Maria Martins (artist)

Maria Martins (born August 7, 1894 in Campanha , Minas Gerais , † March 27, 1973 in Rio de Janeiro ) was a Brazilian surrealist sculptor and engraver .

Life

Maria Martins: “O implacável” (The or The Inexorable), 1944, bronze

Maria Martins was born as Maria de Lourdes Alves and first studied music as the daughter of the later Senator and Justice Minister João Luís Alves and the pianist Fernandina de Faria Alves. She later studied with Oscar Jespers (1887–1970) in Belgium and then with Jacques Lipchitz (1891–1973) and Stanley William Hayter (1901–1988) in New York. She had a daughter with her first husband, the literary critic Otávio Tarquínio de Sousa (1989–1959). Her second marriage was in 1926 with the diplomat Carlos Martins, a childhood friend of Getúlio Vargas . Carlos Martins became Brazilian ambassador to the USA from 1939 , after which the family settled in New York.

“Teething forms bloom in space, in the rhythm of the drum of a movement that seems to be driven by attraction and fear at the same time. The Brazilian artist Maria Martins left the formalism of conventional plastic behind to develop a fantastic objectivity based on a reworking of the traditional mythology of the Amazon region, in which human, animal and plant forms interpenetrate in an osmotic dialogue between the diverse aspects of nature. "

As a frequent guest at Peggy Guggenheim's dinner parties , Martins was introduced to Michel Tapié, André Masson , Max Ernst , André Breton and Marcel Duchamp , among others . Duchamp and Maria Martins were then a couple from 1946 to 1951. She was his model for his work Étant Donnés (1944–66), and Duchamp dedicated several works to her, for example Paysage Fautif (1946).

In addition to her artistic activities, Martins is the author of a book on Nietzsche and has published texts on India and China during the Xinhai Revolution . She studied Zen Buddhism with Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki in Japan . Maria Martins helped with the preparations for the first São Paulo Biennale in 1951.

O impossivel (1945)

O impossivel is a well-known bronze by Maria Martins, which was exhibited posthumously at dOCUMENTA (13) .

"O impossivel, in which a male and a female figure face each other, separated and connected at the same time by a celebratory and almost cannibalic tentacle-like embrace - gives a movement of desire tangible form that is stretched between absence and presence, between attraction and repulsion."

Exhibitions (selection)

In October 1941 Maria (as an artist she signed her works with “Maria”) had her first solo exhibition in the Corcoran Gallery of Art . In 1942 she took part in the exhibition First Papers of Surrealism and in 1943 the exhibition Maria: New Sculptures and Mondrian : New paintings took place in the Curt Valentin Gallery, New York , which was very successful for her, while Mondrian did not sell anything. Martins then acquired the Broadway Boogie Woogie work from Mondrian to donate it to MoMA . In 1947 Martins participated in the Le surréalisme exhibition at the Maeght Gallery in Paris.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Maria Martins , entry in the Enciclopédia Itaú Cultural , accessed on January 16, 2018 (Portuguese)
2. ↑ ^{a b} Roberta Smith : Art in review , exhibition review April 10, 1998 on nytimes.com, accessed on January 16, 2018 (English)
3. ↑ issuu Maria Martins: the woman has lost her shadow , accessed on June 29, 2015 (English)
4. ↑ ^{a b c} dOCUMENTA (13). The accompanying book / The Guidebook. Catalog 3/3, Kassel 2012, ISBN 978-3-7757-2954-3 , p. 162
5. ↑ ^{a b} Bonhams lot 178 , accessed on June 29, 2015 (English)
6. ↑ Silas Martí: Maria Martins , exhibition review from January 4, 2013 on frieze.com, accessed on January 16, 2018 (English)
7. ↑ XXIV Bienal Maria Martins , accessed on June 30, 2015 (English)