Maria Martins
Subtitle: tropical fictions
By: edited and curated by Isabella Rjeille ; adjunt curator : Fernanda Lopes ; texts by Alyce Mahon [and others]
Contributors: Mahon, Alyce, writer of supplementary textual content; Lopes, Fernanda, curator; Rjeille, Isabella, curator, editor; Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo. host institution
Publisher: Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo; Museu de Arte de São Paulo/KMEC Books
Published: 2021
Place of publication: Sao Paulo
Language: por; eng
Number of pages: 295
ISBN-13: 9786557770108
Subjects: Exhibitions; Criticism and interpretation; Surrealism; Sculptors; Biography
Other titles: Tropical fictions
Description: Maria Martins (Campanha, Minas Gerais, 1894- Rio de Janeiro, 1973) is a fundamental artist in the history of Brazilian Modernism, in the panorama of international Surrealism, and in the history of world art in the twentieth century. She is known for her bronze sculptures, drawings, and engravings depicting hybrid female figures, as well as myths from Amazonian Indigenous, Afro-Brazilian and Classical Antiquity origins. This is the largest exhibition dedicated to the artist, and at MASP it is part of the two-year program dedicated to Brazilian Histories in 2021-22. It was in the 1940s, after moving to the United States, that Maria Martins became better known as an artist and cultural intermediary, quickly obtaining a place in the international art circuit. The fact that she developed much of her work abroad prevented her from actively participating in Brazilian modernist movements. However, Martins did not fail to carry out her unique readings and contributions regarding a certain Brazilian visuality, which ended up giving her the epithet sculptor of the tropics.ʺ The artist sought references for her earliest works in Amazonian myths and some aspects of the Afro-Brazilian culture in an exchange with the trends of Brazilian Modernism in the first half of the twentieth century. However, from the mid-1940s onwards, she set aside a visuality commonly associated with Brazil and began to create her myths in bronze sculptures of medium and large dimensions.
Notes: Published on the occasion of the exhibition held Aug. 2021-Jan. 2022 at the Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 292-295).

In English.
Table of contents: title: Maria Martins at Museu de Arte Modern de São Paulo / Adriano Pedroso and Heitor Martins; title: Maria Martins Casa Roberto Marinho / Lauro Cavalcanti; title: Introduction Isabella Rjeille; title: Maria Martins: Tropical fictions / Isabella Rjeille; title: Do not forget that you cae from the tropics / Fernanda Lopes; title: The making of a myth: Maria Martins among the surrealistas in 1940s New York / Tirza True Latimer; title: Too many Marias / Beverly Adams; title: "My goddesses and my monsters" / Terri Geis; title: Forest Songs / Veronica Stigger; title: "The overwhelming abundance of life": Maria Martins and global surrealism / Alyce Mahon; title: Diplomacy in Bronze / Joanna Fiduccia; title: From New York and back to Rio de Janiero: Maria Martins and abstract art / Mariola V. Alvarez; title: Maria Martins: Between the Bienal de São Paulo and the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janiero / Marina Mazze Cerchiaro; title: Reporoductions of Works; title: Biographical note / Laura Cosendey; title: Exhibition checklist.