fantasy, making his paintings a unique testament to Brazilian popular culture. Recent exhibitions include highlights José Antônio da Silva: “I was born wrong and I am right”, Pinacoteca of São Paulo (2018) and José Antônio da Silva: painting Brazil, Iberê Camargo Foundation (2025). His legacy is preserved and disseminated by the José Antonio da Silva Museum of Primitivist Art, in São José do Rio Preto, SP, Brazil.

A self-taught artist, later trained at the Núcleo Bernardelli, he was a portraitist and landscape painter, but he became known primarily for his seascapes, the most significant expression of his work, inspired by his experience as a sailor on the Italian docks and in the Brazilian military. In them, he explored the relationship between horizon, sea, and sky through curved and diagonal lines that structure the composition, broad scales, and a precise use of light. In addition to seascapes, he excelled in portraits and self-portraits with geometric lines and restrained expression, in which figures appear synthesized, often in lateral or shadowy poses. He also produced singular still lifes, in which fruits, flowers, and objects appear fused with portraits or unconventional arrangements. Among his recent exhibitions, highlights include Pancetti: the poetics of the navy, Fiat House of Culture, Belo Horizonte (2017).

Lothar Charoux was born in Vienna, Austria (1912), and died in São Paulo, SP, Brazil (1987). He settled in Brazil in 1928 and studied at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios, where he also taught drawing. After an initial phase focused on portraits and landscapes, he began to explore abstract themes and co-founded, in 1952, the Grupo Ruptura, a leading group in Brazilian concretism. His work is characterized by lines crafted with light and visual rhythm, especially evident in his experiments that combine optical depth with geometric compositions. He founded the Associação de Artes Visuais Novas Tendências (1963) and was the subject of retrospectives at the MAM São Paulo and MAM Rio (1974). He participated in several editions of the Panorama of Brazilian Art (1969, 1970, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1979 and 1980), and in the first nine editions of the São Paulo Biennial (1951–1967).

She graduated in philosophy from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), and developed a solid career as an engraver, painter, sculptor, filmmaker, and teacher. She was a member of the Frente Group in the 1950s and subsequently signed the Neoconcrete Manifesto, becoming a leading figure in geometric abstraction in Brazil. Her abstractions explore the contrast between rigorously drawn lines and the organic grain of the wood, creating compositions with strong rhythm and luminosity. She expanded her work into sensory and participatory experimentation, as in her iconic performance installation. O ovo (1967), in which he invites the public to be “born” by breaking a paper membrane, and in the installations Tteias, in which golden threads stretched across the space produce ethereal volumes that transform according to the light and the viewer's movement. In the 1960s, he collaborated with Cinema Novo, creating posters and visual programming for famous films such as Dried lives e God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun, in addition to directing experimental short films. His work has received wide international recognition, with exhibitions such as Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms, Met Breuer, New York, (2017) and Lygia Pape: Weavers, Art Institute of Chicago, USA, (2023).

He studied at the Imperial School of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg and the Académie de La Palette in Paris. His work, characterized by poetic imagination and a dreamlike atmosphere, synthesizes in a singular style the influences of Expressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, and Surrealism. His compositions feature figures suspended in free spaces, articulated by intense colors and chromatic contrasts that produce lyricism and symbolic effect. Among his recurring themes are the Jewish life of his childhood, biblical narratives, love, music, and the circus world, always treated with strong doses of fantasy and visual metaphors. In addition to painting, he created stained glass, tapestries, ceramics, and illustrations for publications. His work continues to be highlighted internationally, with retrospectives such as Chagall, Albertina Museum, Vienna (2024) and Chagall: Fantasies for the Stage [Costumes for the Stage], Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2017). Nationally, his work was reviewed in the exhibition Marc Chagall: Dream of Love, at the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center (2022-23).

She began her artistic career studying sculpture with Oscar Jespers at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Belgium, and established herself as a sculptor, her work heavily influenced by surrealism and her contact with artists such as Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, and Max Ernst. Her work engages with both Brazilian traditions and the international avant-garde. Her sculptures, the most recognized part of her career, are characterized by organic forms and sinuous volumes that fuse the human body, natural elements, and mythical references, creating a hybrid language between the erotic, the dreamlike, and the symbolic. Working in bronze, marble, wood, and terracotta, the artist explored themes such as metamorphosis, Amazonian myths, eroticism, and feminine identity. In recent years, she has been celebrated in high-profile exhibitions, such as Maria Martins: metamorphoses, MAM São Paulo (2013), and Maria Martins: Imaginative desire, MASP (2021).

He began his artistic studies in the studio of sculptor Vicente Larocca and furthered his education with courses offered by the Sociedade Pró-Arte Moderna (SPAM). Along with Alfredo Volpi and others, he joined the Santa Helena Group, a collective of modernist painters of humble origins who shared studios in the building of the same name on Praça da Sé. The son of Portuguese immigrants from the Brás neighborhood, he dedicated himself primarily to capturing the rapid transformations of São Paulo from the perspective of the working classes. His urban landscapes are characterized by the use of intense colors, synthesized forms, and firm lines, in compositions that fuse social observation and artistic invention. He also distinguished himself as an illustrator of literary works, such as the tenement (1890), by Aluísio de Azevedo and Gabriela clove and cinnamon (1958), by Jorge Amado. His work remains one of the most sensitive testimonies of popular life in São Paulo in the 20th century, and is present in the collections of MAM Sao Paulo, from the State Art Gallery and from MAC USP.

He graduated from the Brás Professional Men's School, supplementing his education in the 1940s with classes and contacts with Oswaldo Goeldi and Lívio Abramo. He is one of the leading figures in modern Brazilian engraving. He worked as a newspaper illustrator before consolidating a prominent career marked by themes from the medieval and Renaissance imagination, populated by knights, mermaids, harpies, and hybrid beings. His style is defined by sinuous lines, dramatic contrasts of light and shadow, and a strong narrative charge that gives human expression to fantastical figures. He combines technical rigor with formal invention, creating a singular graphic universe of dark lyricism and poetic intensity. He has been celebrated in recent retrospectives as 100 years of Marcello Grassmann, Visual Arts Office of Unicamp (2025), and Marcelo Grassmann's Cabinet, Lasar Segall Museum, São Paulo (2025). His legacy is preserved by the Marcelo Grassmann Center, which promotes the Marcello Grassmann Graphic Arts Award, one of the main promoters of original projects in the field of engraving at a national level.

He briefly attended the National School of Fine Arts and, rejecting academicism, joined the Bernardelli Nucleus, an independent group of young artists seeking alternatives for teaching and practicing art in Brazil. Initially figurative, he was inspired by the School of Paris, working on landscapes, portraits, and still lifes with structural and modulated brushstrokes. Gradually, his painting took on a more geometric and constructive character, with figures synthesized by chromatic planes and simplified, structural forms. In the 1950s, he arrived at abstractionism, marked by rigorous compositions, geometric grids, and dense chromatic contrasts, in dialogue with Mondrian and Morandi. He was married for over three decades to the artist Maria Leontina, a key interlocutor in his production. His work is part of the collections of museums such as the MAM Sao Paulo, MAM Rio, Pinacoteca of São Paulo and MAC USP.

He arrived in Brazil as a child, graduated from the Mackenzie School of Business, and in 1909 returned to Italy, studying painting with Ettore Tito at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts. Settling in São Paulo from the 1920s onward, he made the city the central axis of his work, recording its transformations in atmospheres of solitude and estrangement. His landscapes, often conceived from the window of his studio, reveal dense planes, solid volumes, and sober chromatic hues, articulating drama and modernist formal rigor. He also produced portraits and still lifes, marked by off-center framing, strong color contrasts, and an introspective atmosphere. His major retrospective, Mick Carnicelli: São Paulo, landscape of the soul, was organized by MAM São Paulo in 2004, accompanied by the publication of the most comprehensive catalog dedicated to the artist.

She graduated from the Municipal School of Fine Arts in her city, under the guidance of Domenico Lazzarini. Her output was marked by drawing, painting, and printmaking. Her figurative works were strongly influenced by modernism, resulting in geometric compositions based primarily on symmetry and modular repetition. Her main themes derive from everyday life and the urban landscape, such as houses, streets, and human figures represented in rigid formal structures, interacting with formal architectural and abstract solutions. Her style combines vibrant colors, incisive lines, and curvilinear forms that, juxtaposed with orthogonal ones, create tensions between organicity and constructive rationality, reinforcing the work's plastic, expressive, and subjective character. Her legacy is preserved by the Odilla Mestriner Digital Museum, created by her family and celebrated by the Ribeirão Preto City Hall, which holds periodic exhibitions and tributes in her memory.

With a solid academic background in Belgium and France, he stood out as one of the pioneers of abstractionism in Brazil. He began his career with figurative paintings in a Cubist style, in which decomposed forms and delimited fields of color structure dramatic compositions, as in his series on the Passion of the Christ. Based in São Paulo from 1948 onwards, he transitioned to geometric abstraction, marked by constructive rigor, dynamic planes, and chromatic tensions, and later to the lyrical abstraction of organic forms, in which color, rhythm, and gesture predominate. In São Paulo, in 1951, he founded the Atelier-Abstração, an independent space dedicated to the research and teaching of geometric abstract art, which trained a generation of artists. He had a long relationship with the MAM São Paulo, where he participated in the inaugural exhibition. From Figurativism to Abstractionism (1949) and several collective and individual exhibitions, culminating in the major retrospective Samson Flexor: beyond modern (2022).

He studied Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where he encountered the European avant-garde movements of the early 20th century. One of the protagonists of the first phase of the MAM São Paulo's history, he was also a prominent painter and writer, as well as a prominent painter. An active participant in the 1922 Modern Art Week, Milliet was a leading figure in Brazilian modernism. His relationship with MAM began at the museum's inception, of which he was one of its most active creators and organizers. He was one of the founders and first president of ABCA (Brazilian Association of Art Critics). He served as MAM's second artistic director from 1952 to 1957, when he held the first Tarsila do Amaral retrospective. He also served as artistic director of the São Paulo Biennial from 1953 to 1958, overseeing its second, third, and fourth editions. A few years after his death in 1966, MAM organized an exhibition of his paintings, paying great tribute to his career and life. Sergio Milliet.

He studied painting and sculpture at the School of Fine Arts of Rio Grande do Sul and the National School of Fine Arts of Rio de Janeiro between 1944 and 1951. He later trained in Paris with the sculptor Ossip Zadkine. He is known for his figurative bronze sculptures, featuring robust forms and continuous curves, which explore the plasticity of the human figure in dense volumes and polished surfaces. His sculptural language emphasizes formal synthesis, expressive gestures, and the balance between monumentality and delicacy, as revealed by reclining figures, interconnected characters, and compositions that integrate body and space. He participated in the 1st (1951), 3rd (1955), and 7th São Paulo Biennial (1963), as well as the 6th Panorama of Brazilian Art (1974).

He graduated in engineering from the Polytechnic School of USP and earned a doctorate from ECA-USP, where he also taught photography and film. One of the greatest names in modern photography in Brazil, he began his career as an amateur and became a professional photographer at Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante, a period during which he recorded the urban growth of São Paulo from geometric and constructive angles, exploring light, shadow, and architectural planes. One of his most iconic series depicts the construction of Brasília, in which he captured the monumental construction site in direct dialogue with the forms of Oscar Niemeyer. In the 1960s and 1970s, he led the Farkas Caravan, a collective project that traveled the country producing 16mm films about communities far from major centers, portraying cultural practices and national realities that are rarely seen. In recent years, it has been the subject of solo exhibitions such as Thomaz Farkas: everyone, Moreira Salles Institute (2024) and Thomaz Farkas – DF, Museum of Image and Sound, São Paulo (2015).