The exhibition “João Turin – life, work, art”, organized by historian and art critic José Roberto Teixeira Leite, will begin on June 06 in the main hall of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, in Curitiba.
One of the most important works of the Brazilian sculptor, made almost 100 years ago and remaining intact in a church of France, can now be seen in Brazil.
Art casting mounted especially to perform the works of Turin, technologically modern and environmentally friendly .
João Turin made his mark in the history of Brazilian art primarily by his animalistic sculptures. He stood out, above all, because of the jaguars, tigers, lions, snakes, dogs and other animals, wild or domestic, represented sometimes at rest and sometimes in fierce combats.
His talent for animalism was recognized early. Already during the course at the Academy of Brussels, Turin won awards in animal anatomy. In 1921, exhibiting at the Salon of Paris the sculpture of a dog in natural size, he was hailed by an anonymous writer as “a great sculptor of animals”.
Similarly, it was as an animalistic sculptor that he received the highest laurels of his career: a silver medal with Tiger treading on the snake, at the National Fine Arts Exhibition, 1944, and the gold medal, with The roar of the tiger, better known as Moonlight in the Hinterland, in 1947.
One of the highlights of the project to rescue the work of João Turin was the idea of telling his story, by means of a book. The challenge was accepted by historian and art critic José Roberto Teixeira Leite, who with his vast experience conducted the research and the writing of the material. The result can be seen in the work by the same name of the exhibition “Joao Turin – Life, Work, Art”, a 320 pages book, which tells the story of Turin – from the arrival of his family to Brazil from Italy, through his childhood and adolescence – when he discovered his gift for the arts – the years of study and work in Europe, to his return in 1922. The book brings true relics: old photos, documents, letters, drawings and paintings. The sculptures were photographed by the lens of Maringas Maciel, reaching the details of the works. Teixeira Leite highlights and examines aspects of the works of Turin, from the most obscure to the most awarded. The author also highlights the difficult periods, lived in Belgium and France, and later in Brazil. But João Turin’s passion for the arts never let him quit. Hence the importance of this recognition of him as one of the greatest sculptors Brazil has ever had.
More than 130 bronzes, including numerous never ever seen, made in the first Brazilian technologically modern and environmentally friendly artistic foundry. All to ensure an international standard and high quality of the castings.
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