Rafael Cardoso (art historian)
Rafael Cardoso (born 4 June 1964) is a Brazilian art historian and writer. His published work includes numerous books and essays on the history of art and design in Brazil, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has also published four works of fiction, including "Entre as Mulheres" (2007) which first brought him to the attention of an international audience, particularly after its translation into German as "Sechzehn Frauen" (2013). His novel, "O Remanescente" (2016) was published simultaneously in Brazil, by Companhia das Letras, and Germany, by S. Fischer. Early life and education. Rafael Cardoso Denis was born  in Rio de Janeiro to a mixed cultural background. His father was a physician, born in France of Jewish German parents and immigrated to Brazil during the Second World War. His mother comes from a well-known literary family in Minas Gerais, being the niece of renowned Brazilian writer Lúcio Cardoso, author of "Crônica de Casa Assassinada" (1959), and Maria Helena Cardoso, also a noted writer. When Cardoso was five, his parents moved to the United States, and he was brought up mainly in Virginia. He attended college at the Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, from which he graduated Phi  Beta Kappa in 1985. He returned to Brazil shortly thereafter and obtained an MA in art history from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, going on to do a PhD in art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art, in London, from 1991 to 1995. Career. Cardoso’s first books of fiction and non-fiction appeared in 2000, and he has continually published both, since then. His first notable success was the design history textbook "Uma Introdução à História do Design", now in its third edition and widely used in Brazilian universities. He is well established as a historian  of art and design in Brazil, having authored numerous books and hundreds of essays and articles, as well as editing and translating works by John Ruskin and Vilém Flusser. In 2018, his book "A arte brasileira em 25 quadros" was made into a six-part series for Brazilian television channel Arte 1. His latest book "Modernity in Black and White" has been acclaimed as a groundbreaking account of modern art and modernism in Brazil. With "O Remanescente", Cardoso brought his fiction and non-fiction writing together for the first time. The book is a historical novel, based on true facts , and tells the story of his father's family's flight from Germany in the 1930s, their exile in France and eventual refuge in Brazil. The main character is the author's great-grandfather, Hugo Simon, a banker, socialist politician and art collector in Berlin, during the Weimar Republic, where he was a prominent cultural figure and briefly Minister of Finance of Prussia after the German Revolution of 1918-19. Cardoso pursued a full-time academic career from 1996 to 2012, working successively as a professor at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro and Universidade do Estado do Rio  de Janeiro, where he continues to serve as a member of the postgraduate faculty in art history. He has also held temporary teaching or research positions at Freie Universität Berlin, Universität Hamburg, Getty Research Institute, Institut national d'histoire de l'art and Yale University. Cardoso is also known for his work as a curator, having staged exhibitions of Brazilian art, both historical and contemporary. Among the major exhibitions he curated are: "Do Valongo à Favela: Imaginário e Periferia" (Museu de Arte do Rio, 2014), "Rio de Imagens: uma Paisagem em Construção" (Museu de Arte do Rio, 2013), "From the Margin to  the Edge: Brazilian Art and Design in the 21st Century" (Somerset House, London, 2012) and "Eliseu Visconti: a Modernidade Antecipada" (Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 2011). He has also written song lyrics, including the 1988 hit "Vamos Dançar" for Ed Motta & Conexão Japeri, and is co-author of the screenplay for the feature-length film "Maresia" (2016), together with director Marcos Guttmann and screenwriter Melanie Dimantas. He writes regularly for the Brazilian press and has been a columnist for the online magazine "Revista Pessoa" since 2017. Bibliography. Fiction. • "O Remanescente" (2016) [German edition, "Das Vermächtnis der Seidenraupen", S. Fischer  Verlag, 2016; Dutch edition, "De vlucht van de familie Simon", Nieuw Amsterdam, 2017; Portuguese edition, "O Remanescente", Compasso dos Ventos, 2018] • "Entre as Mulheres" (2007) [German edition, "Sechzehn Frauen: Geschichten aus Rio", S. Fischer Verlag, 2013; Spanish edition, "Dieciséis Mujeres", Alevosia, 2013] • "Controle Remoto" (2002) • "A Maneira Negra" (2000) [Italian edition, "Il falsario di Rio", Fabula, 2008]