A view from São Paulo: Abstraction and Society

Dame Barbara Hepworth, Figure (Nyanga)  1959–60

Hepworth said that when she was carving this sculpture she was preoccupied with ‘thoughts about Africa and the United Nations’, explaining that her concern for human suffering and dignity had on occasion lent a certain poignancy to her works. It was linked more specifically to her sense of sorrow after the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, when South African police opened fire on demonstrators, killing 69 people. The sculpture appears to represent a human head, heroic in stature and proportion, and emblematic of the universality of suffering.

Gallery label, November 2015

Fernand Léger, Leaves and Shell  1927

Léger’s paintings often celebrate machine-made objects and modern city life. But in the late 1920s he began to include natural forms in his work. The curving line down the left-hand side of the painting softens the underlying geometric structure of horizontal and vertical lines. It also acts as a link to the organic shapes of leaves and a shell. These naturalistic elements, with their streamlined shapes, are closely connected to the abstract parts of the image.

Gallery label, August 2019

Carmelo Arden Quin, Carres  1951

Lucio Fontana, Spatial Concept ‘Waiting’  1960

In 1959, Fontana began to cut the canvas, with dramatic perfection. These cuts (or tagli) were carefully pre-meditated but executed in an instant. Like the holes in some of his other canvases, they have the effect of drawing the viewer into space. In some, however, the punctures erupt from the surface carrying the force of the gesture towards the viewer in a way that is at once energetic and threatening. Although these actions have often been seen as violent, Fontana claimed ‘I have constructed, not destroyed.’

Gallery label, April 2009

Fernand Léger, Two Women Holding Flowers  1954

Léger often painted two women together. The pairing of figures allowed him to explore the shapes and patterns created by the symmetrical image. Here the women are seen with their limbs intertwined, relaxed and at ease. One holds a flower, a symbol of natural beauty and fertility. The figures are drawn as outlines on an abstract background of bright coloured rectangles, giving the painting a sense of energy and movement.

Gallery label, February 2020

Zilia Sánchez, The Amazons  1968

Josef Albers, Untitled Abstraction V  c.1945

Albers was fascinated by the nature of visual perception. The interlocking shapes of Untitled Abstraction V play with ideas of perspective and make it difficult to distinguish between foreground and background. In Germany, Albers taught at the Bauhaus school of art and design from 1923, and after the National-Socialist regime forced it to close in 1933 he carried its utopian ideas with him to a new teaching post at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. The Neoconcrete Manifesto, displayed in the vitrine below, mentions Albers as an important influence on the Brazilian movement.

Gallery label, January 2022

Georges Vantongerloo, No. 98 2478 Red/135 Green  1936

Vantongerloo was one of the pioneers of a mathematical approach to abstract art. The first number in the title,’No.98’, is the figure Vantongerloo gave the work in his own catalogue. The rest of the numbers represent units of space in the painting. The basic unit (1) is the white rectangle and green stripe on the left of the bottom row. The second and third spaces along are each equivalent to two of these rectangles. Adding these numbers (1, 2, 2) cumulatively results in 1, 3 (1 2), 5 (3 2) for the green stripe section. The red row works on the same principle to give 2,4,7,8.

Gallery label, June 2021

Saloua Raouda Choucair, Composition with Two Ovals  1951

Choucair is one of the few Lebanese artists of her generation devoted to geometric abstraction. Her approach developed in response to two distinct influences: Islamic art and the avant-garde art scene of Paris in the 1940s, where she was a student. Like many of her paintings, it uses the two basic elements of Islamic design – the straight line and the curve – as a starting point to create simple shapes which she places in rhythmic dialogue.

Gallery label, November 2015

Kazimir Malevich, Dynamic Suprematism  1915 or 1916

Malevich’s abstract paintings belong to the intense period of artistic experimentation that developed in a turbulent period of the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution. In 1915 Malevich abandoned figurative forms in favour of a purely creative experience of geometric abstraction. His first such work was a statement, as he painted a black square on a white canvas, marking a crucial moment for development of painting. Dynamic Suprematism belongs to a group of works he developed using clear geometric forms activated in space against a white background.

Gallery label, March 2022

Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, The Corridor  1950

Vieira da Silva was a key figure within the field of expressive abstraction in post-war Paris. However her work always retained a strong basis of reference to the visible world. Many of her paintings depict labyrinthine interior spaces, with complex or multiple lines of perspective. The elaborate mosaic and tiled surfaces recall the domestic architecture of her native Portugal. This picture was first exhibited in 1950 as The Corridor, but later became known as The Grey Room.

Gallery label, July 2012

Antoine Pevsner, Maquette of a Monument Symbolising the Liberation of the Spirit  1952

This is a model for a much larger work, Pevsner’s submission for an international sculpture competition. ‘The Unknown Political Prisoner’ was a monument commission organised by London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1952. Pevsner constructed the intricate organic form entirely from straight elements. He sought to create an abstract monument with an architectural presence and geometric design that could be seen in its entirety from any direction. The repeated lines are ‘a symbol of imprisonment. The motive floating in the abyss of the sphere emphasises the image of captivity; it becomes materialised in the shape of a cell.’

Gallery label, March 2022

Rubem Valentim, Emblem 70 No.2  1970

Nelson Leirner, Homage to Fontana II  1967

Homage to Fontana II is a playful tribute to Italian artist Lucio Fontana, who punctured or sliced canvases to create a new space beyond the surface of the painting. Leirner’s work replaces the cuts with zippers, revealing panels of differently coloured fabric. Originally, Leirner invited viewers to make their own reversible ‘cuts’ in the fabric by zipping and unzipping the panels. He planned to produce multiple versions of his Homage to Fontana works, to be sold at a very low cost. Leirner first exhibited at the 7th São Paulo Biennial in 1963. In 1969, he was one of several artists who boycotted the 10th Biennial to protest against the repressive actions of Brazil’s military dictatorship.

Gallery label, March 2022

Hélio Oiticica, B17 Glass Bólide 05 ‘Homage to Mondrian’  1965

Hélio Oiticica was interested in the physical properties and structure of colour. His Glass Bólides (fireballs) consist of large glass jars or containers. Oiticica dissolved colour pigment in water. He also applied it to coarse fabric. This work is dedicated to the Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian (1872–1944). Mondrian’s use of reduced colours and shapes was an influence on Oiticica, who at the time also experimented with wearable garments. Oiticica was one of several Brazilian artists who exhibited at Signals gallery.

Gallery label, May 2023

Ben Nicholson OM, Feb 2-54  1954

This painting is typical of Nicholson's still lifes of the early fifties with its overlapping forms, often transparent, but given body by accents of colour or pencil shading. The construction of these paintings is a development from his works of the mid-thirties in which Nicholson allowed the forms of earlier paintings to penetrate later reworkings. The surface has been rubbed down repeatedly and, in common with many other such works of the period, is smooth. The colour is applied both relatively freely in thin washes and precisely and opaquely. Nicholson received the Ulisse Award at the Venice Biennale later in 1954.

Gallery label, August 2004

Olle Baertling, Ardek  1963