Anita Malfatti

Lived from 1910 to 1914 in Germany, and attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, where she worked with painting, drawing and engraving. She left for New York in 1915 and studied at the Independent School of Arts. Back in São Paulo, in 1917, she held two individual exhibitions in wich she presented paintings, drawings and engravings that reflected all styles she had learned, but focusing mainly on the expressionist movement. She was criticized by Monteiro Lobato, but received support from young modernists interested in renewing the São Paulo's culture. Student of Pedro Alexandrino, painter of academic formation, during the year of 1919, little by little the artist would soften the virulence present in the her first works. Malfatti participated in the modern art week of 1922 and the following year she won a grant from the state artistic pensionato with wich she left to Paris, where she met with Brecheret and Di Cvalcanti. She participated in the revolutionary hall of 1931, in Rio de Janeiro, and was one of the founders of society pro-arte moderna (SPAM). Joined the paulista family of art in 1937. Later, in 1949, the São Paulo Museum of Art organized the first retrospective of her work. Anita Malfatti, important figure in the modernism, deliberately sought out a particular plastic expression. Influenced by cubism and expressionism, she gradually freed herself from any style, and devoted herself to drawing and engraving.

Source: Dan Galeria