Otavio Araujo

Octávio Araújo 1926, São Paulo 2015, São Paulo Biography Octávio Ferreira de Araújo (Terra Roxa, SP, 1926 - São Paulo, SP, 2015). Printmaker, painter, draughtsman, illustrator, graphic artist. He studied painting at the Escola Profissional Masculina do Brás, in São Paulo, with Edmundo Migliaccio and José Barchitta, between 1939 and 1943. Joins the Group of 19 in 1947. Two years later, he travelled to Paris, where he studied engraving at the École National Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and attended the Cabinet of Prints at the Musée du Louvre. He returned to Brazil in 1951, and the following year moved to Rio de Janeiro. Appointed by the painter Clóvis Graciano (1907-1988), he worked as an assistant to Candido Portinari (1903-1962). Won the engraving prize at the 1959 Salão Para Todos in Rio de Janeiro, he travelled to China. In 1960 he received a scholarship from the Répin Institute in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of the Soviet Union (now Russia). In 1961, he attended the Polygraphic Institute in Moscow. He remained in this city for eight years and worked as an illustrator of Latin American books, translator and dubber of documentaries. In 1972 the exhibition Octávio Araújo: 20 Years Later was held at the Assis Chateubriand São Paulo Art Museum (Masp) and in 1979 the book Octávio Ferreira de Araújo: 10 Years of Painting by José Roberto Teixeira Leite was published. Analysis In his paintings and engravings, Octávio Araújo reveals his interest in works by Flemish, German and Italian painters of the 15th and 16th centuries, sometimes drawing direct inspiration from figures taken from these works. Some scholars perceive in the artist's work an affinity with surrealism, mainly by the presentation of a oneiric atmosphere. According to him, his work aims to awaken an original atmosphere of mystery and magic in the spectator. In this sense, the figure of the woman is associated with the elements of nature. Araújo mixes, in the same composition, very different images, such as those of animals, objects, stairs or ruins, creating with them unexpected scenes. source: Itaú Cultural

Por: Galeria Gravura Brasileira