Rachel Vallego: The Print Donation

Newspaper ad published in 1973, by Collectio Gallery at the O Estado de São Paulo newspaper. “We do not have words to convince you to buy works of art, we only have works of art. May Auction, 15, 16 and 17, at 9 pm. Collectio Di Cavalcanti, mulata with flowers, oil on canvas.
The Print Donation from the Central Bank of Brazil to the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo
Starting from a print collection donated by the Central Bank of Brazil to the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo, this research aims to understand how the prints in question are deeply connected to the evolution of the art market and the consecration of Brazilian Modernism. The prints donated are late productions of some of the most distinguished Brazilian modernist artists, such as Di Cavalcanti, Tarsila do Amaral, Cicero Dias, Clóvis Graciano, Alfredo Volpi, among others, and were produced around the same time as the 50th anniversary of 1922 Week of Modern Art was celebrated. Analyzing the rescue of modernism alongside the outburst of Brazil’s art market during the 1970’s could help to explain how the movement was recovered as a symbol of national identity and canonized by the public opinion, and to widen our understanding of how the modernism narratives have been sparked to a new level ever since that period.
Rachel Vallego is a PhD student at the Post-Graduation Interunities Program in Aesthetics and Art History of the University of São Paulo (PGEHA USP) in the research field “Theory and Art Criticism”. Her research project is titled “The Print Donation from the Central Bank of Brazil to the Museum of Contemporary Art of University of São Paulo”. Vallego holds an MA in Theory and Art History from the Post-Graduation Program in Art of the University of Brasilia (UnB). She received the CAPES scholarship with a project titled “The Gallery Collectio of the Central Bank of Brazil – Paths of an Art Collection”.