Maria Helena Vieira da Silva
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva [ vi̯ɐi̯ɾɐ ðɐ silvɐ ] ( French Siert Marie -Hélène Vieira da Silva [ maʀi elɛn vjeʀa dasilva ]; born June 18, 1908 in Lisbon, † March 6, 1992 in Paris) was a Portuguese- French painter of abstract art and graphic, the international recognition gained.
Life
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva came from a wealthy Portuguese family who supported her artistic inclinations from childhood. In Lisbon, Vieira studied at the Academia de Belas Artes -. In 1928 she went to Paris, where she studied sculpture under Antoine Bourdelle and Despiau, but then, under the influence of Fernand Léger and Stanley William Hayter in 1929 started painting, whereupon 1930-1932 studies with Léger and Roger Bissière at the Académie Ranson joined. In 1929 she met the Hungarian painter Arpad Szenes ( 1897-1985 ), whom she married in 1930. 1930 provides for the first time from some of her paintings in Paris.
The artist lived ( except for the years 1940 to 1947, where she emigrated to Brazil) in Paris in 1956 and took the French nationality. She has won, among other prices on the São Paulo Biennial in 1961 and the first woman to French Grand Prix National des Arts in 1966. Nearly all European and American museums of rank have works by Maria Helena Vieira da Silva acquired.
Her work is characterized by the use of a line grid that creates a spatial component in its abstract images.
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva was a participant of the documenta 1 (1955), Documenta II (1959) and also the documenta III in Kassel in 1964.
In 1979 she is knighted in the Legion of Honor. Among other awards, it was selected in 1988 as an honorary member of the British Royal Academy of Arts.
Art
Were achieved early self-doubt, melancholy and dread important themes in the work da Silva, with which they grappled until her death.
The early work is characterized by surrealistic, figurative paintings with mythological references.
In Paris, the artist began with a series of spatial representations. Ausweglos translucent suites of rooms whose walls and ceilings are covered with a partially distorted checkerboard, interlace and entwine on unreal way. Is well recognized for its representation of a large library.
Over time, these images more and more lost their perspective and were finally applied to the flat, but no less deep, maze - images for which da Silva is known today. The viewer looks at a seemingly disordered tangle of lines and fields, wandering with eyes over the ridges, believes here and there spaces to detect and eventually ends up in a prominent area of bright light that appears as a breakthrough to another level.
The often moody artist saw death as a redemptive moment at the end of a life full of trials and tribulations to, longed him at all induced and accorded him a prominent position in her work. The older they were, and the closer they looked back to their own death, the lights, the labyrinth images were. The lines braid is thinner, as it breaks down and releases the view of the underlying light -free.
1992 in the last hours before her death, da Silva painted a series of four pictures. In it she illustrates her brush with death, depicted as a hooded figure with a long robe, but which is indicated in the typical da Silva irrisierenden painting only and reflows with the background. A look back, once again shows the perspectives and spatial perspectives of the past life. In the last image, the viewer is immediately on the threshold. Only a strip at the edge of the image, such as a door- frame, indicates that the last step is not done.
Works
- As Bandeiras Vermelhas (1939, 80 × 140 cm);
- História Trágico - Maritima (1944, 81.5 x 100 cm);
- O Passe Ante Invisível (1949-1951, 132 × 168 cm);
- O Quarto Cinzento (gray area, 1950, Tate Gallery, London, 65 × 92 cm);
- L' Allée Urichante (1955, 81 x 100 cm);
- Les Grandes Constructions (1956, 136 × 156.5 cm);
- Londres ( London, 1959, 162 × 146 cm );
- Country Grave (1966, 113.6 × 161 cm);
- Bibliotheque de Feu (1974, 158 × 178 cm);
- Composition (1952, Kunstmuseum Bern, 33 x 41 cm)
- Elevated Train, 1955