Teresa Nazar: Freedom and Audacity in the Sixties

Teresa Nazar: Visual Reflections. Moments
Teresa Nazar was born on April 1, 1933 in Mendoza, Argentina. She elaborated … Teresa is a figurative artist who doesn’t compromise
died June 16, 2001 in São Paulo, the city she adopted and loved. with the abstract world… but she does seek for plastic correspondence
of active vibration and dynamic framing … all this favoring
Before coming to Brazil, she received in her hometown an
outstanding humanistic and artistic education at the Universidad
Nacional de Cuyo, which awarded her in 1961 a cultural On the same occasion, José Geraldo Vieira, Quirino da Silva,
a painting that is effortlessly built on an admirable spontaneity.” 4
exchange scholarship. The artist came to São Paulo to perfect Mário Schenberg and Sergio Milliet also exalted her first exhibition
in Brazil. Quirino da Silva wrote, in amazement: “her work
herself in lithography, studying at FAAP University with Marcelo
Grassmann and Darel Valença. This interchange made it possible is totally structured by a strong drawing that harmonizes with
for her, in addition to improving her engraving skills, to become refined coloring”. 5
the assistant to Professor Hebe de Carvalho at FAAP and be chosen José Geraldo Vieira added: “Teresa Nazar presents a figurative
to participate as guide at the 6th São Paulo International Biennial. objectivity on a majestic note…an intuitive proto-cubistic and also
These experiences and the direct contact with the most important expressionistic composition between Georges Braque and Rouault…”.
Thus, Vieira signaled the legacies and positive influences
artists who participated in this exhibition motivated her wish,
after her return to Argentina, to come back to São Paulo and stay of the great masters on the work of Teresa Nazar. 6
here. In an interview, Teresa Nazar explained the reason for her In the opinion of Sergio Milliet: “Teresa Nazar is commendable,
choice: “those were years of great political and social turmoil and above all, for her perfect knowledge of composition. A composition
that is undoubtedly geometric, but not cold, since it acquires,
in the capital a widespread cultural movement bloomed. Here I
aspired to express in paintings what I felt. It depended, however, through its preference for curves, a sensuality further enhanced
on various circumstances” 1
by the colors and her love for the subject. The serious nature of
To Vergniaud Gonçalves the artist added: “I hate routine. I like her art is also extremely sympathetic in this moment of so many
São Paulo also because, when I awake, I never know what is going aesthetic seductions. 7
to happen to me. I am discovering a new world.” 2
For Mário Schenberg, on the other hand: “Teresa Nazar’s painting
is associated with a figurative expressionism of a markedly
In 1962, the artist set up residence here definitively, installed
her studio and in 1965 she married Greek sculptor Nicolas Vlavianos,
with whom she had two children, Myrine and Gabriel. landscapes and people… color is still subordinated to the drawing
cubistic character…. This young artist has a vigorous view of
Since the beginning of her artistic career in Mendoza, Teresa and the composition of volumes….that stress the various planes
Nazar reconfigured plastically the representation of humanity. of her cubistic spaces, without constituting the main means of
In the beginning, showing solidarity, she portrayed significant expression.” 8
aspects of the culture of the Argentine Indians, her fellow citizens
forgotten by the public authorities. This phase was praised dual exhibition gather so much support and recognition of her
Rarely, not just in Brazil, did a plastic artist in her first indivi-
by the Mendoza newspaper “Los Andes”. This publication also technical, thematic, coloring and composition qualifications. In
emphasized her surprising mastery of technique, concluding: spite of the success of this and other exhibitions, which the artist
“notwithstanding her youth, one can already perceive in her presented in the main art galleries of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
compositions with Indian figures, the incorporation of some (Astreia, Atrium, Petite Galerie, Goeldi), the painter felt she could
elements that already indicate a personal style.” 3
not just stop in time and ease off, even with all this excellent
In addition to the Argentine art specialists, Brazilians also acknowledged
the extent of the technical composition and pictorial period. At this point, Teresa felt the urge to face new challenges
acceptance on the part of critics and major art collectors of that
skills of Teresa Nazar. Her first individual exhibition, held in the in her career. In an interview to a journalist, the painter stated:
old Selearte Gallery, was referenced by the critics of the major “In life, there is no sense in clinging to things. When you crave
São Paulo newspapers. Geraldo Ferraz, considered even today something new, you have to leave behind everything that came
one of Brazil’s most demanding critics, in addition to praising before.” 9
her technical skills, stated: “The young painter treats oil painting Though an accomplished artist with works being disputed
as a subject full of care, over rhythms and colors conscientiously by the main galleries and collectors of that time, Teresa Nazar,
in parallel to her artistic activities, developed a productive and
much lauded career as a Professor in the Plastic Arts Department
of FAAP, being considered, until today, one of the most respected
masters of this University. In a testimonial, among other artists,
Alex Vallauri emphasized the contribution of the drawing classes
given by Teresa Nazar, considering them of fundamental importance
to his artistic education.
Restless and daring, Teresa never conformed herself. She
felt that art is always on the move, in tune with the world and
humanity in permanent changes and mutations. Therefore, she
never accepted just repeating what was already attained and
structured in her plastic creations. Therefore, released, she sought
continuously the freeing means of thinking, viewing and making
art. Therefore, the painter distanced herself ever more from the
easy and repetitive solutions imposed by the still insipid South
American visual arts market. Until the end of her life, Nazar never
abdicated from her personal values and aesthetic convictions.
Free from proselytisms and the treacherous solutions of art, she
never embarked on the waves of fashion. She was only interested
in the expression and representation of the yearnings of a free
humanity, which also fought for liberty of life and art, the main
goals of her life.
Some art critics understood this new, creative moment of
Teresa, surprised at the speed of her progress in such a short
time. Many critics chose her and nominated her for important
collective exhibitions, along with some of the most significant
Brazilian plastic artists of the sixties.
Unafraid of erring, she progressed more and more in her research
of innovative materials and techniques. She definitively gave
up oil painting on an easel, looking for other unusual supports for
her new creations. After stating that artistic nomenclature and
classifications should be abolished and rejected, she defended the
free use of graphic, pictorial and sculptural elements in a single
piece of art, proclaiming a new era, a new moment in her career.
With unusual materials, Teresa idealized two new series. According
to critic Mário Schenberg, her new “world vision could
not be adequately transmitted by simple traditional graphic
and coloristic representation”. To him, starting in 1965, “Teresa
continued to make great progress. There was, above all, a radical
transformation in her thematic, which became extremely modern,
treated in a convincing way. Suffice it to mention her very
interesting series of pictures about the space flights, in which
she uses abundantly plates and other metallic elements as well
as objects. The vivid and suggestive treatment of the figures is
characteristic of her current phase. Also on the canvases with
everyday themes, such as women at the hairdresser’s, Teresa reveals
a capability of a very realistic and original pop capture and
an efficient artistic communication… Teresa Nazar’s outstanding
position at the forefront of São Paulo painting was consolidated
and her presence was already widely felt in the whole Brazilian
neo-realistic movement.” 10
In the Sixties, Teresa Nazar took part in the major manifestations
of the avant-garde of the plastic arts in Brazil: from the
first happening in São Paulo, together with Helio Oiticica, who
presented for the first time in São Paulo in this event the dancers
of the Escola de Samba da Mangueira, using their “Parangoles”;
from important exhibitions organized by Walter Zanoni in the
Contemporary Arts Museum of the São Paulo University and including
the São Paulo Biennials of 1965 and 1967. In the latter,
also known as the Pop Art Biennial, her works stood out due to
their formal audacity, uncommon technique and thematic, in
parallel to the innovative production of the US representation,
which on this occasion showed works of Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol,
Roy Lichtenstein and, among others, Robert Rauschenberg.
The search for new techniques and unusual materials was
the fundament of Teresa Nazar’s creative process in the Sixties.
Freedom, boundless audacity and innovation, especially surprising
for an artist who since the beginning of her career mastered
the traditional techniques of drawing and oil painting, led to an
irreverent form, far from the conventionalisms of artistic representation
at a difficult time in the history of Brazil, in the midst of a
military dictatorship. She thus set in the present and questioned
eloquently in her works humanity’s permanent equation: reason
vs. emotion, in face of an ever more robotized machinery in the
ordinary citizen’s day-to-day life.
When asked about the influences of Pop-Art on her plastic
production, Teresa Nazar replied: “For me, art is universal, has no
boundaries”, reaffirming once again the first item of the Declaration
of Basic Principles of the Brazilian Avant-Garde.
João J. Spinelli
1 Silva, Quirino da. Teresa Nazar. Diário da Noite. São Paulo July 13, 1961
2 Gonçalves, Vergniaud. São Paulo fascinates artists from other lands. Shopping
News. São Paulo, July 23, 1963.
3 Newspaper Los Andes. Tereza Nazar exhibits oils. Mendoza, August 13, 1960.
4 Ferraz, Geraldo. An artist in the landscape. O Estado de São Paulo, March 22,
1963. P.7
5 Silva, Quirino da. Teresa Nazar, Folha de São Paulo, March 8, 1963, Second
section, p.2
6 Vieira, José Geraldo. Teresa Nazar, Folha de São Pulo, Marfch 12, 1963
7 Milliet, Sergio. Teresa Nazar. Folha de São Paulo, March 12, 1963
8 Schenberg, Mario. Teresa Nazar. Galeria Selearte. São Paulo, 1963
9 Gonçalves, Vergniaud. São Paulo fascinates artists from other lands. Shopping
News. São Paulo, July 23, 1963.
10 Schenberg, Mario. Teresa Nazar. Galeria Atrium. São Paulo, May 18, 1966
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