Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism at the Royal Academy of Arts review

Brasil! Brasil! is an extensive look at ten important artists in a major new exhibition at the Royal Academy featuring feature over 130 works from the 1910s to the 1970s.

I have not had much exposure to Brazilian art but in spring of 2024 I saw a wonderfully diverse exhibition at the Raven Row Gallery in Spitalfields covering art made in Brazil from 1950’s – 1970s in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro and drew from four museums collections from São Paulo to Bahia to Rio. I went along to the Royal Academy with great expectations and was not disappointed.

Installation view of the 'Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism' exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (23 January - 21 April 2025). Photo © Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry. © Tarsita do Amaral S/A.

The premise is to demonstrate the result of different cultural figures who campaigned for Brazil to move away from the old-fashioned traditional forms of art that were rooted in the colonial (1500-1815) and Imperial (1815-89) periods before Brazil became a republic in 1889. As a young, ambitious and optimistic nation, Brazil wanted to create its own distinctive identity. It rejected European tastes for academic art and typical subjects such as historical allegories and religious scenes in favour of those that reflected and celebrated the country's cultural diversity. The mind-boggling diversity of Brazil comes from the influx of immigrant settlers that began during the colonial period. Portuguese colonists forcibly brought more than four million enslaved people from West Africa across the Atlantic, with the abolition of slavery only taking place in 1888. Later, significant populations of Italians, Japanese, Germans and Syrians settled in Brazil, further enriching its extraordinary ethnic diversity.

Despite desiring to reject the taste for European art many modernists lived and studied abroad, mainly in Europe or the US, they returned to Brazil determined to fashion a new artistic identity that looked inwards rather than outwards for inspiration. Aside from incorporating modern approaches to art, artists travelled across the country reflecting on the different peoples and places they encountered and integratedthem into their work. They created something fresh and distinctly Brazilian. This exhibition celebrates this sixty year period, revealing the gradual move from the representational to the abstract.

Installation view of the 'Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism' exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (23 January - 21 April 2025). Photo © Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry.

The majority of works in the exhibition will come from rarely seen Brazilian private collections and will be shown alongside those drawn from Brazilian public collections, most of which have never been exhibited in the UK.  

On one of those truly grey and wet winter London days it was a real joy to come to this exhibition and immerse oneself into the scenes of summery tropical life depicted in vibrant works of art. All while touching on serious topics of life in the favelas, large settlements due to immigrations, the destruction and horror of pogroms by Lasar Segall (demonstrating his concern with the suffering that was occurring in Europe at the outset of the Second World War), and portraits of the increasing numbers of mixed-race people.

The exhibition begins with reference to 1944 when the RovalAcademy of Arts hosted the first, and at the time, the largest exhibition of modern Brazilian art in the UK – ‘Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings’. Four stunning paintings by Lasar Segall, Tarsila do Amaral and Candido Portinari and three works by the landscape architect and artist Roberto Burle Mary have been reunited are displayed in the 1944 exhibition’s original location.

Installation view of the 'Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism' exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (23 January - 21 April 2025). Photo © Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry.

With the title Brasil! Brasil! one might have thought a far larger selection of artists would be on show but instead each room is dedicated to one artist, which in a sense allows the visitor to appreciate them individually, and meander around a curated selection of their work making this a very easy well-ordered exhibition to roam through.

Each room was introduced with font larger than the art on the walls explaining each individual artist, their impact on the art scene, people’s perception of their work at the time, as well as what influenced them and where they travelled to hone their art and where they first exhibited. Anita Malfatti (who is claimed to have spearheaded the evolution of the modernist movement) and Lasar Segall share the largest room. Tarsila do Amaral ‘s abstract geometric paintings of a Brazilian natural world are an uplifting fun blend of colour. A sight for sore eyes!

Vicente do Rego Monteiro,’s (1899-1970) work is very distinct in its form. He was known for blending indigenous Brazilian themes with European avant-garde influences, particularly Cubism and Art Deco. His paintings feature stylised , geometric figures inspired by Amazonian mythology and indigenous art using a typically earthy and muted colours. I could almost envisage his figures jumping off the page to become sculptures. For tennis fans there is “Tennis 1928”, oil on canvas which looks like it should be on the cover of a 1920’s Vogue magazine.

Installation view of the 'Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism' exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (23 January - 21 April 2025). Photo © Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry. © Instituto Pintora Djanira.

Candini Portinari (1903-1962), son of an Italian immigrant, had quite the international profile and received various high-profile commissions, including the War and Peace mural he created for the United Nations Headquarters in New York (1952-56). His portrait “Migrants 1944” is haunting and confronting as he addressed the large-scale migration of northeastern rural communities of Brazil who were forced to move to other parts of the country in search of work and better living conditions. Portinari captures in the macabre faces of the frozen figures. The rounded belly of a child in the painting speaks to the prevalent childhood illness caused by malnutrition.

The exhibition will also include the self-taught artists Alfredo Volpi and Djanira, an artist of indigenous descent, Afro-Brazilian artist Ruben Valentim, the early Neo-Concrete polymath Geraldo de Barros, and the artist and architect Flávio de Carvalho, who was also one of Brazil’s first performance artists.

Installation view of the 'Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism' exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (23 January - 21 April 2025). Photo © Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry. © Rubem Valentim.

The entire exhibition is beautifully hung with large, colourful geometric custom-made bench seats in the middle of the rooms. To counter the large-scale rooms of the Academy there are backlit panels mounted to frame clusters and pairs of work together to great effect. As always with the Royal Academy each room is its own unique and complementary colour making this exhibition quite the visual feast.

Whether this exhibition truly represents the Birth of Modernism with just 10 artists may be debatable for some but it is an enjoyable exhibition all the same.

Date:  28 January – 21 April 2025. Location: The Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1J 0BD. Price: from £23.50-£25.50
(including donation); concessions available; under 16s go free (T&Cs apply); Friends of the RA go free. 25 & under: 16 to 25-year-olds can access a half-price ticket (T&Cs apply). Book now.

Review by Natascha Milsom