Alberto da Veiga Guignard
Alberto da Veiga Guignard (25 February 1896 — 25 June 1962) was a Brazilian painter who became renowned for his depictions of the landscapes of Minas Gerais. Guignard was born in Nova Friburgo in the state of Rio de Janeiro. He was born with a cleft lip and palate. Guignard's father died when he was a child. His mother remarried and moved with Alberto to Germany to be with her new husband Friedrich von Schilgen, a baron. In Europe, Guignard began studying painting at the age of 11 and continued his studies for the next 22  years. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he studied with Herman Groeber and Adolf Engeler and visited Florence. After he returned to Brazil in 1929, he became an examplar of Brazilian Modernist painting alongside Candido Portinari, Ismael Nery and Cícero Dias. He became a mentor to painters such as Iberê Camargo, Vera Mindlin and Alcides da Rocha Miranda. In 1944, Guignard was invited by Juscelino Kubitschek, then mayor of Belo Horizonte, to establish a program for drawing and painting at the newly created Instituto de Belas Artes (now the Guignard University of Art of Minas Gerais ). He lived in Belo Horizonte until his death in 1962. Guignard had several exhibitions in Brazil. In 1953, he was honored with a retrospective in the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro and, in 1992, at the Museu Lasar Segall. His body was entombed in the Church of São Francisco de Assis in Ouro Preto. Record sale. In August 2015, his painting "Vaso de Flores" was sold for R$5.7 million, becoming the most expensive work of art by a Brazilian artist ever auctioned.