The Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON) is holding the exhibition “Life in Black and White: Drawings by Poty” in Morretes, on the coast of Paraná, curated by Ricardo Freire. It is a selection of 50 drawings that are part of the more than 4,000 works by the artist that are part of MON's permanent collection. The exhibition can be seen from June 13 at the Mirtillo Trombini Institute
“Poty Lazzarotto is one of the greatest names in Brazilian art, and his work carries the identity of Paraná in every stroke. Taking this collection to different regions of the state is a way of democratizing access to art, strengthening the sense of belonging and valuing local culture. It is our commitment to ensure that Poty's legacy goes beyond the walls of museums and reaches as many people as possible,” says the Secretary of State for Culture, Luciana Casagrande Pereira.
“Having been given the responsibility of guarding and preserving Poty Lazzarotto's precious legacy, the Oscar Niemeyer Museum has become a place of reference for this brilliant Brazilian artist,” says MON's director-president, Juliana Vosnika. “One of our missions now is to push the boundaries and make his work reach an ever larger and more diverse audience,” she says.
With strokes of ink, charcoal, shadow and hatching, this selection shows the pages of life in the hands of Poty Lazzarotto. “Through these drawings, we follow the almost always inevitable stages in the existence of the common man, but also the path of those who go outside the curve, the eccentrics, the sinners or transgressors, those who lose their way,” explains the curator.
The lack of color accompanies Poty's strokes, which are brief and synthetic, but also expressive and allow you to quickly capture the essence of the character. The drawings cover the artist's entire career, from his youth to recent times. They are studies for prints and illustrations or simply drawings to record everyday life.
MON Collection
On March 29, 2022, Curitiba's birthday - and, coincidentally, the birth date of the artist Poty Lazzarotto - MON received the largest collection ever donated to the institution: approximately 4,500 pieces.
This collection includes more than 3,000 drawings and 366 prints, as well as tapestries, carvings, serigraphs and sculptures, among others. The donation was made directly by the artist's brother, João Lazzarotto.
These works further enrich MON's collection, which has grown fivefold in recent years, consolidating the museum as one of the most important in Latin America.
More about Poty
Poty Lazzarotto (Curitiba, 1924-1998) began his career in drawing and then delved into printmaking, where he became a master and was the creator of the first printmaking course at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP). Much of his work is biographical, ranging from childhood memories of train tracks and wagons to records of people from Curitiba and the scenery they inhabit.
Poty is direct and straightforward in his drawings and prints. It was with this spontaneous characteristic that he illustrated various works of Brazilian literature, such as Os sertões, by Euclides da Cunha, and Grande Sertão: Veredas, by Guimarães Rosa. Nor could he have failed to bring to life the controversial Curitibanos portrayed in the short stories of another icon from Paraná, Dalton Trevisan.
As well as his presence in literature, Poty left his mark all over Curitiba through his monuments or tile and exposed concrete panels, a practice that began with the 1953 panel “Historical Development of Paraná” in Praça 19 de Dezembro. Other examples of this production are the panels on Travessa Nestor de Castro, in which he shows, on the one hand, the scene of a Curitiba that no longer exists, and, on the other, the evolution of the city, which arose in the middle of the pine forest, inhabited by immigrants, and which stands out in the field of urbanism.
Donated to the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, the collection covers his entire output. In it we can find originals often reproduced in books and other publications about the artist, we come into contact with the drawings he made on his expedition to the Xingu in 1967, and we enter the intimacy of an almost unknown Poty. In addition, we still find sketches, projects and studies, and we can see the evolution of his work, from his youth to his maturity. In this way, the collection constitutes real ethnographic material about the artist.
The collection is also made up, of course, of finished works, drawings, woodcuts, lithographs, metal engravings, wood carvings and concrete blocks: thousands of pieces that bear clear witness to the artist's versatility. Through Poty, we learn about the art that has been made and is being made in Paraná.
Preserving not only this artist's legacy, but also his memory, is above all a duty - a task that the Oscar Niemeyer Museum has taken on and adequately carried out.
