Why São Paulo’s most iconic museum is featuring female artists

For those who regularly cross São Paulo’s iconic Avenida Paulista, there’s nothing new about seeing a crowd of people outside the city’s Museum of Art, or MASP, as it is commonly known. Besides the normal influx of tourists, art lovers and students, MASP is also a meeting point for protesters, not to mention independent artists who try to make a living on the building’s free span. However, since April 5, queues have been bigger than normal, even for this landmark museum.  

This influx has a reason: after 11 years, O Abaporu, a painting that symbolizes Brazilian modernism, has been loaned to São Paulo from its permanent home in Buenos Aires. It is the centerpiece of an exhibition of more than 100 artworks by Tarsila do Amaral, one of Brazil’s most famous painters. The exhibition is part of MASP’s new cycle of projects dedicated to paying homage to female legacy in art.

Today, Tarsila do Amaral is a household name in Brazil. But that wasn’t always the case. In the 1950s, she was busy making one of what could be described as the worst deals ever: in exchange for a home in the São Paulo neighborhood of Perdizes, she traded an original Picasso. In financial dire straits after the 1929 crash, Amaral was, bit by bit, selling off her vast art collection—while her own paintings were worth little. Fast-forward to 2019, and you have the New York Museum of Modern Art purchasing “A Lua” (‘The Moon’) for USD 20 million.

Celebrating Brazilian female artists

Besides Amaral’s works, MASP is also exhibiting a collection of pieces from Lina Bo Bardi, the Italian-Brazilian architect responsible for building the museum itself, as well as leaving her modernist stamp all over São Paulo. Alongside them, Djanira da Motta e Silva, famous for her simple portrayals of Brazilian life, is also featured, in the very first exhibition of the artist’s works since her death in 1979.

These events will pave the way for two other exhibitions, “Women’s Histories: Artists Before 1900” and “Feminist Histories: artists after 2000,” a dialogue that wishes to shed new light on women’s participation in art history and their legacy.

The idea comes at a moment when gender issues are gaining momentum in Brazil, a country where femicides are on the rise despite tougher laws, and the gender-based...