The Lasar Segall Museum in Sao Paulo Shows the Artist's Paintings

Written by Ricardo Meireles Thursday, 10 May 2012 00:20

Sao Paulo, Brazil.- The Lasar Segall Museum in Sao Paulo presents a selection of paintings by Lasar Segall until June 26th. The exhibition features 20 paintings, many of which are not usually on show. The organization of this exhibition is not only chronological, but also critical, because it shows the great changes occurring in the artistic work of Lasar Segall, from his early work to the last production of the 1950's.

Segall was born in the city of Vilna, Lithuania, then dominated by Russia's Tsar Nicholas II. Son of a scribe of the Torah, the sacred text of Judaism, in 1906 the young Russian Jew left the Orthodox community of origins to his train as an artist in Germany. He attended both the Berlin Academy and Dusseldorf Academy before, in 1910, joining The Bridge Group, a precursor of German Expressionism. Soon recognized as representative of the second generation of Expressionists, young people who revolutionized the entire European artistic production, with its proposal for an art "inner truth". This period of his life, which includes the First World War, is of intense artistic militancy in Germany, with direct impact on the work of all artists. Segall lived and worked in Dresden until 1921, when he returned to Berlin, before, in late 1923, emigrating to Brazil.


In Sao Paulo, he approached the group of modernists. The desire for integration into the new world is reflected in changing the color of his canvases. In the first self-portrait done in Brazil, he paints the face of brown, brotherhood types of blacks and mulattos. In the following decades, the painting of Segall, a broad and deep influence on the Brazilian artistic milieu, promotes an exciting synthesis between his European heritage and the ability to look and live again. His painting elaborate and reflective culminates in portraits and landscapes of Campos do Jordao, in the intimacy of its mountains and forests of the shadows and silences.

The Lasar Segall Museum, designed by Jenny Klabin Segall (Lasar Segall's widow) - was created as a nonprofit civil association in 1967 by his sons and Oscar Mauricio Klabin Segall. The museum is installed in the former residence and studio of the artist, designed in 1932 by his brother in law, the Russian emigree architect Gregori Warchavchik. In 1985, the Museum Foundation was integrated into the Brazilian Institute of Museums (IBRAM,) within the Ministry of Culture, as a special unit. In addition to its museum collection, the Museum was established as a cultural center, offering programs of supervised visits, courses in printmaking, photography and creative writing, film projection, and still houses a large library specializing in the performing arts and photography. The Museum, as a federal agency, is supported by the Cultural Association of Friends of Museum Lasar Segall - ACAMLS, a nonprofit civil society, made possible by the collaboration of public and private institutions, and individuals who cooperate with the Museum. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.museusegall.org.br

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