Galeria Nara Roesler is proud to announce the representation of the Estate of Amelia Toledo (1926–2017).
Galeria Nara Roesler is proud to announce the representation of the Estate of Amelia Toledo (1926–2017). Toledo is a leading figure of Brazilian art in the twentieth century, with a career spanning over five decades, marked by a beginning of distinctive engagements with constructive sculptural experimentations, and her subsequent development of iconic entwinements between the realm of art and nature. Toledo was first introduced to the field of Visual Arts at the end of the 1930s as she began frequenting Anita Malfatti’s studio, after which she undertook studies alongside Yoshiya Takaoka and Waldemar da Costa. Throughout her career, the artist made use of various different media and techniques, ranging from painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, to installations and jewelry designs, always maintaining a great deal of attention to material details and faktura in developing and manipulating her production. Her encounters with iconic figures of Brazilian Modern Art encouraged her to develop a multifaceted oeuvre, entwining diverse artistic languages, which further flourished through her contact with other artists of her generation including Mira Schendel, Tomie Ohtake, Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Pape. Amelia Toledo’s work resonates today more than ever through her continuous articulation of aesthetics and nature, ecology and form, stressing both the sophistication of design and the roughness of matter/materials.
According to critic and curator Agnaldo Farias, “the artist is agile in working with media ranging from drawings to installation, painting on the immaculate white of the paper, as well as on the rough expressivity of jute; from producing objects to be delicately manipulated by the public—let’s avoid the term ‘spectator’, which implies a passivity that is opposite to Amelia Toledo’s poetics—, also including delicate collections of things captured in nature—shells and stones—, to her works of public scale. Yes, it is prodigious, the artist is just as capable of producing intimate spaces, that can be experienced through a mere touch or a close gaze, as she is able of undertaking architectural endeavors and urban spaces.”
Another central pillar of Toledo’s work is color, an interest that notably manifests itself in her paintings, amongst other works. The artist explained her relationship with color as follows: “The presence of matter, of substance, becomes evident because I work with pigment, but it is also evident that it is opaque, it is matte, it is pigment. It is the gestures of color that progressively organize schemes through juxtaposition.” Critic and curator Moacir dos Anjos furthers this idea in saying that, “in her work, color transits freely from canvas to sculpture, and architectural space, taking shape through the world. Her paintings must be seen and thought of as skins. They are skins of color.”
Between 2004 and 2011, Galeria Nara Roesler represented Amelia Toledo, during which time the artist received ample critical acclaim with solo and group exhibitions at important institutions such as Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP), Instituto Itaú Cultural, Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (MNBA) and Paço das Artes, most of which now hold her works in their permanent collections; as well as her participation in the 29th Bienal de São Paulo. Most recently, her work was famously included in the exhibition Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985 at the Hammer Museum (2018), in Los Angeles (USA), with itinerancy at the Brooklyn Museum, New York/NY, USA and at Pinacoteca de São Paulo/SP, Brazil.
Galeria Nara Roesler held three major solo presentations of the artist’s work, including both retrospective and recent selections of works, while also participating in the publication of the monograph Amelia Toledo – the Nature of Artifice with texts by curator Agnaldo Farias. Today, Galeria Nara Roesler will return to representing the artist’s estate, reaffirming the gallery’s commitment to offering visibility and cementing recognition for fundamental figures of national and international artistic traditions. In February 2021, the gallery will inaugurate its new space in Chelsea, New York (USA) with an exhibition dedicated to Amelia Toledo, marking the artist’s first solo presentation in the city.
