Mira Schendel
Mira Schendel ( born June 7, 1919 in Zurich, † July 24, 1988 in São Paulo) was a Brazilian painter and poet.
Life and work
Schendel was born as Dagmar Myrrah Dub. She was the only daughter of a textile merchant Karl Leo Dub and his wife Ada Saveria ( born Büttner ). After the separation of the pair Mira moved with her mother to Milan, where she attended the Catholic University of Sacro Coure from 1936. In 1920 she was baptized Catholic at the behest of her mother. In 1939, she was forced to leave due to an anti-Jewish decree of Mussolini's fascist government college. She fled to an aunt in Sofia, then she joined the refugees, which traveled to Sarajevo. There she met Osip Hargesheimer, a Croatian Catholics, whom she married in 1941. With him and equipped with a Croatian passport in 1944, she moved with her mother to Milan, then the couple settled in Rome.
In 1949 she emigrated with her husband as a displaced person to Brazil and was registered on their arrival in Rio de Janeiro as Mirra Hergesheimer. In 1950 she started at her new place of residence Porto Alegre to paint. She had in October of the same year her first solo exhibition, taught painting and got contact with the circle of the Brazilian Modern by Lygia Clark (1920-1988) and Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980), who - influenced by European painting - with the geometric shapes abstraction experimented. However, Schendel joined any of the groups that formed around the concrete and constructive art in Brazil. She stood from 1951 several times at the Biennale of São Paulo, where she showed large leaves with writing work and drawings with Chinese calligraphy that were influenced by Zen Buddhism. In 1954 she met the German emigrant Knut Schendel know that the well-known bookstore Camuta operation in São Paulo and she later married. In 1957, her daughter Ada Clara, born their only child.
Schendel took part in the documenta 12 in Castle Wilhelm height and Aue- Pavilion with drawings, represented in the Museum Fridericianum with sculptures. "As a self-taught artist she used the reduced form of concrete language to explore the existential dimensions of the void, the ephemeral and the silence. Her works, which have partly " skulptürliche " elements are because of great poetic charisma [ ... ] "
Exhibitions
- 2009: Dimensions of constructive art in Brazil, House Constructive, Zurich
- 2009: Adolpho Leirner Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- 2009: Leon Ferrari & Mira Schendel: Tangled Alphabets, Museum of Modern Art, New York
- 2011: VIBRACIÓN: Modern Art from Latin America, Museum of Art, Bonn