Page 27 - Studio International - February 1965

Contemporary Brazilian painting and printmaking

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or by other factors. For the English public the exhibition
'Brazilian Art Today' at the Royal College of Art will
represent a crosscut through what is good-and some­
times not so good-in Brazilian art. But this exhibition
only includes living artists. and of these some important
ones are missing-for reasons of force majeure.
Though some painters-as for instance Portinari.
Guignard. Di Cavalcanti and Pancetti (of these only Di
Cavalcanti is still alive)-obtain very high prices on the
Brazilian art market. none of them have any significance
on the international market. For a time it seemed that
Portinari might become famous. but he was more a
status symbol for a certain influential group than a truly
great artist. and the qualities of Guignard or Pancetti
were of a more regional kind.
Contemporary painting in Brazil is still undergoing a
process of evolution and assimilation The only two
Brazilian painters who have attained an international
standing are Frans Krajcberg and Manabu Mabe-the
one born in Poland the other in Japan. It is a phenom­
enon similar to that of the United States: a great
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