Collection Storage

The Museu Oscar Niemeyer has a collection of approximately 14,000 pieces, becoming a reference through its constant additions, which include acquisitions and various donations. The organization of the structure and the current functioning of the Museum are based on specific techniques and methods, aiming to achieve excellence in conservation whether in collecting, acquiring, storing, cataloging, packaging or conserving.

Architectural Design Study of Oscar Niemeyer, undated | Architecture | Felt pen on paper | 21.5 x 130.7 cm
Donation | Year of Acquisition: 2005
© Niemeyer, Oscar/ AUTVIS, Brasil, 2022

Oscar Niemeyer

Untitled (Architectural Project – Hotel – Main Restaurant Staircase), 1960 | Architecture | Graphite and ecoline ink on paper | 78 x 100 cm

Elgson Ribeiro Gomes

Facade study, undated | Architecture | Graphite and India ink on paper | 20.30 x 48.5 cm

Column of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo, 1950-2015 | Object/ Model/ Architecture| MDF | 128 x 45.5 x 25 cm

Vilanova Artigas

Londrina Bus Station, 1950-2015 | Object/ Model/ Architecture | Mixed technique
19 x 156 x 50.5 cm

Spiral Staircase – Bettega House, 1950-2015 | Object/ Model/ Architecture | Mixed technique | 116 x 77 x 77 cm

Facade Study, 1956 | Architecture | Gouache on paper | 20 x 43.5cm

Architecture

No sooner did the Oscar Niemeyer Museum open in November 2002 than it became a major urban landmark of Curitiba. Set next to an Araucaria grove and the modern Centro Cívico1 complex and initially named “Novo Museu,”2 the MON presents two distinct periods of Oscar Niemeyer’s output.

Architecture Oscar Niemeyer Collection

Oscar Niemeyer Museum Collection

No sooner did the Oscar Niemeyer Museum open in November 2002 than it became a major urban landmark of Curitiba. Set next to an Araucaria grove and the modern Centro Cívico(1) complex and initially named “Novo Museu,”(2) the MON presents two distinct periods of Oscar Niemeyer’s output. 

The horizontal section was designed in 1967 to house Instituto de Educação do Paraná(3); however, after construction reached completion in the 1970s, it was launched as Edifício Presidente Humberto Castelo Branco(4), it became home to Paraná state government secretariats. During the early 2000s, with architect and urban planner Jaime Lerner in the governor’s seat, the old building got re-signified, and a novel urban landmark designed by Niemeyer was added to the compound: an ample elevated exhibition room supported by a pilar that serves the purpose of a circulation tower. 

In the MON’s outdoor areas, one can breathe art, building technology and architecture. As a result, the Museum is held dear by Curitiba residents and tourists visiting the Paraná state capital, who make use of its expansive lawns and Burle Marx-designed Portuguese stone floors, its footbridge and free span – which may be taken as a natural extension of the woods and the city – as spaces of cultural expression and leisure. 

Over time, architecture has configured itself as a potential medium for other artforms, such as sculpture and painting. Thus, a museum focused on art, design and architecture enables a complex, critical reading of mutually complementary manifestations. For that reason, ever since its conception, the MON has also been a museum dedicated to architecture, featured in its building, the outdoor and indoor areas and the shows that temporarily take up its rooms. 

During its twenty years in existence, the Museum has hosted exhibits on the architectural oeuvres of Oscar Niemeyer, João Batista Vilanova Artigas, Frederico Kirchgässner and Jaime Lerner, among others. These have been times of delving into the subject and reflecting about professionals who somehow relate to the MON and the city that surrounds it. The show “Concurso como prática: a presença da arquitetura paranaense,”(5) held during the second half of 2021, prompted a deeper appreciation of the architectural output of our state and its reflections in Brazil and abroad. 

Upcoming exhibitions at the Museum will set out to broaden critical thinking regarding Brazilian architecture as well as perspectives on Latin America, Portugal and the Asian and African continents, which have significantly informed our architectural identity. Through this exhibition premise, the MON aims to affirm its national and international status as a space for critical discussion, knowledge-sharing and the promotion of good architecture and urban design work. 

A museum’s relevance does not stem solely from artwork contemplation, but also from the fostering of discussion and thought in ways that are always accessible to the general public. In the case of a museum that is also architecture-oriented, it is important to delve into contemporary subjects, ones that discuss the building, the city, and its connection with current issues such as sustainability, technology, innovation, mobility, and quality of life. 

Fábio Domingos Batista, architect and curator

1. Civic Center.
2. New Museum.
3. Paraná Institute of Education.
4. President Humberto Castelo Branco Building.
5. Contest as practice: the presence of Paraná architecture. 



Architecture on Exhibition

Gamblers at the bar, 1991 | Engraving | Lithogravure on paper, P.A | 36 x 29 cm

Poty Lazzarotto

Untitled, 1991 |  Engraving | Lithogravure on paper | 21 x 19.5 cm

Man on horseback,, 1989 |  Engraving | Lithogravure on paper, A.L, 4/4 | 26 x 19 cm

Human figure,, 1989 | Engraving | Lithogravure on paper | 26 x 19 cm

Untitled, 12-1-1943 | India ink and watercolor on paper | 16.8 x 23.2 cm

Untitled, 1942 | India ink and permanent ink on paper | 21.9 x 30.3 cm

Untitled, 12-1-1943 | India ink and watercolor on paper | 22 x 31.4 cm

Surroundings, 1960's | India ink on paper | 21.4 x 29.7 cm

Drunk on the railroad, 1960's | Drawing | India ink on paper | 21.8 x 27.9 cm

The sidewalk, 1942 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 22.7 x 12.2 cm

The rubber tapper,, 1950's | Drawing | Hydrographic ink on paper | 29.9 x 21.5 cm

Untitled (Zepelim), 1960's | Drawing | India ink on paper | 21.8 x 27.9 cm

Untitled, 1960's | Drawing | India ink on paper | 21.8 x 27.9 cm

Untitled, 1960's | Drawing | Hydrographic ink on paper | 30.5 x 22 cm

Untitled, 1967 | Drawing | India ink, watercolor and hydrographic ink on paper | 30.5 x 22 cm

Untitled, 1967 | Drawing | India ink, watercolor and hydrographic ink on paper | 12.8 x 20.1 cm

Native using pestle, 1967 | Drawing | India ink and watercolor on paper | 24.3 x 22 cm

Cyclist, 1971 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 29.7 x 41.9 cm

Newsboy “Mario Vermelho”, 1971 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 29.7 x 41.9 cm

Study for the illustration of “The colonel and the werewolf” by José Cândido de Carvalho, 1974 | Drawing | Charcoal on paper | 32.5 x 45.7 cm

Untitled (Engagement), 1971 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 21.8 x 31.8 cm

The coffee cycle (Illustration page 45 - INDÚSTRIA Magazine), 1976 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 29.7 x 21.5 cm

The essay (Illustration page 53 - INDÚSTRIA Magazine), 1976 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 29.3 x 22.2 cm

Untitled, 1976 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 45.1 x 30.8 cm

Study - The fisherman, 1970's | Drawing | Watercolor on paperl | 10.2 x 15.2 cm

Drover, 1976 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 14.6 x 11.8 cm

Curitiba Pubs, 1970's | Drawing | India ink on paper | 30.1 x 49.5 cm

Untitled, 1970's | Drawing | India ink on paper | 22.9 x 15.2 cm

Untitled, 1979/80 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 32.4 x 19.7 cm

S. João de Deus, 1982 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 31.8 x 22.2 cm

Untitled, 1980 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 26.8 x 41.9 cm

Untitled, 1997 | Engraving | Serigraphy on paper, P.E | 50 x 40 cm

The whistleblower,, 1988 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 44.8 x 38 cm

Untitled, 1990's | Desenho | Nanquim sobre papel | 29.6 x 20.3 cm

Sem título, Déc. 90 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 18 x 12.7 cm

Untitled, 1990's | Drawing | India ink on paper | 24.1 x 16.7 cm

Self Portrait, 1984 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 25.3 x 15 cm

Untitled, 1990's | Drawing | India ink on paper  | 24.1 x 16.7 cm

Pub, 1990's | Drawing | India ink and watercolor on paper | 15.5 x 10.5 cm

Untitled, 1948 | Engraving | Lithograph on paper, A.P 1/3 | 44 x 56 cm

Man on horseback, undated | Engraving | Lithograph on paper | 19 x 25.5 cm

The brake guard - Railroads, 1940's | Engraving | Metal engraving on paper | 13.5 x 18,7 cm

Big wagon, 1940's | Engraving | Metal engraving on paper | 5.6 x 20.4 cm

Scarecrows with pine trees, 1942 | Engraving | Metal engraving on paper | 21 x 20 cm

Bells, 1940's | Engraving | Metal engraving on paper, 15/20 | 20.2 x 23.8 cm

Norato Snake, 1994 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 20.2 x 12.5 cm

Tiradentes Square Commerce, 1971 | Drawing | India ink on paper | 29.7 x 41.9 cm

Pacu Street, 1980's | Drawing | India ink on paper | 23.2 x 31.8 cm

Cold, 1942 | Engraving | Metal engraving on paper, A.P | 19.5 x 32 cm

poty_pt-br.pdf

Whenever it happens that a museum incorporates an artist’s entire collection, as is the case with Poty Lazzarotto (Curitiba, 1924-1998), an undisputed icon of Paraná art history, this reflects the institution’s commitment not only to valuing local art, even though Poty is a national figure, but to setting itself apart as an institution by even further enhancing its representativeness. Such was the case with the Oscar Niemeyer Museum as it incorporated into its collections, in early 2022, a set of 4,478 pieces by Poty Lazzarotto.

Poty started his career in drawing and then delved into engraving, which he mastered and went on to create the first course in engraving at Museu de Arte de São Paulo. Much of his work is biographical, ranging from boyhood memories near train tracks and wagons to impressions of Curitiba residents and the settings they inhabit. 

Poty’s drawing and engraving work is straightforward and to the point. His trademark spontaneity has illustrated multiple Brazilian literary works, such as Euclides da Cunha’s Backlands and Guimarães Rosa’s The Devil to Pay in the Backlands. As could not have been otherwise, he portrayed the controversial Curitiba inhabitants featured in the tales of another Paraná icon, Dalton Trevisan. 

And as if his literary work wasn’t enough, Poty left his mark across Curitiba through his tile-and-apparent-concrete monuments or panels, a practice initiated with the 1953 panel Desenvolvimento histórico do Paraná, on 19 de Dezembro Square. Other instances of this output include panels on Nestor de Castro Lane, showcasing, on one side, a scene from a Curitiba which no longer exists, and on the other, the evolution of the city, born amid the pine trees, inhabited by immigrants, and rising to prominence with its urban design. 

The collection donated to the Oscar Niemeyer Museum spans that entire output. It gives us original artworks often reproduced in books and other publications on the artist, presents us with the drawings he made during his 1967 expedition to Xingu, and affords us a glimpse into the intimacy of a yet-largely unknown artist. It also features sketches, projects and studies, providing a glimpse into how his lines evolved from youth to maturity. As such, the collection provides truly ethnographic material on the artist. 

Donated to the MON by Poty Lazzarotto’s family, the collection obviously also comprises finished works, drawings, woodcuts, lithographs, metal engraving, carved wood pieces and concrete blocks: thousands of pieces that clearly attest to the artist’s polyvalence. 

Through Poty, we become aware of the art that was and is made in Paraná. Protecting not only this artist’s legacy, but his memory, is a duty, first and foremost. And that job has now been taken on and properly fulfilled by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum.

The works of the Poty Lazzarotto Collection were donated to MON, in 2021, by João Lazzarotto, the artist's brother.

Collection Storage

Oscar Niemeyer Museum

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