cronologia • chronology

1935

Antonio Henrique was born in August 24 at Pro Matre Maternity Hospital in São Paulo, the fourth child of Nadya Abreu Amaral and Aguinaldo Amaral. He has as sisters Suzana, Aracy and Ana Maria[1]. The family lived at Rua Caconde, in the borough of Jardim Paulista.

His father, born in Itu, spent his life involved with coffee. He managed to survive the 1929 débâcle, worked for the National Coffee Department (DNC) created by president Getúlio Vargas (later called Brazilian Coffee Institute, IBC) and even owned his own exporting firm: Sociedade Anônima Amaral. “He was a practical man, bold, objective, full of vitality who enjoyed the good things in life and did not repudiate the pleasures."[2] His mother, born in São Paulo in 1904, the offspring of Italian and Portuguese descent, was a remarkable diseuse. She even read at the city's Municipal Theater but abandoned the footlights following her father's wish. "My mother had a very rich spiritual life."

Due to Antonio's father professional demands, the family established itself in Santos. Two years later, he was promoted to manage DNC's office in Argentina, which was functionally tied to the Brazilian embassy. During this period, he begins the construction of a house at Serra da Mantiqueira.

In 1941 the family moves back to the coast, this time to São Vicente, where Antonio Henrique attends kindergarten, elementary school and secondary school at Colégio Martim Afonso, run by the Bicudo sisters (a school later absorbed by the state). He rides at Clube Hípico de Santos and swims at Clube de Regatas Tumiaru. He was a swimming champion in the juvenile category but really excelled at horsemanship. He won more than 60 cups in tournaments, representing Clube Hípico de Santos (of which his father was the president) and Sociedade Hípica Paulista, riding the horses Simoun and El Morocco. At 17 he comes close to classifying for the Helsinki Olympic Games. The family spends vacations at Campos do Jordão.

1950

The family moves to São Paulo, settling at Rua Sabará, in Higienópolis, when the father becomes chief of the IBC in the city. Antonio Henrique attends prep school for classical studies at Instituto Mackenzie. He publishes his writings at the school's journal and draws a lot. "That was my dichotomy, already. The verbal expression and the drawings."

1951

He visits the 1st “Bienal de São Paulo” and gets fascinated by what he sees. The artist recollects: "The first Biennal was an impact for me, the revelation of a magical and fertile universe. And it was fundamental to see, 'live', the works of renowned painters, whom we knew only through books and reproductions."[3]

1952

During three months Antonio studies drawing with Roberto Sambonet at the recent established Contemporary Art Institute, at Museu de Arte de São Paulo.

Since I was 17 I foresaw that I would follow the path of art. Art as a possibility of integration with the world, as a tool for spiritual, emotional, sentimental and intelectual development. Art, because I enjoyed drawing, to use my hands, to see translated into paper images that were inside my head.[4]

1954

He starts attending Law School at Universidade de São Paulo, at Largo São Francisco, getting the seventh best grade at the admission exam. Writes journals as a habit, trying to develop a critical self-consciousness and to understand the country and the world in which he lives. "My mind was with the arts. I spent days drawing, reading and writing. I did not know if I would become a writer and create illustrations for my writings or would become a painter and graphic designer."

He reads compulsively: Vicki Baum, Erich Fromm, Aldous Huxley, Herman Melville, Nietzsche, Dostoiévski, Henry Miller, D. H. Lawrence, Bernard Shaw and others.

In the following year he becomes a patron at the bar at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, an important meeting point for the city's intelectuals, and there he meets Marcello Grassmann, Aldemir Martins, Wolfgang Pfeiffer, Mario Toral, Manabu Mabe, Clóvis Graciano, Arnaldo Pedroso D’Horta, Sérgio Milliet, Almeida Salles, Clóvis Graciano and others.

Luís Sérgio Person, who directs plays at his friends’ homes, is among his friends at Largo São Francisco. Other include Antunes Filho, Flávio Rangel and Cláudio Petraglia, a nephew of Victor Costa, owner of TV Paulista. All of them are diligent patrons of the Barba Azul, Paribar and Taí bars, all close to São Paulo City Library.

In 1955 he shows his drawings for the first time, in an exhibition at “Salão de Arte de Santos”.

1957

At Grassmann’s suggestion and encouraged by Aldemir Martins, he starts attending engraving classes at Escola de Artesanato of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, at Roosevelt square. He works with linoleum and xylography under the supervision of Lívio Abramo.

Lívio Abramo conveyed to us, pupils and friends, a sense of total integrity and dedication to the work of engraving. He had a moral attitude, a seriousness, a happiness about doing what he did. This was the most important thing. He taught us how to control our working tools, how to understand the infinite range of possibilities between black and white, how to obtain and understand the subtleness and all the potential of engraving on wood, which was so well illustrated by his outstanding work, one of the most refined of Brazilian engraving.[5]

Apprenticeship of wood engraving produces a drastic change in the artist's expression: "The pen and ink drawing mannerism starts to go away and to give way to an expressionist language, more courageous in confronting black and white."[6]

In May the artist gets a Bronze Medal at the 6th “Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna” with two drawings. In December, he shows works at the 5th “Salão Oficial de Belas-Artes de Santos”.

1958

Invited by Wolfgang Pfeiffer, he carries out his first solo exhibition at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, at Sete de Abril street. He presents 26 engravings produced between 1957 and 1958. The linocut Casal, from 1958, is in the cover of the catalogue, which has a presentation by Lívio Abramo:

In the engraving classes that he started to attend, Antonio Henrique began furiously cutting his first linoleums, and his images – having lost a certain mannerism present in his drawings – got more forceful, acquiring even a certain violence and agressiveness that gives them this somewhat barbaric flavor and strength, one of the features of the remarkable engraver that now presents at Museu de Arte Moderna his first solo exhibition to the public of São Paulo.

His friend Antunes Filho interviews him for a TV Tupi program, and presents his engravings.

In August he takes part of the 7th “Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna”, in which he gets a Bronze Medal.

Deciding to live as an artist, he brings to an end his studies at Law School and travels to Argentina and Chile.

Between November and December, he shows his engravings at Instituto Chileno-Británico de Cultura, in Santiago, at the invitation of Arturo Edwards, president of the institute and himself a patron of the arts. The presentation text for the exhibition catalogue is written by Victor Carvacho.

1959

In January, he displays his work at Universidad de Concepción, invited by the Cuban artist Mario Carreño, a teacher at the institution. José Gómez-Sicre, director of the Pan American Union, visits the show and invites him to make an exhibition in Washington, D.C. (USA).

He is part of the 23th “Salón de Verano de Viña del Mar”, in which he presents three engravings: Mujer em negro, Mujer and Movimiento.

The plans for a three-week stay in Santiago turn into a six-month period, during which he gets to know several artists and intelectuals, including Pablo Neruda, when he joins the journalist Cleuza Vieira, there to interview the poet.

He stays for ten days in Brazil before travelling to the USA.

Between April and May he shows 25 engravings at the solo exhibition “Antonio Henrique of Brazil: Prints”, at the Pan American Union, in Washington, with a presentation text by Gómez-Sicre. The reviews are good. From Washington he goes to New York, where he attends classes at the Pratt Graphic Art Center with a grant by Ingram Merrill Foundation. He studies linocutting with Shiko Munakata, etching with Walter Rogalski and lithography with Arnold Singer.

Munakata talked to us through an interpreter and always, before or after class, told us a Zen parable which illustrated, in a certain way, his attitude towards life and his work as an engraver. He was extremely short-sighted and worked with his eyes very close to the wood – maybe less than ten centimetres! He worked very fast, without worrying about the totality of the space to be occuppied. And he told us that if the incisions in a small area of the wood were made with intensity, with the “heart” and the hara (a kind of abdominal brain), then the WHOLE would always be as it should. He said that, in art, we should not worry about being coherent with ideas, aesthetic principles, thought currents or any phenomena peripheral to the work of criation.[7]

The contact with Munakata is decisive. "Whereas Lívio recommended the halftone discipline, Munakata had a more fluid and instinctive way of drawing. He favoured more natural figures, irregular forms, less built. And Antonio Henrique found a particular affinity with the way that Munakata teared the white spaces of the engraving," writes Ana Maria Belluzzo.[8]

He gets back to Brazil after five months in the USA.

He takes part in the 5th “Bienal Internacional de São Paulo” and has a solo exhibition at Galeria Antigonovo (São Paulo) with engravings produced in the USA. Wolfgang Pfeiffer, director of Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo and Bienal de São Paulo, writes about the artist's woodcuts in Habitat magazine (n. 57, Nov.-Dec. 1959): “Antonio Henrique wanted to reduce the figure to a graphism that shapes, in the structure of the work, the distributional spine of formal and significant values. It is a natural phenomenon that the figure under the action of such processes gets close to the indigenous and primitive figure." 

1960

Em January, he shows 30 engravings at a solo exhibition at Petite Galerie (Rio de Janeiro), at the invitation of Franco Terranova. The woodcut Nu Avenida Atlântica (1959) is withdrawn from the display window by the police.

Still in Rio, and without managing to survive as an artist, he works as an assistant for Alfredo Bonino, at Galeria Bonino, at Barata Ribeiro street, and later at Petite Galerie. He meets Anna Letycia, Antônio Bandeira, Antonio Dias, Ivan Serpa, Cândido Portinari, Djanira, Ivan Serpa, Oswaldo Goeldi, Thereza Miranda and others. During this period he draws and engraves at night in a rented room at Domingos Ferreira street, in Copacabana. 

In February he participates in the “Jovem Gravura Brasileira” show, at the gallery of Diário de Notícias, in Lisbon (Portugal), along with Ernesto Lacerda, Lygia Pape, Maria Bonomi, Mário Carneiro, and Roberto De Lamonica. He shows five linocuts. In September he organizes, and is part of, the Brazilian representation at “Primer Certamen Latinoamericano de Xilografía”, in the show at Plástica Galería de Arte, Buenos Aires (Argentina). The event, which commemorates the country's 150th Independence Day, brings artists from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. From Brazil the artists also include Adyr Botelho, Arnaldo Pedroso D’Horta, Braz Dias, Décio Ferreira, Dorothy Bastos, Fayga Ostrower, Izar do Amaral Berlinck, Maria Bonomi, Miriam Chiaverini, Newton Cavalcanti and Yara Tupinambá. He takes part of the 9th “Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna”. 

Still during his stay in Rio, he meets Norha Beltrán[9], a Bolivian painter living in Brazil and then directing the show gallery at Livraria Penguin, in Copacabana. They move in together. It is necessary to provide for his family. He sees an ad at a São Paulo newspaper. They needed someone to work in a course to train managers, with a much bigger salary than the one he earned at the gallery. He presents himself as a candidate, is interviewed, gets the job and moves to São Paulo.

1961

Already living in São Paulo, at Largo do Arouche, he is part in March of a group show with Anatol Wladyslaw, Edith Jimenez, Italo Cencini and Mário Zanini at Galeria de Arte das Folhas, in which he presents 15 drawings. The presentation text for the catalogue is taken from the artist's journal:

Should the artist get used to living in chaos, in conformism, be an ethernal masochist delighting himself with the vision of his own disintegration? Isn't it time for him to be conscious of his painful reality and to relaunch his quest for a new synthesis, a new integration, a new harmony?

In June, he takes part of the 10th “Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna”. In this same month, at the invitation of Delmiro Gonçalves, the engraving A viagem is reproduced at Suplemento Literário of the daily paper O Estado de S.Paulo. The work is also part of the 6th “Bienal Internacional de São Paulo” in September, along with four other engravings: Entes (1960, also called Demônios), Animais noturnos (or Criaturas da noite, 1961), Amantes e animais (1961, also called Amantes e anjo) and Mulher (1961).

1962

At the invitation of Antonio Mana, he shows his work at Galería Saber Vivir, in Buenos Aires (Argentina). The show features 18 of his engravings and graphic poems by Eros (a pen name of Antonio Lisboa Carvalho de Miranda).

He participates in the 11th “Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna”, in which he gets the Small Silver Medal, and at the 19th “Salão Paranaense de Belas-Artes” and the 3th “Salão de Curitiba”, in which he gets the Silver Medal and Acquisition Award Catarina Prosdócimo in the engraving category.

His daughter Nadya is born in August 12.

He starts a series of drawings and gouaches, introducing colour in his work. About the use of colour, he comments: "I had fear, insecurity, panic of using colour. It is a very emotional thing."[10]

He illustrates the book of poems Viagem ao redor do espelho, by Ana Maria Amaral, his sister, with cover design by Wesley Duke Lee (Anhambi).

1963

He wins the acquisition award at the 12th “Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna”.

The artist works with gouache and watercolour. Part of this production – 25 recent watercolours – is presented in November at Galeria Mobilínea, at Augusta street, in São Paulo. The poet and critic Sérgio Milliet writes the presentation: "If the critics don't like it, I will lament, will find it strange and will disagree. I don't know if the young man has a big or small message. Time will tell. What I know from this work it that he knows how to say what he wants to say. And that is a lot."

He takes part in the contest for the production of the poster of the 7th “Bienal Internacional de São Paulo”, along with Moacyr Rocha, reaching the final phase (the winner is Danilo Di Prete). He shows his work at the Bienal, four China ink drawings and five woodcuts – Diálogo na Terra (1963), Criaturas (1963), O passarinho matinal (1963), Imóveis em silêncio (1963) and Noturno (1963). He takes part in the 1th “Exposição do Jovem Desenho Nacional”, organized by Museu de Arte Contemporânea de São Paulo, at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (São Paulo), in which he shows four China ink drawings. In December, the group show “Jovem Desenho Nacional” is presented at Museu Carlos Gomes (Campinas) and, in the following year, at Museu de Arte da Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte and at Museu de Arte do Paraná (Curitiba).

In November he is back at Galería Saber Vivir, now with a solo show. The catalogue has a text by the poet and journalist Cayetano Córdova Iturburu:

Amaral unites in his work the somewhat disquieting vibration of an intense human content with the technical dignity of a plastic vocabulary rich in possibilities. Is this order of things it is necessary to underline the purity of this vocabulary or, to put it better, of the tools of his trade. Evidently identified with wood's expressive possibilities, Amaral limits himself to this kind of orthodoxy of the good wood-engravers, which consists in simplifying their means, supressing the grays and obtaining a maximum of expression through the contrast, sometimes not without violence, between whites and blacks. 

His engravings are once more featured at Suplemento Literário of O Estado de S.Paulo, in two occasions: in January 12, with At the 7 Steps (1959), and in June 15, with Demônios (1960).

1964

He separates from Norha and lives for three months at Hotel Príncipe, at São João avenue. Works for Grant Advertising.

Faced with the country's political situation, with the military coup, and the changes in his personal life, he slows down his pace of work and participates only in two group shows in São Paulo: the 13th “Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna”, in which he shows three engravings – Personagens superiores e inferiores and Antagonismo I and II –, and “Seis Gravadores”, at Galeria Atrium, along with Dudu Santos, Hans Grudzinski, Izar do Amaral Berlinck, Moacyr Rocha, and Odetto Guersoni.

He moves to Cardoso de Almeida street, at the borough of Perdizes.

1965

A car accident takes him through several surgeries and exacerbates his emotional instability. In despair, he ceases producing.

He meets Lígia Valdrighi, and she encourages him to go back to his artistic career. There follow the engravings of the "Generais" series and the first paintings of the series "Bocas". About his new engravings, he writes:

The transformation of my work was a direct consequence of the political and emotional trauma after this still recent disaster in our history. A military coup in the worst possible Latin-American political tradition. That shattered the hearts and minds of us all and we are not indifferent. The engravings began pouring out and the form reminds without doubt the cordel [a popular oral narrative form in the Northeast of Brazil published in small handmade booklets with rough illustrations], with coarse images, straightforward and with some sense of humour and sarcasm. I was engraving intending to make myself as clear as possible.[11] 

He is part of the important show “Brazilian Art Today”, presented in several venues in Great Britain – Art Gallery (Southampton), Royal College of Art (London), City Art Gallery (Plymouth), Cardiff Arts Council Gallery (Cardiff) and Arts Council Gallery (Cambridge) – and in Austria (Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna); the following year the show would travel also to Germany (Beethovenhalle, Bonn). The exhibition, organized by the Royal College of Art, displays more than 200 works by some 70 Brazilian artists.

1966

From 1960 to 1966, he "worked in public relations and advertising, bought and sold pictures, was unemployed for six months and joined Brastemp as an advertising assistant – soon after that, was invited to work with Grant Advertising. Not as an art director but with sales leads. From there he went to Pfizer, as a PR man and editor of the company's house organ, with a very good salary and a car at his disposal."[12] He then decides to abandon all his jobs and to dedicated himself totally to art. He sells his Volkswagen Beetle and starts producing the album O meu e o seu.

In Rio de Janeiro, he takes part of “Exposição Nacional de Pintura Air France”, at Museu de Arte Moderna; in São Paulo, joins the show “Gravadores de São Paulo”, at 4 Planetas Galeria de Arte (with a presentation text by José Geraldo Vieira); he is also featured at the 15th “Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna” and at the group show “Artistas Unidos”, which marks the beginning of the acitivies of the Clubinho (Clube dos Artistas e Amigos da Arte), at Bento Freitas street.

In December the artist participates in the 1th “Bienal Nacional de Artes Plásticas da Bahia”, at Convento de Nossa Senhora do Carmo, in Salvador. Antonio Henrique is the artist from São Paulo with the biggest number of works at the Bienal, four paints, with which he wins the acquisition award. The jurors for selection and awarding included Clarival do Prado Valladares, Mário Pedrosa, Mário Schemberg, and Wilson Rocha. Maria Eugênia Franco writes at the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo about the "predominance of pop art, the new figuration and the new realism in all levels of creation and production, of a conscious or gratuitous proposal." She draws attention to the participation of the artist in the exhibition: "Among many things focused on an artificial novelty, Maurício Nogueira Lima and Antonio Henrique Amaral stand out with an acutely satirical and plastically well executed language.”[13]

He meets the poet and critic Ferreira Gullar.

1967

In August he releases the album O meu e o seu, with seven woodcuts in colour. According to the artist, the initial idea was to make a series called "The seven capital sins of our time, but seven would not be enough for our sins." So he adopts as a theme "the spurious idolatries, the ghosts of our society: Madona, O idolatrado, Um + um = dois?, Realidades, culpas?, Personagem contemporâneo, Sem saída, Passatempo séc. XX”. The launch happens at Galeria Mirante das Artes, at the invitation of Pietro Maria Bardi. The woodblocks are also shown. The text accompanying the album is by Ferreira Gullar:

Now this is enough, he seems to say to us, I will say everything. I will denounce the spurious idolatries that benumb our people, the warlords who bring in their hands the flags of peace and prosperity, the lack of love, the hypocrisy, the misery of a life enclosed in compartmentalized spaces. But he does not do that with the easiness of those who only accuse. He is involved in all this, a man among other men. Actually he calls on us so we can look together for a better life. Because if this is the way the world goes, it is not going well, as Brecht has said.

The album also has a launch in Rio de Janeiro, at Galeria Santa Rosa, directed by Rubem Braga.

In October he has his first painting solo show at Galeria Astreia, at Ramos de Azevedo square (São Paulo), with 30 works of the series “Bocas”, made between 1965 and 1967. For the show, he writes himself the text of the catalogue, in which he talks about the new experience as a painter:

A painter for me is a man who seeks to integrate himself through the arts. I make drawings, engravings, watercolours, gouaches and oil paintings. [...] I emphasize this point because of the expected and inevitable comparison to be made between my works as an engraver and my painting now. I am well aware that I've been engraving for ten years and painting for about two. [...] I am not worried about Vanguards or Rearguards. They sound to me actually like very bellicose expressions. [...] Art does not advance: it transforms itself, evolving according to who makes it, its time and epoch. Each one of these paintings was done because I had to do them. Some got closer to what I wanted. Others did not. I chose the ones which I liked best and not “the best”. I do not wait for masterpieces to make an exhibition. It was just time for me to show them. Those that are here.

In an interview to O Estado de S.Paulo, the artist talks about his new production:

We can verify, for instance, that in the 1965 oil paintings there is a pronounced graphism, which brings to mind my engravings. In this year’s paintings, there is more preoccupation with colour. I am beginning to paint and I have a lot of road to travel. I think I am totally immersed in this. I engrave, paint, make watercolours, but at the moment I am trying to say something through painting.[14]

At “Exposición de La Habana 1967”, at Casa de las Américas, in Havana (Cuba), he gets an Excepcional Value Mention, awarded by an international jury: Edmond Rahal (Colombia), Eduardo Bonatti (Chile), Fernando Chueca (Spain), José Gamarra (Uruguay), and Juan David (Cuba).

He takes part in the 3rd “Bienal Americana de Grabado” in Santiago (Chile).

In São Paulo, he shows works at the 16th “Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna” and at the 9th “Bienal Internacional de São Paulo”, with a significant set of works produced in this year: six woodcuts – “Quoque tu, Brutus?”, Passatempo latino-americano, O apetite, A grande mensagem, A mesma língua and Monumento século XX – and three paintings – Monumento século XX, Pressões and Incomunicação.

He takes part in “1ª Exposição Jovem Arte Contemporânea” (JAC), at Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo. The selection jury is integrated by José Geraldo Vieira, Caciporé Torres and Walter Zanini, director of the institution and the show organizer. Antonio Henrique shows the paintings Espetáculo, O gerente and Reflexão.

Among other group shows this year, most important are “24º Salão Paranaense de Belas-Artes”, in which he shows three engravings from the album O meu e o seu – O idolatrado (Amélia Assumpção Award), Realidades, culpas e Um + um = dois – and three paintings – 37, 37, 37, Incomunicação I and Incomunicação II; and “4º Salão de Arte Moderna do Distrito Federal”, in which he is selected in the engraving category (with Gênese, A farsa e A mesma língua) and in the painting category (with Mediação, General Manager and Nós nos amamos). The selection jury is composed by Clarival do Prado Valladares, Frederico Morais, Mário Barata, Mário Pedrosa (president), and Walter Zanini.

Between December and January of the following year, he takes part in the group show “Kunstenaars Van nu uit – Amsterdam-Brazilië”, organized by Marc Berkowitz and presented at Bols Tavern, Amsterdam (The Netherlands).

1968

With the death of his father, Antonio Henrique is now responsible for the family’s small farm in Atibaia. He moves there with Lígia, and starts breeding chickens and painting.

And then “Bananas” emerge. He will tell later to writer Ignácio de Loyola Brandão how he had the "bananas insight":

I can't explain – all of a sudden I was painting bananas. Maybe it was the phallus in O Rei da Vela [directed by José Celso Martinez Corrêa, which he saw in September 1967 at Teatro Oficina, in São Paulo], that cannon, do you remember? Or the debauch atmosphere that I began to see, the military coup, the AI-5, Feira Paulista de Opinião criticizing everything – I went onstage with a giant banana in my hands –, the political agitation. All was mixed up in my delirious lifestyle, Lígia and I were Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, two bewildered people. We were very downcast in Brazil, marginalized. Nothing was serious. The thing was to take seriously not being serious. The banana was born out of fear. Of one thing I am aware: with the banana and through the banana I was learning the language of painting.[15]

This year he has only one solo show, with gouaches, dated from 1962 to 1967 – at Associação dos Amigos do Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, with a presentation by Fabio Magalhães.

He might have done only one solo show, but took part in important group shows in Brazil and abroad. Among the international shows, the most important were “Exposición de La Habana ’68”, at Casa de las Américas, in Havana (Cuba), in which he shows engravings from the album O meu e o seu; and “Sixteen Brazilian Artists”, at Richard Demarco Gallery (Edinburgh, Scotland) and at Crossley Gallery (Melbourne, Australia). The catalogue has a presentation by Jayme Maurício.

In Brazil he takes part of the 2nd “Salão Esso de Artistas Jovens” (Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro) with three engravings – Alegria, alegria, Consensus and Impasse – and of the 1st “Panorama da Arte Atual Brasileira”, carried out by Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, with two oil paintings.

He is awarded at other shows to which he is selected: the 17th “Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna”, with two works, one of them Brasiliana – Litoral – 2, awarded with the Golden Medal (and today at Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo); the 2nd “Salão de Arte Contemporânea de São Caetano do Sul”, with Impasse, Consensus and Alegria, alegria, in the graphic arts category, and Monumento séc. XX, Incomunicação (1st place in painting, today at Fundação Pró-Memória de São Caetano do Sul) and Pressões in the painting category; the 17th “Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna”, in Rio de Janeiro (Jury’s Exemption); the 4th “Salão de Arte Contemporânea de Campinas”, with Brasiliana 1 (Prefeitura Municipal de Campinas Award, today at Museu de Arte Contemporânea José Pancetti), Brasiliana 2 and Brasiliana 3; the 1st “Salão Oficial de Arte Moderna de Santos”, in which he shows Brasiliana I (Câmara Municipal de Santos Award), Brasiliana II and Brasiliana III; the 25th “Salão Paranaense de Arte”, in which he gets the Governador do Estado Award with Brasiliana III (today at Museu de Arte de Curitiba).

One day after the proclaiming of the 5th Institutional Act(curtailing civil liberties in Brazil), the magazine O Cruzeiro reaches the stands with the article “Marginália – Arte e cultura na idade da pedrada” (Marginália – Art and culture in the stoning age), by journalist and photographer Marisa Alvarez Lima. Antonio Henrique is portrayed with the Tropicalia group Os Mutantes by the sculpture 1964: o desabrochante (today destroyed), during the 1st “Feira Paulista de Opinião”, staged in June at Teatro Ruth Escobar (São Paulo), with the presence of several artists.

In December, during the 2nd “Bienal Nacional de Artes Plásticas da Bahia”, in Salvador, several works are sequestered by the federal police, including one of his engravings, from the series “Generais”.

With the work donated by the artist to Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, he participates in the show “28 Artistas do Acervo do Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo”, presented at Diário da Serra (Campo Grande) and, in the following year, at Centro de Artes Visuais Raimundo Cela (Recife). The exhibition is organized and presented by Walter Zanini.

Also in this year he is elected to the Brazilian Associação Internacional de Artistas Plásticos (AIAP), which had among its members Antonio Carelli, Donato Ferrari, Fabio Magalhães, Gontran Guanaes Netto, Marcello Nitsche, Maurício Nogueira Lima, Odetto Guersoni, Samuel Szpiegel, Sérgio Ferro, and Miriam Chiaverini.

1969

He presents the series “Brasiliana” in two solo shows: in August, at Galeria Astreia (São Paulo), and in September at Hotel Copacabana Palace (Rio de Janeiro). The texts for the two catalogues are written by Ferreira Gullar:

These works are, for their author, an advance, both formal and thematic. In these paintings, the expression finds less explicit forms and, for this reason, are barer and denser, sometimes with extraordinary intensity. Such constraint and such implicit richness are the result of (and determine) a more direct overcoming of the individuality, the subjectivity: more balance between the personal and collective contents.

The critic Frederico Morais writes at Diário de Notícias:

Antonio Henrique Amaral made a Tropicalista change of course. Not to adhere to fashion, but to effectively meditate about the question. And so the banana, a prosaic element, almost unnoticed in still life, acquires the condition of a character. Isolated or in bundles, the bananas are monumentalized, acquire gigantic proportions, as if to recall those anthropophagic figures in Tarsila do Amaral – planted on the ground with cactuses or banana tree, under a luminous sun in an empty landscape.[16]

Jayme Maurício also writes about the show at Correio da Manhã:

The artists's Brazilianism is far from a Brazilianism of slothfulness and tropical perfumes. There is also no sign of degeneration or decomposition is this Brazilian world. It reflects only the expansionist and vigorous phase of a natural process. So even the sexual implications of the theme – so surprisingly pointed out by many – emerge with more spontaneity, as a result of an irresistible inner force: they are not artificial, they are not intentional, in spite of the somewhat coarse, direct and even undisguised way through which they are frequently seen.[17]

The Associação Internacional de Artes Plásticas (AIAP) promotes the event “E Agora?”, with shows and debates at Teatro Anchieta, São Paulo. In the first night, Antonio Henrique is part of a panel along with Aldir Mendes de Souza, Anésia Pacheco e Chaves, and Samson Flexor, having as debaters Aracy Amaral, Mário Chamie, Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes, Romy Fink, and Vilém Flusser. The event also features the artists Ely Bueno, Luís D’Horta, Maria Bonomi, Mira Schendel, and Waldemar Cordeiro, and as debaters, Haroldo de Campos, Isaac Epstein, Lygia Fagundes Telles, and Maria Eugênia Franco.

Antonio Henrique is awarded this year at the following salons: the 18th “Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna”, Rio de Janeiro, in which he shows Brasiliana Rio I, II and III (Jury’s Exemption); 2nd “Salão de Arte Contemporânea de Santo André”, at which he gets the Cidade de Santo André Award with the work Brasiliana (today at Casa do Olhar Luiz Sacilotto/Secretaria da Cultura de Santo André); 3rd “Exposição Jovem Arte Contemporânea” (JAC), at Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, where he shows Brasiliana 9 (Acquisition Award), Brasiliana 10 and Brasiliana 11.

He also takes part in “Salão da Bússola”, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, and at “1º Salão Paulista de Arte Contemporânea”, where he shows Brasiliana II, Brasiliana azul and Brasiliana II-1. 

1970

In January, he takes part in “1ª Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribe”, at Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, in San Juan (Puerto Rico).

In March, he shows 3 engravings in solo exhibitions at Galería Círculo 3, in La Paz, and at Centro Pedagógico y Cultural Portales, in Cochabamba (Bolivia). He visits Machu Picchu and the Bolivian plateau.

I went to visit my daughter and took the opportunity to do a show with my engravings at my former wife's (she was the Bolivian comissary at the last Biennal) gallery, and it was sensational... though I did not sell them, the engravings in Bocas and Generais had a certain measure of success among artists and students. I was invited to do a show at Cochabamba. [...] We were lodged at Palácio de Portales, a former mansion of the Patiño family and today a foundation mantained by Simon Patiño's son, who lives in Geneva. From Cochabamba, where I gave lectures about Brazilian art, we came back to Brazil. [...] A monthlong fascinating journey. [...] I will maybe go back to Bolivia do do some tapestries with some peasants whom I met in a pueblo.[18]

While he travels, his works are shown at “Panorama da Arte Atual Brasileira”, at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. Delmiro Gonçalves, director of Pinacoteca do Estado, buys for the museum's collection the work Brasiliana – Litoral – 2 (1968), shown at the exhibition.

In May, already back in São Paulo, he takes part in a group show at Galeria Bonfiglioli, with works by Gerda Brentani, Odetto Guersoni, Pedro Tort, and Tomie Ohtake. He shows 9 canvases. The exhibition is mentioned with great distinction in a review by José Geraldo Vieira in the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, in which he associates the work of Antonio Henrique with “didactics painting":

The exhibitions now running at this capital are an occasion for pondering about the so-called didactics painting in opposition to the so-called painting of the absurd, as we also see, in the theater, Brecht's casuistry in opposition to Ionesco's attitude. Didactic painting would then be not (as the name might suggest) one which would serve as a propaedeutic model to the art of painting in frontality or in perspective to the attainment of objective or abstract outcomes. It is the painting that looks at real life, restraining itself to the limit situation of our Da Sein, the Being Now of the existentialists; that painting which, intending to be didactic, teaches us to see and feel the world and man, nature and its manifestations.[19]

In June he starts working on a 2 x 9,5 metre mural, for the Clube Harmonia de Tênis. Comissioned by the architects Fábio Penteado and César Luís Pires de Mello, the mural is inaugurated in this year and is featured with distinction in Acrópole magazine in May of the following year.

In July 10, 1970, in a letter to João Marschner, he writes about working on the mural, in the midst of the Soccer World Cup games:

It was the most ethylic Cup of my life, [...] quite tough, demanding of me a liver of iron and the health of a lion, for in the intervals of each game I worked on the famous mural, which I visited yesterday. I am going to Rio the day after tomorrow and I am going to enlist in a contest for a mural 12 times bigger than this one I did in São Paulo: a panel of 8 x 30 metres, at Caixa Econômica Federal. [...] But I only have eight days to present the project.

Antonio Henrique is refering to the contest, which had more than 100 candidates, for a panel for the new and majestic building of Caixa Econômica Federal, at avenida Rio Branco, Rio de Janeiro. “My project is ready, with an acrylic model and other trinkets." In a letter to his cousin in September of this year, he writes: "I am waiting the result of the contest of the Caixa Econômica Federal panel in Rio with little hope. Lots of gossip, with Rio's politics and marked cards." In fact, writing at Jornal do Brasil, Walmir Ayala mentions the catastrophic result of the award.

About his participation at the 19th “Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna” (Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro), Antonio Henrique comments:

As soon as I arrived I had to take the paintings to the Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna [...] a terrible expectation, for my name and pictures of my paintings were all over Rio's newspapers (Correio, Jornal do Brasil) as a great favorite, along with Vergara, Colares, Wanda Pimentel, João Câmara and Espíndola.[20]

About the awarding, journalist Francisco Bittencourt writes: “It was fair to reward Raymundo Colares, but others artists also deserved it, among them Antonio Henrique Amaral and Dileni Campos.”[21]

The artist also has works shown in Porto Alegre, at the 1st “Salão de Artes Visuais”, and Belo Horizonte, at 2nd “Salão Nacional de Arte Contemporânea de Belo Horizonte”. At the latter, he gets the Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte Acquisition Award with the work BR – MG – 1 (today at Museu de Arte da Pampulha). The jurors are Angelo Oswaldo de Araújo Santos, Celma Alvim, Humberto Espíndola, Sérgio Ferro, and Marcio Sampaio. Sampaio writes:

Antonio Henrique Amaral rectifies the thread of anthropophagism (and the hunger): he monumentalizes the banana as did Oldenburg with his pop foods. He sanctifies the banana, institutes a new god: green and yellow, the banana is a desire, a way to speak of our love for our land. And in its pistils we speak of our swaying of the language which gave us iés, nós temos banana, banana pra dar e vender.[22]

In December he gets another important award, this time at the 2nd “Salão Paulista de Arte Contemporânea”. He gets the New Talent award for the work BR-1 (which goes to the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo's collection the following year), besides presenting BR-2 and BR-3. The selection and awarding jury includes Anésia Pacheco e Chaves, Izar do Amaral Berlinck, Lisetta Levi, Norberto Nicola, and Wolfgang Pfeiffer, who also writes the presentation catalogue.

About BR-1 SP, Aracy Amaral writes, when she is the director of Pinacoteca do Estado:

Far from the decorative functions fruit had in still lives by the end of the 19th century in our painting, these bananas emerge from the canvas with soulful properties, seeming to incorporate in their gigantism some of the heroic and mythical Brazilian personality. The canvas received flat painting, palette knife, in pure colours in some areas, and then a treatment proposed by colours close to the first ones (blacks/browns/yellows/ochers/greens), which resulted in a simplified and graphic realism, which integrates the work to the general trends of the New Figuration in the 60's.[23]

1971

In May, the artist presentes 26 paintings in a solo show at Galeria Bonino (Rio de Janeiro), titled “Bananas”. There could be no other title. In an interview that same year, he says that, in the last three years, there was just one occasion in which he did not paint bananas. He painted a papaya tree. Flávio Motta writes the catalogue presentation:

Now, the latest bananas are seen over plates or more captivating backgrounds. They seem cooked by time, more putrid, more refined as paintings, as works. They are graver, tougher, more solemn. They restore veracity and talk about the major violence that struck the birth of a generation, in a tropical country and in other, not tropical, countries.

In July he is finally awarded at the 20th “Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna”. He presents the oil paintings Sequência 1, Sequência 2 and Sequência 3 and gets an award to travel abroad. The jurors are Aluísio Carvão, Benjamim Silva, Carmen Portinho, and Joaquim Tenreiro. Walmir Ayala, in a review at Jornal do Brasil, praises the placement of the works: three large-size canvases at the entrance of the hall of Palácio Gustavo Capanema. Harry Laus writes about the awarding:

The message of the bananas was straightforward. If the American pop art has a can of “Savarin Coffee” as expression, in Jasper Johns, or a Coca-Cola can, in Robert Rauschenberg, why our artist would not have bananas? Beyond the “pop” characteristic, Antonio Henrique Amaral's painting has another present day element suggesting urban advertising, the billboard, where the gigantism of the product displayed acquires fantastic proportions.[24]

The artist talks to Jornal do Brasil about the Bananas:

They are for me a cultural analysis, a conclusion. The banana, in the same way as all the work I developed with engraving, was always a satirical view of the human condition. But as a very rich symbol, it reminds us of several things; it have a certain originality in its condition, linked to Tropicalism. The bananas approach monumentalizes everyday life and has a subordination to arts and means.[25]

After the award he does three other solo shows abroad: in September, “The Banana: Variations in Oil by Antonio Henrique Amaral of Brazil”, at Pan American Union, in Washington, D.C. (USA), in which 25 canvases are shown. The text for the catalogue is written by José Gómez-Sicre. In October, “La Banana”, at Galeria Mer Kup, in Mexico City (Mexico), and in November “The Banana”, at Elvaston Gallery, in London (UK). The artist reminisces about the vernissage: "At the vernissage we had banana cocktail, banana caipirinha and there were small monkeys dressed in green and yellow (rented at Carnaby Street), jumping over peoples' shoulders. It was a hit!" The exhibition draws curiosity from columnists at the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express Evening Standard, and earns a commentary by critic Cottie Burland in Arts Review: “It seems absurd to say that there is beauty in bananas, but what we see here is an acute contrast between conventional ideas of the reality of art. A visit to this small gallery in South Kensington is a lesson of philosophy regarding painting.[26]

1972

Back to Brazil after four months abroad, the artist makes the following observation:

Europe was the past we never had, the headquarters of empires of which we were colonies. The trip will be reflected in my work because it gave me a new perspective of what happens here. From there we see Brazilian reality with other lenses. We see that there the fundamental problems have already been solved, whereas here we still have to neurotically try to survive. It is in this constant atmosphere of crisis and chaos that we have to try to work and produce. This travelling experience is important and the changes will show themselves in the future, but always stemming from my commitment to reality.[27]

In Abril, again abroad, the has a solo show of the series “Brasiliana” at Galerie du Théâtre, in Geneva (Switzerland), and in May, at the 3rd “Bienal de Arte Coltejer”, in Medellín (Colombia), he is part of a Brazilian delegation, with Almir Mavignier, Danilo Di Prete, Franz Weissmann, Humberto Espíndola, Jacques Douchez, José Resende, Manabu Mabe, Marcello Nitsche, Marcia Demange, Márcio Mattar, Norberto Nicola, Ricardo Augusto, Wanda Pimentel, and Wesley Duke Lee.

In June he is part of a tapestry group show at Galeria Cosme Velho: two of his tapestries with tropical motives are sold. One of them is inspired by the canvas BR-1 SP (1970).

Back in Brazil, he has solo shows in Brasília, at Galeria Mainline (whose owner is Oscar Seraphico), with a text by Hugo Auler, and in Santos, at Centro Cultural Brasil-Estados Unidos.

He also takes part in the group exhibition “Arte/Brasil/Hoje: 50 Anos Depois”, at Galeria Collectio (São Paulo), with curatorship by Roberto Pontual (the book about the exhibition is published in the following year, during a series of meetings of art critics).

In December, Antonio Henrique has an important solo show at Galeria Bonfiglioli (São Paulo), with 21 canvases. The exhibition gets the Best Painting Exhibition of 1972 Award by Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte. Arnaldo Pedroso D’Horta writes about the show:

In this latest phase, the fruit acquired grandeur, a dramatization until now unsuspected, mainly in these latest works, to which he adds a new element, a rope tied to the bananas. […] The intimacy between the artist and his theme reaches the highest intensity in Na corda and in Grande detalhe, in which the mysteries of germination, in the recesses where fructification occurs close to the peduncular ramification of the tree stem, are beautiful transpositions and revelations of Nature's secrets, in its elaborated fantasy.[28]

1973

In January he travels to the USA, with "guts, courage and $500 of monthly scholarship" granted by his 1971 award. He settles in New York with Lígia. He stays at the Chelsea Hotel for 15 days and after that rents a studio at the corner of 20th Street and 3th Avenue, working at a small studio at Broadway, until he manages to rent a spacious loft in SoHo, at Greene Street, and later one at Spring Street. He works regularly, painting for 10 hours a day (he would recall later, in an interview to Folha de S.Paulo, having painted 60 canvases during his two year stay in the USA[29]).

He starts working at “Campos de batalha”, an important moment of his career and of his aesthetic speculations. Later, Frederico Morais would write about the production in a book dedicated to the artist:

The changes in colour, with the introduction of grays and blacks, softening the nuances, coincide with the most serious moments of political repression in Brazil. The banana abandons its natural habitat, and starts to be featured, now alone, in the confined spaces of repression and torture.[30]

With “Campos de batalha”, there is also now a new working methodology, with photography at its base: the artist not only starts from an element in nature, but also from its photographed image. And, as an image, it can be enlarged, framed, manipulated; its sections and details explored.

He spends time with Latin-American artists established in New York, like Leonel Góngora (who he portrays the following year) Marcelo Bonevardi, Paternostro, Omar Rayo, Mario Toral, Molinari Flores, Julio Alpuy, Rodolfo Abularach, Enrique Castro-Cid, Armando Morales, María Luisa Pacheco, Marisol, Rafael Bogarín and others. With several of them he is part of group shows like “Tropic of Cancer – Tropic of Capricorn: Contemporary Latin American Art”, presented in February at the art gallery of University of Massachusets at Amherst, at which Góngora teaches – he also writers the introduction to the catalogue. The exhibition has the curatorship of Jacqueline Barnitz. The show is well regarded by the critics. The Arts magazine highlights two artists in the exhibition: Fernando Botero and Antonio Henrique Amaral. Lee Sheridan also writes an article praising the artist's work at the Springfield Daily News.

In a letter written to Diná Lopes Coelho, director of Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, the artist talks about his success: "We had here Lee Ault, owner of Lee Ault Gallery (a founder of the magazine Art in America and one of the owners of the Vision Group, a millionaire who has in his collection Chagall, Braque, Picasso, etc.); he enjoyed the works a lot, bought four of them and is vividly interested in organizing a show of my works in May of 74.”

He also takes part in the important “Young Artists ’73”, in July, at the Union Carbide Building, New York, alongside Anna Bella Geiger, Janine Schmitt, and Miriam Chiaverini. At the exhibition “Tribute to/Homenaje a Picasso”, at Organization of American States – OAS, in Washington, 24 nations participate, each artist representing one country. Antonio Henrique shows Banana e corda. The exhibition is curated by Galo Plaza. He is also part of the show “Latin American Painting”, at Queens Cultural Center, New York, in which Brazil is represented by Antonio Henrique Amaral and Manabu Mabe.

In September he has a solo show at Galería San Diego, in Bogotá (Colombia). Having sold well, he travels to Cartagena, where he meets the writer Gabriel García Márquez and the painter Alejandro Obregón. From there he travels to Puerto Rico (on “vacaciones”) and visits the collector José Martínez-Canãs, at the suggestion of José Gómez-Sicre. They would meet again in 1986 in the USA and start working together in 1989 at Elite Fine Arts, in Coral Gables.

Invited by Diná Lopes Coelho, he sends in October three canvases – Grande detalhe, Momento Sul II and Momento Sul III – to “Panorama da Arte Atual Brasileira/Pintura”, at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo.

1974

In February he shows 17 canvases (13 of the series “Campo de batalha”) in a solo show at Lee Ault & Co. Gallery, New York. The first to write about the series is the philosopher Vilém Flusser, after having visited the artist's studio in 1973. The text – Battlefields –, written in English, is published in Portuguese the following year by Carlos von Schmidt’s magazine Artes (n. 43, jul. 1975):

By its aesthetic qualities (phenomenological attitude), these paintings become ethically relevant: they are "true" in relation to the situation they refer to, and therefore “effective” to that situation. Through their aesthetic qualities, they become technically solid: they convince us of the possibility of the use of a traditional material (oil on canvas) because, aesthetically, they reveal their potentiality. Through their ethical qualities, they are aesthetically relevant: by being "true" to a meaning that transcends them, these images become sufficiently interesting to be contemplated. Through their ethical qualities, they are technically substantial: it is worthy experimenting with bananas because they mean something that transcends them.

The exhibition is a success – "Representatives from the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art went to see it and visited my studio, showing interest in my work" – and also has repercussion in Brazil.

1975

In January, he returns to Brazil and settles in São Paulo. He lives in a small studio at Sampaio Vidal street.

In a deposition about the impact of the period in the USA and the problem of censorship in Brazil, he says:

This impact from the new reality, this effervescence of things, is really most important, and one learns to choose, because there are such amounts of information that one cannot assimilate everything […] this does not happen here because of several problems, and one of them is censorship. I find the problem of censorship of artistic expression extremely emasculating. This is a problem that affects not only the political scene (which is the goal of the authorities), but also, and violently, the power of creation of the artist. This is dramatically painful and takes away the creative force of a generation. This does not happen in the USA and Europe, and there you can feel all the impact of creative forces, which is very stimulating, very good.[31]

During his stay in Brazil, the Lee Ault & Co. Gallery, in New York, shows works by Antonio Henrique alongside those of the American artist Will Horwitt and of the Nicaraguan Armando Morales.

In March, Antonio Henrique shows 15 canvases, among them several Campos de batalha, in a solo exhibition at Galeria Bonfiglioli (São Paulo). The critic Olívio Tavares de Araújo writes in Veja magazine about the series of paintings done in the USA and shown for the first time in Brazil (the article is illustrated by Campo de batalha 10 and 29):

In the works shown, the result of an intense life experience abroad, the vestiges of Antonio Henrique go still further. To the ropes, still present, he adds forks and knives – instruments for cutting and perforating – metallically acute, that assault the bananas with manifest mercilessness. The gray colour emerges in several paintings, and dominates in some cases. The works are systematically titled “Campos de batalha”. And in one of them – #29 – the superamplification of a detail deliberately subverts the theme. The sharp ends of the knives emerging from a banana seem to pertain to a science-fiction scene, and transmit a sense of imprisonment and angst. There is therefore no doubt that Amaral’s painting uses a set of metaphors, in which the banana symbolized, since the beginning, the tropical element – maybe the Latin American way of being itself. [...] Though he deals with fruit, plates and cutlery (so apparently trivial), Amaral seeks to speak of the human being, of the Americas and of its specific conditions at this present moment.[32]

In April he presents 16 paintings in a solo show at Galeria Bonino (Rio de Janeiro), winning applause from critics and the public alike. He publishes excerpts of the Vilém Flusser text, until then unpublished in Portuguese. Also in April, his works are shown in solo exhibitions at the Birmingham Art Museum and the Nashville Fine Arts Center, in the USA.

Through a donation by Barbara Duncan, two of his works go to the Archer M. Huntington Museum collection (now incorporated by the Blanton Museum of Art’s Latin American Collection) of the University of Texas at Austin: Alone in Green (1973), and Campo de batalha 31 (1974). Those are the first works by the artist to belong to a North American museum. Duncan writes:

Confrontation has consistently provided the thrust behind Antonio Amaral’s paintings. In essence, the artist envisions the agricultural tradition of Brazil as challenged by modern technology. Amaral maintains a tantalizing ambiguity within his canvases and achieves monumentality regardless of actual size. By the juxtaposition of conflicting plastic and symbolic elements, he involves the viewer in the pull and tug of opposites.

In May the trial edition of Vida das Artes magazine features his interview to Harry Laus: “Bonitas? Banais? Bananas”. The magazine, edited in Rio de Janeiro and directed by José Roberto Teixeira Leite, is launched at Clube dos Marimbás, in Copacabana, and later at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo.

Dealing with a crisis in his marriage and the difficulty of adapting to a strange Brazil and the hangover of return, he seeks the help of therapist Roberto Freire.

In October he has a show at Centro de Estudos Macunaíma (São Paulo). There are ten new paintings: six six Campos de batalha and four more recent ones, "in which there remained only traces of the banana."

In October 25, the journalist Vladimir Herzog dies at DOI-CODI in São Paulo. Antonio Henrique paints the series “A morte no sábado”.

In November he takes part as a guest artist in the 10th “Salão de Arte Contemporânea de Campinas/Arte no Brasil: Documento/Debate”, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea José Pancetti, in Campinas. The event, organized by Aline Figueiredo, Aracy Amaral and Frederico Morais, also features works by Amilcar de Castro, Franz Weissmann, Humberto Espíndola, João Câmara, Maria Leontina, Mário Bueno, Mira Schendel, Nelson Leirner, Rubem Valentim, Sergio Camargo, and Tomie Ohtake. In the following year, the show and debates happen in Rio de Janeiro (Museu de Arte Moderna) and in São Paulo (Pinacoteca do Estado).

1976

Two exhibitions precede the great solo show of the artist in Mexico: his participation in the 3rd “Bienal Americana de Artes Gráficas”, em Cali (Colombia), at which he shows recent drawings, and his solo exhibition at Patronato Pro-Cultura, in San Salvador (El Salvador), with 28 paintings done between 1968 and 1975.

In June, at Museo de Arte Moderno, in Mexico City, the show “Antonio Henrique Amaral – Pintor Brasileño: Hiperrealismo; Variaciones sobre un Tema Polémico” presents 39 paintings from the series “Bananas” (Brasiliana, Campo de batalha, A morte no sábado) and 3 recent ones: Os metais, as vísceras I and II and A casa de Macunaíma. The catalogue has a presentation by Fernando Gamboa and texts by Damián Bayón (“Las ‘naturalezas vivas’ de Antonio Henrique Amaral”) and Frederico Morais (“La selva explosiona dentro del plátano”). Bayón writes, recalling the impact of the visit to the artist's studio in New York:

[…] little by little, I began to understand the mechanism: the artist’s optical and mental “camera” approaches more and more his “live nature” in a detailed and cruel close-up. […] Each time the traveller comes nearer the obsessive fruit. […] Later, it is true, there remain only the weapons of torture, and thus we see in the first plane the curved and crossed teeth of forks that make up a jungle, a jungle that is at the same time a prison. Although the “victim” doesn’t ever appear, nothing changes/it doesn’t matter, for what matters are the instruments of the Passion, as in the innocent, terrible painting of Fra Angelico: tragic sweetness with less theatricality than in Grünewald and, in return, more critic lucidity. […] Antonio Henrique Amaral’s paintings are fascinating and mysterious, inexhaustible to look at, capable of filling up the wall on their own and transforming it. A considerable feat, in these dry times. 

Frederico Morais writes a retrospective of the bananas' theme for the Mexican public and talks about the artist's recent production:

From within the banana, the forest explodes in abstractions. Intense greens, sharp, aggressive, entangled forms; it is the jungle growing monumentally within the canvas, somewhat reminiscent of the Chilean Matta. More than ever – in dimension, breadth, colours, texture –, Amaral takes over the continent, South America, of the sun and the salt, as in the poem by Oswald de Andrade. As if the banana had within itself, protected, the forest that now explodes right in front of our eyes. It is fascinating. At the moment it is hard to tell with precision the path his painting will follow. To those who know his phases prior to the bananas, they still persist. To those who don't, the identification is more difficult. Everything indicates, though, that the banana cycle is about to end.

During the exhibition, El Colégio de México (Mexico City) acquires Campo de batalha 18 (1974).

In the middle of his complicated relationship with Lígia, Mariana is born in October 18.

In October, first anniversary of the death of Vladimir Herzog, the artist donates the painting Ainda a morte no sábado to Sindicato dos Jornalistas Profissionais do Estado de São Paulo, then presided by Audálio Dantas.

In November, the title of a solo show at Galeria Bonfiglioli is suggestive – “Novos Caminhos 1975/1976”. At the first solo exhibition post-“Bananas”, there are 22 paintings featured. The artist writes the presentation himself:

[…]processes change, other vital needs impose themselves with some urgency. Forms and colours begun to escape between my fingers without my control or determination; as if another “I” wanted to emerge, manifest itself, breathe, in spite of my conscious projects and of what I myself expected of myself and of my works. [...] After all, this is about my life, and in the end all of our incoherencies and contradictions shall make sense. We are trying. And if it does not make sense, there will remain the record of an absurd and incoherent time.

Among the group shows of the year, two happened abroad: “Latin American Horizons”, in the USA, at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, in Sarasota; at the Metropolitan Museum and Art Center, in Coral Gables; at the Pensacola Art Center; at the Museum of Fine Arts, in St. Petersburg; and at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of the Arts, with the curatorship of Leslie Judd Ahalander; “Arte Brasiliana Secolo XX – Cammini e Tendenze” is part of the “Arte Fiera di Bologna”, in Italy. The show is also presented in Brazil with the title “Arte Brasileira: Figuras e Movimentos”, at Petite Galerie (Rio de Janeiro) and at Galeria Arte Global (São Paulo). Frederico Morais writes the texts for the catalogues.

Among the group shows in Brazil, the most important are “Panorama da Arte Atual Brasileira”, at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo; “Edições de Litografias”, at Galeria Arte Global, in which are also featured Elizabeth Etzel, Guilherme de Faria, Maria Bonomi, Renina Katz, Servulo Esmeraldo, Thereza Miranda and Ubirajara Ribeiro; and at the 7th “Salão Paulista de Arte Contemporânea”, with Amaral as a guest artist.

In December 12, Antonio Henrique participates in a meeting organized by Frederico Morais at Museu Nacional de Belas-Artes, in Rio de Janeiro. He is also part, in December 20, of the debate “Artes Plásticas e suas Dependências”, in the series “Panorama da Cultura Brasileira”, promoted by Centro Latino-Americano de Criatividade (Celac). Also present are Aracy Amaral, Fabio Magalhães and Fernando Lemos, as mediator. The debate happens at Teatro Ruth Escobar, in São Paulo.

1977

As part of a broad process of existential reassessment, Antonio Henrique decides to give credit to "the small drawings that went off my fingers, uncontrolled". He starts a series of paintings from small sketches (“doodles”) which will characterize the series “Expansões”.

In 1973, I started to pay attention to some small graphic records that I was subconsciously making in any piece of paper at hand. At the time I was painting the “Campos de batalha’ series, which was realistic and objective painting, with almost nothing at random. The small drawings went off my fingers and uncontrollably invaded my notes, people's addresses, lists of things to do, book margins and telephone messages. I thought about this: in the one hand, an objective and technically precise painting. In the other, the subjective drawings with no technique and formally “underdeveloped”. I thought about the possibility of developing the “author” of this fertile thread of subjective information about my nature. To investigate these creative processes and to find out how to integrate these two ways of expression, I started a series of paintings based on these drawings (the “explosions”), constantly trying to integrate the objective dimensions of reality (Bambus and Casas de Macunaíma).

In April he inaugurates a solo show at Galeria Bonino (Rio de Janeiro), with 23 paintings done between 1975 and 1977, with the title “O trabalho prossegue”. The artist writes the text for the catalogue. Roberto Pontual writes about the exhibition in Jornal do Brasil:

[…] without losing the individual quality of each work, he distributes them in the gallery as a sampling of his diverse options at the moment, of the different paths into which he can submerge and sink from now on, maybe recovering, further ahead, the spirit of the old serial unity. In these paintings, […] Antonio Henrique goes from the final disintegration of the banana (the “banana mud”, his organic material offered to the rage of forks and knives), up to what is newest there: an entrance to the forest, a meeting with the earth's unity, the entanglement of vegetation and the thorns in the leaves that live in it. […] the truth is that they remain, in the colours, the plots, the collision between the organic and inorganic worlds, in the combat of viscera against machine, in the pleasure of painting and, through painting, the opening of roads of language.[33]

In May he participates in the group show “Arte Agora II: Visão da Terra”, with Roberto Pontual as curator, and in which also feature Antonio Maia, Emanoel Araujo, Francisco Brennand, Frans Krajcberg, Gilvan Samico, Glauco Rodrigues, Humberto Espíndola, Ione Saldanha, Márcio Sampaio, Millôr Fernandes and Rubem Valentim. Ferreira Gullar writes about this new phase:

It’s been a long time since, in the panorama of Brazilian painting, we last noticed an eruption of vitality such as the one which springs from the new phase of the painter Antonio Henrique Amaral. And the important thing is that it is not an eruption that simply destroys what is around, but is constructive. […] The first contact with this new phase of the artist, through Transformações (1975), communicates a sense of elation at the discovery of a new expressive dimension. And the eruption comes from there – rather, this is it: the painter abandons his old cocoon, breaks with habitual forms, flies in the colourful space that he himself invents. There is a healthy haste in this new phase of Antonio Henrique Amaral. He mixes everything: objective forms from the previous phase with the forms created with the enthusiasm of present improvisation, the “real” space of before with the imaginary space of now, imitative resources of language (shades, volume suggestions) with the absctract colours born out of fantasy.

May also sees the beginning of two group shows of which the artist takes part: “Arte Actual de Iberoamérica”, organized by Instituto de Cultura Hispánica, at Centro Cultural Villa de Madri (Spain), with the curatorship of Luiz Gonzales-Robles; and “Homenaje a la Pintura Latinoamericana”, presented at Patronato Pro-Cultura, in San Salvador (El Salvador).

In July he makes a solo exhibition at Galeria Guignard, in Porto Alegre.

In São Paulo, his works are in the show “Antonio Henrique Amaral, Claudio Tozzi, Tomie Ohtake”, at Galeria Bonfiglioli – 15 paintings done between 1975 and 1977. The journalist and critic Sheila Leirner writes:

Antonio Henrique has refined his technique, developed his approach and attained that rare stage in which language, now very personal, becomes unmistakable, and in which the pictorial result reveals the touch of genius. Now the artist unshakably transcends the allegory of the prior creative and exuberant images – without, however, disembarking in some innocuous plasticism – and makes his way through the very essence of the plastic experience.[34]

In December the takes part in a group show with works from the collection of the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro – “Metáfora e Transformação da Realidade” –, with the curatorship of Ronaldo do Rego Macedo. 

1978

By mid-year, already with his green card, obtained thanks to his cultural contribution to the USA, he moves to New York, settling on the corner of Greene Street and Canal Street. He lives between SoHo (New York) and Butantã (São Paulo), where he starts building his studio, designed by Ruy Ohtake.

In the USA, the does solo shows at Lee Ault & Co. Gallery (New York), in February – with 23 paintings dated from 1976 to 1978 –, and at the Brazilian-American Cultural Institute (Washington), in April, at the invitation of José Neinstein, director of BACI. Ferreira Gullar writes the text for the catalogue. Also in the USA he is featured at the group shows “The 1978 Latin American Art Exposition” (De Armas Gallery, Virginia Gardens), in March, and “Latin American Art Show” (Great Neck Library, New York), in May.

In Venezuela, he is part of the 1st “Encontro Ibero-Americano de Críticos de Arte e Artistas Plásticos”, at Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas, along with the Brazilian artists Antonio Dias, Antonio Maia, Arcangelo Ianelli, Iberê Camargo, João Câmara, Maria Leontina, Tomie Ohtake and Wesley Duke Lee. In Mexico City, he is part of the 1st “Bienal Iberoamericana”.

In July 8, a fire at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro destroys about 90% of its collection, including Campo de batalha 23.

In São Paulo, he takes part in the 1st “Bienal Latino-Americana” (Fundação Bienal de São Paulo), under the theme Myths and Magic. Antonio Henrique has a special room with 46 paintings done between 1975 and 1978. 

1979

Great changes in his personal life: he is alone, quits smoking and drinking, more critical and sober. He paints six poliptychs, about which Aracy Amaral writes:

[…] impassioned by the origin and development of the mental and creative processes, the painter continuously observes today his own body, which he reads and auscultates, as a source of sensibilities that will generate the artistic expression. The goal he discerningly sets for himself today is the transformation of his set of themes as a result of his quest to maintain unobstructed the channels of perception of the outer universe, so as to simultaneously and permanently irrigate the flux of the interior circuits which contribute, from one side of the brain, to a harmonious self-expression. Many times this harmony of expression demands a consciousness – or a zone in which one perceives a “pure” projection of the rational – of realities added to the intuitive in the human gesture. This intense search of Antonio Henrique was the target of three immense triptychs, each one trying to express the duality of the right/left brain hemispheres with the fusion/central identity tried with better or worse results. The great horizontal surfaces of these are counterbalanced by vertical structures in the three compartments of each work, which once more impose the “center’ of the painting, an intended abstract or a live energy of the distinct lateral mechanisms.[35]

In April he shows the polyptichs at Cayman Gallery, in New York, at the solo show “Antonio Amaral: Multiptychs”. Bruce Duff Hooton, editor-in-chief of Art/World, writes in the catalogue:

In Antonio Amaral’s recent paintings fire races through the very arteries of existence. His multiptych experiences are like twin infernos in which colors burn down the dividing walls. […] Amaral’s shapes derive their immediate history from the industrial, tubular musculature of Fernand Léger, but the energy and dichotomy of spirit are Blakian. […] His interconnecting tissues are like the ends of untied organic knots pounding to retie themselves. It is the drama of division in which Blake’s The Good and Evil Angels [colour print, ink and watercolour on paper, 1795, Tate Gallery, London], are weighed in the balance and both are found to be energy. Amaral has plugged his art into the most secret organs of the earth (“like a sword in a scabbard of meteors, I plunged a turbulent and tender hand to the most secret organs of the earth”*), he scrapes the intestine until he touches mankind (“allow me, architecture, to fret stone stamens with a little stick, climb all the steps of air into emptiness, scrape the intestine until I touch mankind”*).[36]

He also has two solo exhibitions: at Galería Juan Martín (Mexico City), in September, with 29 paintings done in 1979, and at Galeria Bonfiglioli (São Paulo), in November, with 22 paintings.

In Brazil, he presents one of the poliptychs in “Panorama da Arte Atual Brasileira” at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. He is also part of the show “70 Gravadores Brasileiros”, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, with a work belonging to the collection, and of “Figuração Referencial”, at the 11th “Salão Nacional de Arte Contemporânea de Belo Horizonte”.

1980

Antonio Henrique has three important solo shows in 1980, in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Miami. In May he shows paintings at Galeria Bonino (Rio de Janeiro). In a very intimate text – “Vocabulário visual, expansões, mudanças, consciência, etc.” –, the artist presents the 20 paintings recently made:

To investigate the landscapes inside us and to look outside seeking the objective world. To combine the landscapes of "within-outside-here-now”. To travel inside and to occupy our “particular” spaces (from particles). [...] To identify our myths, our “voices” in search of all our minotaurs. To let energies flow, to clear the channels of perception and expression: the forms and colours that arise in our painting, our gestures, in the conscious mental mechanisms, to express only the final stage of a process that occurred for the most part in unconscious regions.

In August, he shows drawings at Galeria Luisa Strina (São Paulo). The presentation of the catalogue is also written by the artist. About this exhibition, critic Sheila Leirner writes:

The drawings of Antonio Henrique Amaral at Galeria Luisa Strina have a dual interest. They matter as drawings per se and as a distinct stage in is known working process. […] the drawings that he presents are a curious fusion that emphasizes those records (didactically exposed at a gallery display window) much more than the Explosões, for his very gestural technic, automatistic but one that doesn’t lose contact with the figurative, the objective and the real. After all, the unconscious repertoire is not also the same of those of the cognizable signs around us?[37]

In Octobers he shows recent paintings at Forma Gallery, of Marta Gutierrez and Dora Valdes-Fauli, in Coral Gables (USA). He is also in the group show “Hommage to Casa de las Américas de Cuba”, at Museo del Barrio (New York, USA), along the Brazilians Arthur Luiz Piza, Flávio-Shiró, Gontran Guanaes Netto and Mário Gruber. The catalogue has a presentation by Adelaide De Juan and Mario Toral. In Brazil, he is featured in “Panorama da Arte Atual Brasileira” at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo.

1981

He makes his first trip to Cuba, where he participates in a symposium, invited by Casa de las Américas. He meets Fidel Castro and Eduardo Galeano. The heroic Cuban revolution shows signs of fatigue and Fidel Castro's beard is already grizzled. A melancholic impression.

From May to October he has works shown at several group shows in Brazil and abroad: “Do Moderno ao Contemporâneo”, with works of the Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro and in the following year at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão, in Lisbon (Portugal), with the curatorship of Fernando Cocchiarale and Wilson Coutinho; “Arte – América Latina – Expo ’81” is presented at Centro Portales (Cochabamba) and at Casa de la Cultura (Santa Cruz), in Bolivia. The catalogue presentation text is by Barbara Duncan; the 3rd “Mostra do Desenho Brasileiro”, at the exhibition room at Teatro Guaíra, in Curitiba; and “Pablo, Pablo!: Uma Interpretação Brasileira de Guernica”, an exhibition in tribute of Pablo Picasso's centennial, presented at Funarte, Rio de Janeiro (in the following year the show travels to Brasília, Curitiba, Porto Alegre and São Paulo). The choice of the 20 artists is made by a commission composed of Frederico Morais, Geraldo Edson de Andrade and Mário Barata. The artist shows Ainda a morte no sábado; “Encontro ‘Artes Visuales e Identidad en América Latina’”, organized by Foro de Arte Contemporáneo, in Mexico City, in which participate Arnold Belkin, Julio Le Parc, León Ferrari, and Mirko Lauer, among other Latin American artists and critics; “Contemporary Latin American Art in Japan”, presented at Museum of Modern Art, Osaka (Japan), at which he shows Cabeça e o orgasmo and Paisagem com interferência metálica.

In October, he shows oil paintings at a solo show at Galeria Grifo (São Paulo). In the text “Antonio Henrique em Alto Mar”, the critic Olívio Tavares de Araújo talks about the artist's recent pictorial production:

If the bananas were basically about the world around him, the following paintings started to talk primordially about the artist's inner universe – coming from within with a crash of emotions. The first result of this insight stricto sensu, of this perceiving of his own being, was explosive and fulgurant. The disaggregation of forms going from the center to the limits of the canvas corresponded not only to the fragmentation of the thematically coherent investigation that the artist was making thus far, but mainly to a sort of disruption of his, so to speak, official identity. After that, the forms got reorganized, not because of any idea or constant anymore, but as a result of the structuring needs of each painting.

1982

He founds, with Thomas Ianelli and others, the Associação Profissional dos Artistas Plásticos de São Paulo (APAP), “in the hope of creating an association to discuss ideas, concepts, and to develop a political thinking of the artistic class in opposition to the moribund military dictatorship."

He participates in the 3rd “Salão de Arte Brasileira”, organized by Fundação Mokiti Okada, in São Paulo. He gets the Travel Award to Japan with Interferências Metálicas II. The jurors are Aldemir Martins, Frederico Morais, Kazuo Wakabayashi and Wolfgang Pfeiffer. He is also part of the exhibition “Gravuras e Gravadores”, at Pinacoteca Municipal, in São Paulo, with the album O meu e o seu, which belongs to the institution's collection.

He makes a panel for the highway between El Tigre and Ciudad Bolivar, in Venezuela. For a project of an outdoor museum, Rafael Bogarín invites 26 artists to paint 2 x 4 metre billboards, distributed along the highway. The mural paintings are recorded in the book Arte en la carretera: Museo Vial Renovable “Rafael Bogarín”, by Juan Carlos Palenzuela (Cuadernos Lagoven, 1982). The panels were destroyed with the passage of time. He makes the tryptich Bambuzal (2,20 x 5,70 meters) for Banco Itaú, in São Paulo. The oil on canvas Frutas (1982) is also now part of the bank’s collection.

1983

In January he is part of the 5th “Bienal del Dibujo”, at Museo de Arte Americano de Maldonado (Uruguay), winning the Diez Años de Bienal Award. The drawing awarded goes to the museum’s collection.

In March he travels to Japan, thanks to his Travel Award from 1982. After that the goes to China, India, Hong Kong, Thailand, Bali and Singapore.

He takes part in the 6th “Japan-Brazil Exhibition of Fine Arts 1983/Exposição de Belas-Artes Brasil-Japão”, presented in Japan – at Tokyo Central Museum (Tokyo), at MOA Museum of Art (Atami) and at MOA Museum of Art (Kyoto) – and in Brazil – at Fundação Mokiti Okada (São Paulo) and at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. The exhibition is sponsored and organized by the Brazil-Japan Foundation for Plastic Arts, The MOA Museum of Art and the São Paulo Newspaper Co. The artists were chosen on the occasion of the 3rd “Salão de Arte Brasileira”, in 1982.

He is also part of “Exposição Comemorativa Bicentenário de Simón Bolivar”, organized by Corporación de Los Andes, em Merida (Venezuela). Antonio Henrique presents his two 1983 paintings: As lutas and A construção.

Back in Brazil, he shows works at two solo shows at Rio Grande do Sul – at Galeria Tina Presser, in Porto Alegre, and at the art gallery of Universidade de Caxias do Sul.

In São Paulo, Galeria Bonfiglioli (São Paulo) presents his “Caminhos de Ontem – Trabalhos de Hoje”. The artist shows works of all phases: one work from each year, from 1957 to 1982 (with the exception of 1964), and 20 paintings done between 1982 and 1983. In the catalogue text, Frederico Morais talks about the evolution of subject and form in the artist’s work and also about his recent paintings:

In 1979, commenting on an exhibition at this gallery, I wrote that “Amaral’s biggest preoccupation, at this moment, is to dominate these forms (which seem captured at the moment of the explosion of the old cubist building), to structure them, to give them concreteness, corporality, to compact them with the help of drawing and colour. To make solid painting.” His present painting confirms this prognosis: the energy of the volumes, matter without prettiness in a strong and virile brilliance. The forms, originated from his little drawings (inner stenography) consolidate themselves in the space of the canvas; form and space are now clearly defined, acquiring a consistency close to the tridimensional, the successive inner frames threatened by the figuration that wants to shatter and expand its original energy.

Sheila Leirner comments on the exhibition, highlighting the "ambivalence that stimulates, simultaneously, illusionist and literal experiences," present in the artist's work:

The only structure that supports his mature and humoured liberty, shown through the authority of technique, individual strength, clarity and independence is, however, the dualism. […] His game with proportions, the disposal and the “frames” create a cosmic space similar to the one that involves the figures in surrealism. […] the forms on these paintings in giant canvases seem to possess volume. It is at this moment that they acquire a tridimensional and corporeal weight and material qualities, at which the objects and images start to play their representative function: they appear as organisms, morphologies, recognizable or not, but always characters of a real and imaginary story that is starting. […] There is also the other side, the literal experience […] due to the suggestions and formal limitations of painting itself, which constantly appears as a physical object. […] The observer is then aware of the fact that he experiments illusions by the literal dimensions of this painting.[38]

1984

In May he is part, as a guest, of the 1st “Bienal de Havana”, in Cuba. In Mexico City, he participates in two group shows: “El Grabado Brasileño Contemporáneo”, at the Brazilian Embassy, and the 4th “Bienal Iberoamericana de Arte: El Autorretrato”, organized by Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes and Instituto Cultural Domecq. Juan José Rosales is the curator of the exhibition. The catalogue is written by Fernando Gamboa. In June, the works in Gilberto Chateaubriand's collection are at “Portraits of a Country: Brazilian Modern Art from the Gilberto Chateubriand Collection”. The show, with the curatorship of Sheena Wagstaff, is presented at the Barbican Art Center, in London (UK). In November, along with Siron Franco, he takes part in an exhibition at Centre National des Arts, in Ottawa (Canada). The show is organized by the Brazilian Embassy. Also in November, he is part of the group show “Tradição e Ruptura: Síntese de Arte e Cultura Brasileiras”, at Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, with the coordination of João Marino.

1985

In June he has paintings in a solo show at Galeria São Paulo, of Regina Boni. The text of the catalogue, “Partir para o impossível ou as dicotomias de Antonio Henrique Amaral”, is written by Ignácio de Loyola Brandão. In the following year, the exhibition is elected the best of the year by Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte. The same gallery organizes, in a partnership with the Ministry of Culture and IBM Brasil the group show “Brasilidade e Independência”, presented at the foyer of Teatro Nacional de Brasília. It is an interesting initiative, featuring artists from different generations, including those of the so called “80s generation”. Olívio Tavares de Araújo writes the catalogue presentation.

In July, in the 9th anniversary of Shopping Ibirapuera (São Paulo), the artist paints the panel Fragmento menor da cidade maior (today destroyed).

In October, the Paço Imperial (Rio de Janeiro) opens a retrospective-synthesis of his work: “Pinturas 1968-1985”, featuring 56 paintings. Antonio Henrique is the first artist to have a solo show after the restoration of the space. The exhibition is also shown at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre) and, in the following year, at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. Frederico Moraes writes the texts for the catalogues. Also in October, the artist takes part in the special hall “Expressionismo no Brasil: Heranças e Afinidades”, at the 18th “Bienal Internacional de São Paulo”, with curatorship by Sheila Leirner and curatorship of the special hall by Stella Teixeira de Barros and Ivo Mesquita. Nine of the artist’s works are presented: five engravings (produced between 1963 and 1968), three drawings (pastel on paper, 1980) and one painting, Autorretrato (1983).

In November, the travels to Japan for the group show “Today's Art of Brazil”, at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, in Tokyo. Also participate in the show Antonio Dias, Hilton Barredo, José Roberto Aguilar, Leda Catunda, Luiz Paulo Baravelli, Lydia Okumura, Marcia Grostein, Siron Franco, Tunga and Vicente Kutka. The presentation is written by Aracy Amaral. He visits Hiroshima and the Peace Memoriam Museum. 

In this year, the Organization of American States (OAS) publishes the book Museum of Modern Art of Latin America: Selections from the Permanent Collection, by Marta Traba. The book reproduces the works of the artist at the Art Museum of the Americas collection, the engraving Grupo (1958) and the painting Banana (1971). 

1986

Three solo shows are highlighted this year: in April, “Antonio Henrique Amaral: Obra sobre Papel, 30 Anos”, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Campinas José Pancetti and at the gallery of Instituto de Artes da Unicamp, in Campinas. The show has as curators students of visual arts from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) – Eliane Tanasovici, Gilbertto Prado, Jair Guilherme Filho, Luciana Marta Silveira, Maxilene de Arruda, Rafaela Passos Furtado, Sérgio Soares, and Silvia Valéria Vieira –, and is part of the artist residency program. The group writes the text for the catalogue. The artist shows 112 works. In June, “Antonio Henrique Amaral: Obra em Processo, 1956-1986” is presented at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. It is the most comprehensive exhibition by the artist so far, with some 80 paintings, besides drawings and engravings. In the catalogue, Pieter Tjabbes, the curator and director of the museum, writes the presentation text, and Frederico Morais, the review:

Examining the ensemble of his work, I conclude that the constant in Antonio Henrique Amaral is the fantastic. We must, however, distinguish between this constant and the European surrealist model. Among us, the fantastic is not a way of escape or evasion: on the contrary, it has been an effective way of understanding and absorbing our reality, a plunge into our inner selves and into the continent. […] Since the beginning of his career, Amaral's efforts have been geared towards the search of balance – always tense and difficult – between the objective and the subjective, between looking outward and plunging into his inner self.

In September, “Antonio Henrique Amaral: Obra em Papel” is presented at Galeria Montesanti (São Paulo). In an interview to Olívio Tavares de Araújo, the artist talks about his recent production of drawings:

Drawing enables more disengagement, it is a richer process of self-understanding. On the other hand, painting involves a construction which is also enriching in its making. But I believe that there is today in my work a trend of convergence of the two techniques. I am moving towards painting more with my drawing and towards drawing more with my painting. Things are interacting.[39]

He also takes part in the group show “A Urbs na Visão de Oito Artistas” (Galeria Montesanti, Rio de Janeiro), with a presentation by Frederico Morais; of the 1st “Mostra Christian Dior de Arte Contemporânea/Pintura 86” (Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro); of the “Annual Graphic Show” (Acanthus Gallery, Coral Gables, USA); and of “Coleção Denison: Arte Contemporânea Brasileira” (Museu de Arte de São Paulo), with the work Peras (part of the collection), with curatorship by Carlos von Schmidt.

1987

In June he takes part in the important group show “Art of the Fantastic: Latin America, 1920-1987”, at Indianapolis Museum of Art and, in the following year, at Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, USA. The curators are Holiday T. Day and Hollister Sturges. The catalogue brings an essay by Edward Lucie-Smith, besides texts by the curators. Only two Brazilians alive are part of the show – Antonio Henrique and Siron Franco. There are works by Tarsila do Amaral.

He has a solo show, “Obra Recente”, presented in October at Galeria Montesanti de São Paulo and, in November, at Montesanti in Rio de Janeiro. Olívio Tavares de Araújo writes the text for the catalogue and a review at magazine IstoÉ[40], in which he underlines the change of direction, a return to the origins in abstraction, already announced at the drawing show the year before. In the show in Rio, besides the 21 works (which employ a mixture of techniques) the artist includes eight lithographs produced in Paris, which he calls the “Masrour” series, after the recently deceased marchand and friend Kamille Masrour.

Among other group shows, the highlights are “Latin American Artists in New York since 1970”, at Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, at University of Texas at Austin (USA), with curatorship and text by Jacqueline Barnitz, and “Modernidade: L' Art Brésilien du XXe Siècle/Modernidade: Arte Brasileira do Século XX”, at Museé d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (France), presented the following year at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. The curators, Aracy Amaral, Roberto Pontual and Marie-Odile Briot, select the works for the show – Campo de batalha 22 (1974), Detalhe da folha (1976), Expansão (1977) and Construforma (1985).

1988

At the same time that is taking place in Paris the great show of modern art in Brazil, “Modernidade”, the Parisian gallery 1900-2000 presents the group show “São Paulo – Rio – Paris”, with works by Angelo de Aquino, Antonio Henrique Amaral, Claudio Tozzi, Roberto Magalhães and Siron Franco. Marie-Odile Briot writes the text for the catalogue.

In March the artist has a solo show at the recently opened Opus Gallery, in Coral Gables (USA), in which he shows paintings from 1980 to 1988.

Two show groups in Brazil make a compilation of the production of the 1960's, the first in Rio de Janeiro – “88 x 68: Um Balanço dos Anos”, at Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto and at Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, with curatorship by, among others, Frederico Morais; and the second in São Paulo – “Figura & Objeto: 63/66” –, at Galeria Millan, with curatorship by Casimiro Xavier de Mendonça.

In September, ten Brazilian artists take part in the important group show “Brasil Já”, at the Morsbroich Museum (Leverkusen), at Landesgirokasse Galerie (Stuttgart) and, in the following year, at Sprengel Museum (Hannover). Besides Antonio Henrique's, there are works by Adriana Varejão, Antonio Dias, Dudi Maia Rosa, Emmanuel Nassar, Hilton Barredo, José Roberto Aguilar, Leonilson, Nuno Ramos and Siron Franco.

The artist wins a contest for the project of a panel for Palácio dos Bandeirantes, in São Paulo. The contest had the participation of invited artists – Claudio Tozzi, Emanouel Araújo, José Roberto Aguilar, Sérgio Ferro, and Valdir Sarubbi –, and was organized by the state of São Paulo government in order to substitute the work Tiradentes, by Cândido Portinari, moved to the Salão de Atos of Memorial da América Latina. The committee for selection and awarding was composed by Carlos Alberto Cerqueira Lemos, Casimiro Xavier de Mendonça, Ernestina Karman, Jacob Klintowitz, José Roberto Teixeira Leite and Radha Abramo. The Acervo Artístico-Cultural dos Palácios do Governo do Estado de São Paulo keeps the descriptive memorial of the work. The panel São Paulo-Brasil: criação, expansão e desenvolvimento, acrylic on canvas, with 4,5 x 16 metres (7 interlinked frames, 13 modules) takes 9 months to be executed and it is inaugurated the following year by governor Orestes Quércia.

1989

Inauguration of the panel São Paulo-Brasil: criação, expansão e desenvolvimento at Palácio dos Bandeirantes, headquarters of the state of São Paulo government, with Júlio Medaglia conducting the Orquestra Sinfônica Juvenil do Litoral and with Anna Maria Kieffer. In a deposition to journalist Heloísa Lupinacci, the artist details his project:

The panel was conceived having as its center the little church at the foundation of São Paulo. After that, the several stages of the expansion of our borders by the unbelievable action of the bandeirantes who, in search of emeralds and gold and by enslaving Indians, undertook the adventure of getting to Manaus, to the North, and to Lima and Peru, to the West. They were the ones who advanced into the jungle, on foot or by boat, and were responsible for the borders that we have today. So we have in São Paulo-Brasil: criação, expansão e desenvolvimento their excursion, the cycles of sugarcane and coffee and then industrialization, with the pollution and industrial progress.[41]

In December he shows 16 recent paintings at the fashionable Elite Fine Art, of José Martínez-Cañas, in Coral Gables (USA). The catalogue features the text “Triptych for Antonio Henrique Amaral”, by Frederico Morais.

1990

In March he takes part in the group show “Figuración Fabulación: 75 Años de Pintura en América Latina 1914-1989”, at Museo de Bellas Artes, in Caracas (Venezuela). Curatorship is done by Roberto Guevara. Gabriel García Márquez writes a prologue for the catalogue. 

In this year, his works are seen at the group show “Brasil-Japão Contemporary Art Exhibition/Exposição Brasil-Japão de Arte Contemporânea”, in Japan, in museums in Tokyo, Saporo, Atami, and in Brazil at Museu de Arte de São Paulo and at Museu Nacional de Belas-Artes (Rio de Janeiro). As a guest artist, he takes part in the “Prêmio Brasília de Artes Plásticas” exhibition, at Museu de Arte de Brasília.

1991

In April he takes part in the prestigious exhibition “Viva Brasil Viva: Konst fran Brasilien”, at Kulturhuset, Liljevalchs, in Stockholm (Sweden). The curators Bo Särnstedt (Liljevachs Konsthall), Elizabeth Haglund (Kunsthuset) and Kerstin Danielson visited Brazil in 1990 and chose 29 artists ‒ the broadest sample of contemporary art ‒ to leave the country. The artist occupies the central hall of the space, with 12 works. Besides the curator's, the catalogue features a text by Aracy Amaral. The recent works in Florestas ameaçadas are highlighted by the Swedish and the Brazilian press.

During the year, he takes part in several group shows, among them: “Tradition and Innovation”, at the Art Museum of the Americas, in Washington (USA); “Latin American Drawings Today”, at San Diego Museum of Art, La Jolla (USA); “Perspectives of the Present: Contemporary Painting of Latin America”, at Nagoya Museum of Art (Japan); “6 Artistes Latinoamericans”, at Galerie 1900-2000, in Paris (France); 2nd “Biennal Exhibition of Arts”, at Makurasaki (Japan), getting the Jury Special Award with the painting Warm Wind; “Parallels and Divergence/One Heritage: Two Paths”, at Daniel Saxon Gallery, in Los Angeles, and at Kimberly Gallery, in Washington (USA).

In Brazil the takes part in four group shows: “A Árvore de Cada Um”, at Galeria Montesanti Roesler (São Paulo), with curatorship by Casimiro Xavier de Mendonça; “Cidadania: 200 Anos da Declaração dos Direitos do Homem e do Cidadão”, at Sesc Pompeia (São Paulo), for which he creates a lithograph about article XII of the Declaration of Human Rights. The selection committee is composed by Alzira Alvarenga, Jacob Klintowitz, Nelson Nóbrega and Radha Abramo (curator). The exhibition is organized by the state of São Paulo government and Sesc. One copy of each print was bought by Fundo Social de Solidariedade do Estado de São Paulo and donated in 1993 to Pinacoteca do Estado. He also takes part in the 2nd “Exposição Internacional de Esculturas Efêmeras”, at Fundação Demócrito Rocha (Fortaleza), invited by Sérvulo Esmeraldo, creator of the project; and of “O Que Faz Você Agora, Geração 60?: Jovem Arte Contemporânea dos Anos 60 Revisitada”, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, with curatorship by Gabriela Suzana Wilder. 

1992

Between March and April he is featured in solo shows in Brazil and the USA: “Amazônia ‘A Mata’: Antonio Henrique Amaral”, at Galeria do Memorial da América Latina, in São Paulo, with 14 paintings produced between 1968 and 1992 and the text “Antonio Henrique, Amazônico”, written by Olívio Tavares de Araújo; “Antonio H. Amaral: Recent Works”, at Elite Fine Art, in Coral Gables, with text by Edward J. Sullivan; and “Recent Paintings by Antonio Henrique Amaral: Personal Trauma/National Anguish”:

In the latest work seen in this exhibition Amaral has chosen to widen his path and create new frames of reference for the political and ecological protest that lies at the root of his expression. […] many of these works have the look of stop-action cinema. Their distorted realities make us focus more closely on their messages of despair. […] These pictures also display a turn toward a more rigorous geometrical/constructivist treatment. Individual images are framed and re-framed. […] When we look at these paintings we observe actions frozen in time. It is as if for a single minute the destruction of the jungle […] had stopped and the viewer were given a moment to contemplate this horror. It is as if the artist had given us a reprieve – for just an instant – from the tragedy that we are inflicting upon ourselves.

In May, he takes part in an important group exhibition, “Brasilien: Entdeckung und Selbstendeckung”, at Kunsthaus in Zurich (Switzerland), with the curatorship of Guido Magnaguagno, Hugo Loetscher and Urs Bitterli. The poster and invitation reproduce the work of Antonio Henrique, who also has a considerable space at the exhibition hall, along with Antonio Dias, Emanoel Araújo, Frans Krajcberg and Siron Franco.

In July he is awarded at the “Eco Art” show, with a jury presided by Gilberto Chateaubriand. The exhibition, at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, is part of the official programming of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development – Rio-92 – and travels to several countries. Artists of the three Americas are selected. The Bozano Simonsen group, which sponsors the project, publishes an album with 25 serigraphies taken from works at the exhibition and the didactic material Projeto Bozano Arte e Natureza, prepared by Instituto Arte na Escola/Fundação Iochpe. 

Among other group shows in Brazil and abroad, the most important ones are: “Mirando a la América Latina y el Caribe”, at Expo ’92, in Sevilla (Spain); “Natureza: Quatro Séculos de Arte no Brasil”, at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil do Rio de Janeiro, with the work Bambuzal, with curatorship by Wilson Coutinho; “X Mostra da Gravura Cidade de Curitiba”, at Museu da Gravura Cidade de Curitiba, with a curatorship committee comprising Ivo Mesquita, Nilza Procopiak, Paulo Herkenhoff and Uiara Bartira; “Coleção Internacional”, at Museu de Arte Moderno, in Mexico City (Mexico); inaugural exhibition of the Gary Nader Gallery, in Coral Gables (USA), with the work Campo de batalha 14; “Diversité Latino-Americaine”, at Galerie 1900-2000, in Paris (France); “L’Amérique Latine dans tous ses États”, at Maison de l'Amérique Latine, also in Paris.

1993

He makes the series “Teatros”. Thirteen of the paintings in the series are shown in November at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, with a text – “O artista/a obra” – by Maria Alice Milliet:

Twelve months ago, Antonio Henrique went into a period of intense productivity. The geometric progressions that were dominating his paintings lately give way to scenographic compositions. In this sense, he recovers the central axis as an element of organization of the compositional field, creating stagings where the figure, reduced to a motif, almost a decorative pattern when enclosed into a constructive grid, reacquires meaning. He uses an imagetic repertoire built along the years with some innovations, and builds the volumes, as happens frequently in his paintings, by adopting a regime of violent contrasts of chiaroscuro. Nevertheless, he replaces the shallow depth of most of his works with a spatial deepening suggested not by a Renaissance perspective but according to the frontality of the “primitive” space. […] His cast, predominantly metonymic, is added in this phase with skulls, jawbones, animal bones and pieces of human bodies in putrefaction, in an allusion to the destructive energy that inhabits the individual and society. On the scene, the horror that shuts us up and renders us immobile.

In December he shows drawings and paitings in a solo exhibition at Galerie Andy Jllien in Zurich: “Antonio H. Amaral – Latin American Painting”. The catalogue has a presentation by Peter K. Wehrli and a preface by Guido Magnaguagno, vice-director of Kunsthaus Zürich.

Besides his two solo shows, he participates in several group shows along the year, among them: “O Desenho Moderno no Brasil: Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand”, at Galeria de Arte do Sesi, in São Paulo, and in the following year at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro; “Retratos e Auto-Retratos na coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand”, at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, with curatorship by Denise Mattar – the artist’s self-portrait (1993) is one of the latest acquisitions by the collector; “Memória da Liberdade”, at Pinacoteca do Estado (São Paulo), with curatorship by Gérard Bosio; “Representação, Presenças Decisivas”, at Paço das Artes (São Paulo), with curatorship by Daniela Bousso; “Xilogravura – Do Cordel à Galeria”, at Fundação Espaço Cultural da Paraíba, in João Pessoa, with curatorship by Leonor Amarante and consultancy by Maria Bonomi, Renina Katz and Roberto Magalhães. In the following year, the show is presented in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and in Marseille (France).

The work Paisagem com facas is incorporated to the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, donated by Martin and Elenore Ross, collectors of the artist. William Liebmann, chief-curator of the Departament of 20th Century Art of the museum, also has engravings by Amaral in his private collection.

1994

In March he shows some recent works at Elite Fine Art, in Coral Gables (USA). The catalogue features the texts “Esthetically Incorrect”, by the artist, and “Signs of Horror and Conscience: Antonio Amaral’s Theater of the Absurd”, by art critic Donald Kuspit:

Amaral's paintings are a brilliant synthesis of tradicional and modern ideas of artistic representation, as complex and subtle as the message they convey. In Amaral, there is no sign of censorship, only of revelation. Nevertheless, what is revelead by all the austere character and all the economy of symbolic and asthetic means that he adopts for his communication – he hammers his message, repeatedly, as if to penetrate into the stubborn minds of the visitors, so they notice that the work is about them, and that they are in the theater of their lives and of society – is a contradiction.

In Germany, he presents drawings at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, in Frankfurt, during the Book Fair, and Campos de batalha at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, in Berlin, during the event “Alles Banane”, with curatorship by Annete Hulek. During the course of this event, the magazine Foglio prints the essay by Vilém Flusser.[42]

Besides the solo shows, there are group exhibitions in Brazil and abroad: “Bienal Brasil Século XX”, at Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, in which six works by the artist are presented (chief curatorship by Nelson Aguilar); “Premio Marco”, at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (México); and, at the “600 Seoul International Art Festival”, “Humanism and Technology”, at National Museum of Contemporary Art, in Seuol (South Corea).

Marta Traba publishes Art of Latin America, 1900-1980 (Inter-American Development Bank and Johns Hopkins University Press), with a reproduction of a work by the artist.

1995

An Aids prevention campaign asks some artists to produce posters. Antonio Henrique makes a drawing for a billboard that ends up originating a new series of works called “Torsos”. In May, the works created for the project “Contato – Campanha de Sensibilização sobre a Aids”, an initiative of Sesc and Parceiros da Vida contra Aids, with the contribution of 28 artists, are shown at Galeria Sesc Paulista and distributed in 100 billboards in the city. In the following year they are presented at some cities in the state of São Paulo.

Antonio Henrique is also in the group show “New Acquisitions – XXth Century Collection”, at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (USA), with the work Paisagem com facas (1993), recently incorporated to the museum’s collection; “O Desenho em São Paulo 1956/1995”, at Galeria Nara Roesler, in São Paulo, with curatorship by Frederico Morais; “Premio Marco”, at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (Mexico), in which he presentes Enamorados na paisagem (the catalogues features texts by Edward J. Sullivan and Jaime Moreno Villarreal); and “Point/Counterpoint: Two Views of 20th Century Latin American Art”, at Santa Barbara Museum of Art (USA).

In September, Antonio Henrique publishes in the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo the article “Pintura é o cadáver que mais vive e se mexe”. The artist makes an impassionate case for figurativism, "which is not coming back, because it never went away."

Between 1995 and 1996, he does four panels of large dimensions: the thriptych Paisagem com Bambus (1995), oil on canvas (2,40 x 7,13 metres), for Itaúsa S.A. (São Paulo); Bambuzal (1995), oil on canvas (2 x 5,50 metres), for the collector Roberto Klabin (São Paulo); Torsos (1996), mosaic of colour tiles (1,45 x 9,20 metres), for the restaurant Terraço Jardins of Hotel Renaissance (São Paulo); and Bambuzal (1996), oil on canvas (2 x 5,40 metres), for Fazenda e Haras Santo Angelo, in Brotas, of the Samaja family.

1996

In March he presentes 11 large-size canvases made the year before, in a solo show at Elite Fine Art, in Coral Gables (USA).

He paints 17 oils on canvas titled “Anima & Mania” in just two months.

He takes part in the group show “Premio Marco”, with the work Instrumentos de amor e morte, at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (Mexico), and in Brazil, in the shows “Modernistas Contemporâneos – Acervo dos Palácios do Governo”, at Museu Brasileiro da Escultura (São Paulo), “Seis Artistas Atemporais”, at Galeria Múltipla de Arte (São Paulo) and “Off Bienal”, at Museu Brasileiro da Escultura (São Paulo).

1997

In this year, the artist commemorates 30 years of painting with four important solo shows and the launch of a book about his work.

Among the exhibitions, there are: between April and June, with a simultaneous presentation at Instituto Moreira Salles/Espaço Higienópolis (São Paulo) and at Casa da Cultura de Poços de Caldas, “Antonio Henrique Amaral: Da Gravura à Pintura”. On the occasion, one drawing is donated to the institution in Poços de Caldas. The catalogue has a text by Tadeu Chiarelli (“Antonio Henrique antes de Antonio Henrique Amaral”) and an interview with the artist to Antonio Fernando De Franceschi (“Ao largo das correntes”). In June he presents the solo show “Obra sobre Papel” at Dan Galeria (São Paulo), with 16 drawings made that year. The catalogue has a text by Maria Alice Milliet:

Drawing is central to the work of Antonio Henrique Amaral, although it is the least publicized aspect of his vast production. […] for Antonio Henrique, drawing is like "seeing your own thoughts, it’s like watching the confused activity inside your head, which is made up of emotions, nonverbal ideas, sensations, intuitions: drawing reveals the embryonic form.” This lowering of self-censorphip favours free gestures, the immediate outburst of form and colour, a certain irresponsibility regarding the outcome, and a lack of commitment that painting, because it is a drawn-out and complex process, tends to inhibit. […] The intimate character of this practice lends to the drawings a value that for the painter is, in many occasions, superior to that of his paintings: he doesn’t give or show them, keeping them almost as a secret collection. […] An experimental field, it is the paper that first manifests the new, the inordinate, in short, the rebellion with the formal language.

In August, the solo show “Obra Recente” opens at Museu de Arte de São Paulo. The exhibition is shown through the Internet by the website Virulitas, based in Germany. After that, it is presented at Fundação Casa França-Brasil, in Rio de Janeiro. In the text “A paixão e o ato de pintar”, by Maria Alice Milliet, the curator bears witness to the vitality in the recent production of the artist, in the 19 canvas of the series “Torsos” and in the 13 of the series “Anima & Mania”:

A certain solemnity permeates the first set – I would say even a chastity. The economy of elements, together with the sobriety in colour, result in a work of intense formal purifying, the result of a métier of many years, which does not suggest at all the pictorial irruption that will come later. What stands out is the contention of the gesture, the shady colours applied with spatula with his own unmistakable technique. In the second set, it is the revolution. What keeps the artist going is the need to force passion out, and everything derives from this urgency. And in this matter condensates itself, colour saturates, the form achieves gigantic proportions, reaching paroxysms of language. This oscillation, in such a short period, gives us the right measure of Amaral's painting, never safe from turbulence, in an incessant transit from particular to general and vice versa, in a constant quest for understanding and communication.

The book Antonio Henrique Amaral: obra em processo, published by DBA Artes Gráficas, brings texts by Edward J. Sullivan (“Uma visão do exterior”), Frederico Morais (“O corpo contra os metais da opressão”) and Maria Alice Milliet (“Verso e reverso da figura”). Sullivan underscores the constructive aspect of the artist's work:

[…] Constructivism is not far from the world of aesthetic themes explored by Amaral. From an attentive reading of his works there always emerges a strong awareness of the geometric form. Volumetric substance and weight vary considerably from one canvas to another. Nevertheless, one of the most constant features in Amaral's paintings is his interest in delineating and shadowing to create structures (as representative as nonobjective) which seem intermingled to the forms that accompany them, creating an architechtonic wholeness within the canvas.

In this year, the artist also takes part in three group shows: “Premio Marco”, at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (México), with a presentation text by Luis Carlos Emerich; “Imaginário Popular: Apropriações Antropofágicas”, at Itaú Cultural (São Paulo), with curatorship of Stella Teixeira de Barros; e the 1st “Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul”, organized by Fundação Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul, with curatorship by Ángel Kalenberg, Frederico Morais, Irma Arestizábal, Justo Pastor Mellado, Pedro Querejazu and Tício Escobar.

1998

He paints the panel Frutas/98 (oil on canvas, 1,20 x 5 metres), for Hotel Porto do Sol, in São Paulo. He also conceives the panel Bambuzal-Rio for the Rio de Janeiro metro – Estação Central do Brasil, a project that ended up not being done.

In April, he is part of the group show “Futebol Arte”, with the work No ângulo direito (1997), which became a commemorative stamp launched during the Soccer World Cup. The show is presented in Brasil – at Ministério das Relações Exteriores (Brasília), at Memorial da América Latina (São Paulo) and at Fundação Casa França-Brasil (Rio de Janeiro) – and in France, where the tournament happens that year, in Paris (Conseil Économique et Social) and in Marseille. The project's conception is by Paulo Fischberg and Jamie Stewart-Granger, and the curatorship of the exhibition is by Radha Abramo. In September, he takes part in the show “Figurações, 30 Anos na Arte Brasileira”, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (conception by Teixeira Coelho and cultural coordination by Daisy Peccinini). In October he is featured in the group show “O Moderno e o Contemporâneo na Arte Brasileira – Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand”, at Museu de Arte de São Paulo.

1999

In the USA, he is part of the group show “Latin American Still Life: Reflections of Time and Place”, presented at Katonah Museum of Art and, in the following year, at Museo del Barrio, in New York. The curatorship is by Edward J. Sullivan and Clayton Kirking. In Brazil, the most important group shows for the artist are “O Brasil no Século da Arte – A Coleção MAC/USP”, organized by Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo and presented at Galeria de Arte do Sesi, in São Paulo; “Mostra Rio Gravura – Acervo Banerj”, at Museu do Ingá, in Niterói; and “Oito Artistas Brasileiros”, at Sérgio Caribé Galeria de Arte, in São Paulo. 

2000

In October, Galeria Nara Roesler (São Paulo) presents his solo show “Divertimentos (Trabalhos…) Recentes”, with 33 drawings made between 1998 and 2000. The catalogue features the texts “Entreato”, by Maria Alice Milliet, and “Brincando com o papel”, in which the artist writes about his recent drawings. About them the journalist Maria Hirszman writes:

Lightness and disengagement seem to have taken charge of the work of Antonio Henrique Amaral. […] The exhibited works place themselves at the subtle border between painting and drawing. Of the first, they have the colour, and of the second, the graphism. […] what predominates is the option for the pleasure of drawing and painting, with a certain virtuosity that seems to bring him satisfaction. “The exercise of art is like that of the music; if the guy does not know his instrument, he improvises”, he says, with the pride of someone who masters with ease materials and techniques.[43]

The same gallery, now commemorating 25 years in the market, organizes the group show “Arte e Erotismo”, with curatorship by Frederico Morais. Among other group shows, we highlight “Mostra do Redescobrimento – Brasil 500 Anos”, at several pavillions at Ibirapuera Park. A synthesis of the shows – “Século 20: Arte do Brasil” –, also organized by Fundação Brasil 500 Anos and with chief curatorship by Nelson Aguilar, is presented at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, in Lisbon (Portugal).

To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the poet Ferreira Gullar, 26 artists donate works to Coleção Ferreira Gullar de Pinturas Brasileiras, which will integrate the collection of Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro.

Also with works from the collection, he is featured in the group show “Outros 500 – Highlights of Brazilian Contemporary Art in UECLAA – University of Essex, Collection of Latin American Art”, presented at Albert Sloman Library, at University of Essex, in Colchester (England). The show has the curatorship of Gabriela Salgado. In the catalogue there is a text by Dawn Ades about the work Cromo e tempo II (1986), donated by the artist in 1996 (the collection also preserves the album O meu e o seu):

Amaral has explored with great imaginative freedom the borders between figuration and abstraction and the relationship between memory and experience. The surfaces of his paintings, as here, are often dynamically divided like a collage, and he maximizes the dramatic effects of differences in scale. Here are fragments that hint at forms of popular imagery like the heart and the breast, and striped shapes are set against a seascape. The blatant sensuality of the imagery is more subtly echoed in the soft dry flesh tones of the paint.

In December, Itaú Cultural (São Paulo) presents the important panorama “Investigações: A Gravura Brasileira”. The show’s curators are Leon Kossovitch, Mayra Laudanna and Ricardo Resende, authors of the texts in a book published by Itaú Cultural in a partnership with Cosac Naify publishing house.

He displays works at two shows with the curatorship of Teixeira Coelho and Martin Grossmann: “O Papel da Arte”, organized by Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo and presented at Galeria de Arte do Sesi, in São Paulo, and in “Obra Nova”, an exhibition for the reopening of Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo.

Between 2000 and 2004, Antonio Henrique goes through three surgeries which have consequences for his work, limiting the production of large-size works.

2001

Besides the solo show at Marcia Barrozo do Amaral Galeria de Arte (Rio de Janeiro), he takes part in the group shows “Museu de Arte Brasileira 40 Anos – Obras do Acervo”, at Museu de Arte Brasileira da Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (São Paulo), with the work Banana 69, and “Bienal: Os Primeiros 50 Anos – Uma Homenagem a Ciccillo Matarazzo”, at Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, in the module “Rede de Tensão”, with curatorship by Maria Alice Milliet and Daniela Bousso.

The work Alone in green is reproduced by the book Twentieth Century Art of Latin America, by Jacqueline Barnitz (University of Texas Press).

2002

In 2002, Galeria Nara Roesler (São Paulo) presents the solo show “Antonio Henrique Amaral – Pinturas, 2001/2002”. In the works exhibited – 18 paintings and 8 drawings, made between 2001 and 2002 –, he values the subjective side of his work, which allows for the automatism of the gesture. Maria Alice Milliet is the curator and writes the text for the exhibition:

The paintings show no restraint, but fluidity. The colours are pure sensation. The space looses any horizon. Everything happens in a field of forces expanding or contracting, in a turmoil of incessant movement. The paintings in this exhibition can be seen as the fabulation of an oniric universe in permanent transformation, full of energy and dramatic events. [...]space seems to be swept by cosmic rubbish: debris, shards, pieces of objects and even a flower incredibily pristine cross the canvas, impelled by a destructive breath.

He also takes part in the group shows “Caminhos do Contemporâneo 1952/2002”, presented at Paço Imperial (Rio de Janeiro) and at Pinacoteca do Estado (São Paulo), with curatorship by Lauro Cavalcanti, and “Imagem e Identidade – Um Olhar sobre a História: Coleção Museu Nacional de Belas-Artes”, presented at Banco Santos (São Paulo), with the curatorship of Marcus de Lontra Costa.

The work Boa vizinhança (1968) makes the front cover of the children's book Um Brasil do outro mundo: aventura na barreira do inferno, by Silvia la Regina (Berlendis & Verlecchia).

2003

He participates in two important exhibitions organized by Itaú Cultural: “Arte e Sociedade: Uma Relação Polêmica”, with curatorship by Aracy Amaral, and “A Subversão dos Meios”, with curatorship by Maria Alice Milliet. He is also in the 3rd “Exposição do Acervo dos Associados”, at Espaço Cultural BM&F, in São Paulo. The work Campo de batalha 33 (1974) is now part of the institution's collection.

There is the publication of the book Relâmpagos: dizer o ver, by Ferreira Gullar (Cosac Naify), with the text “Necessidade do maravilhoso”, about Antonio Henrique.

2004

In May, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo presents an important solo show with his engravings. With curatorship by Maria Alice Milliet, the exhibition rescues engravings done by the artist during the 1950's and 1970's. The show’s sponsor, BEA Systems, donates 25 lithographs and 39 woodcuts to the museum. At the opening of the event, there is the launch of the book Antonio Henrique Amaral: obra gráfica, 1957/2003 (Momesso Edições de Arte), with text by Ana Maria Belluzzo and an interview to Maria Alice Milliet, presenting complete graphic body of work of the artist.

In August, seven works from the “Torsos” series become part of the decoration of the TV program Metrópolis, at TV Cultura. One of the works is donated to Fundação Padre Anchieta, integrating Metrópolis’s collection. Part of the works belonging to the institution is shown the following year at Instituto Tomie Ohtake and Museu Oscar Niemeyer (with curatorship by Hélio Goldsztejn).

Also with works belonging to public and private collections, he takes part in the following group shows: “Impressões: Panorama da Xilogravura Brasileira”, presented at Santander Cultural de Porto Alegre, with engravings from the album O meu e o seu, from the collection of Mônica and George Kounis, with curatorship by Rubem Grilo and coordination by Maria Julia Vieira Pinheiros; “Still Life – Natureza-Morta”, organized by the British Council and Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, with works from the collection, presented at Galeria de Arte do Sesi, in São Paulo, with curatorship by Katia Canton and Ann Gallagher; “Cinquenta 50”, at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, with three engravings recently incorporated to the colllection and curatorship by Felipe Chaimovich.

2005

In January he starts a collaboration with Ferreira Gullar, illustrating his chronicles in the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, published on Sundays. He would make 150 illustrations until December 2007.

During the year he takes part in several group shows in Brazil: “Arte Brasileira nas Coleções Públicas e Privadas do Ceará”, at Espaço Cultural Unifor, in Fortaleza (curathorship by Max Perlingeiro); “O Retrato como Imagem do Mundo”, at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (curatorship by Cauê Alves); “Arte Brasileira – Coleção MAB/Faap”, organized by Museu de Arte Brasileira at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado and presented at Centro de Convenções Ulysses Guimarães, in Brasília, Cúpula América do Sul-Países Árabes; “Nave dos Insensatos”, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (curatorship by Elza Ajzenberg); “Dor, Forma e Beleza: A Representação Criadora da Experiência Traumática”, presented at Estação Pinacoteca, in São Paulo, during the 44th Congresso Internacional da Associação de Psicanálise (curatorship by Olívio Tavares de Araújo and Leopoldo Nosek); “100 Anos da Pinacoteca: A Formação de um Acervo”, organized by Pinacoteca do Estado and presented at Galeria de Arte do Sesi, in São Paulo (curatorship by Marcelo Araújo, director of the museum); “Erótica – Os Sentidos na Arte”, presented at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, in São Paulo, and, in the following year, at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro and Brasília (curatorship by Tadeu Chiarelli); “Vlado 30 Anos”, at Museu da Resistência/Estação Pinacoteca, in São Paulo, organized by Sindicato dos Jornalistas de São Paulo and coordinated by Radha Abramo; “A Imagem do Som de Dorival Caymmi”, at Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro (curatorship by Felipe Taborda).

2006

In June, Banco ABN Amro Real, which has two works by the artist – one from the series “Bambus” and the other from the series “Árvores” –, organizes the solo exhibition “Artistas do Acervo ABN Amro Real – Antonio Henrique Amaral”, with curatorship by Stella Teixeira de Barros.

The artist takes part in four group shows with works from public and private collections: “Arte Moderna em Contexto: Coleção ABN Amro Real”, presented in Rio de Janeiro (Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro), in São Paulo (Banco Real), in Curitiba (Museu Oscar Niemeyer), and in the following year in Recife (Instituto Cultural Banco Real). The show is curated by Fernando Cocchiarale and Franz Manata and is coordinated by Elly de Vries. He takes part with a work from the series “Bambus”, which belongs to the collection; “O Olhar do Colecionador – Acervo da Fundação Nemirovsky”, at Fundação José e Paulina Nemirovsky/Estação Pinacoteca (São Paulo), with curatorship of Maria Alice Milliet. The collection has the painting Bananas (1969). The artist also becomes a member of the council of the institution, invited by its director, Maria Alice Milliet, and by the council president at the time, Jorge Wilheim (in this capacity until 2011); “Um Século de Arte Brasileira: Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand”, presented at Pinacoteca do Estado (São Paulo), at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, and in the following year at Museu Oscar Niemeyer (Curitiba), at Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia (Salvador) and at Museu de Arte de Santa Catarina (Florianópolis). Curatorship by Fernando Cocchiarale.“MAM [na] Oca: Arte Brasileira do Acervo do Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo” is an exhibition organized by MAM and presented at Pavilhão Lucas Nogueira Garcez (Oca), at Ibirapuera Park, in São Paulo. Curatorship by Cauê Alves, Felipe Chaimovich and Tadeu Chiarelli.

He also takes part in the important exhibition “Impressões Originais: A Gravura desde o Século XV”, presented at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (in the following year), with curatorship by Pieter Tjabbes, Valéria Piccoli and Carlos Martins, and in the group show “Pernambuco Moderno”, at Instituto Cultural Bandepe, Recife, under the curatorship of Paulo Herkenhoff.

Dançantes (lithography and serigraphy) now integrates the collection of Clube da Gravura do Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo and is presented at the exhibition “Clube de Gravura 20 Anos” in this year.

September sees the launch of the book Resmungos, by Ferreira Gullar, with illustratations by Antonio Henrique Amaral (Imprensa Oficial): the book is a selection of chronicles written by Gullar for Folha de S.Paulo since January 2005 and illustrated by Antonio Henrique. Resmungos wins the 49th Jabuti Award, in the categories Short Stories and Chronicles and Art Book of the Year.

The work Alone in green is reproduced in the book Blanton Museum of Art Latin American Collection, by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, published by University of Texas at Austin.

2007

In August, Bolsa de Mercadorias e Fundos – BM&F presents “Antonio Henrique Amaral – 50 Anos de Obra em Processo”, at Espaço Cultural BM&F, in São Paulo. The solo show has the curatorship of Pieter Tjabbes. Campo de batalha 33 (1974), belonging to the collection, features among the presented works.

He also takes part in several important shows of public and private collections: “Itaú Contemporâneo: Arte no Brasil 1981-2006”, at Itaú Cultural (São Paulo), curatorship by Teixeira Coelho; “Museu da Solidariede Salvador Allende: Estéticas, Sonhos e Utopias dos Artistas do Mundo da Liberdade – Tributo a Mário Pedrosa”, at Galeria de Arte do Sesi (São Paulo) and at Museu Oscar Niemeyer (Curitiba), curatorship of Emanoel Araujo and text by Patrício M. Zárate. The collection is seen for the first time outside of Chile. The woodcut Madona (from the album O meu e o seu), is part of the collection of Museo de la Solidaridad, in Santiago; “Caminhos do Modernismo no Acervo dos Palácios”, at Palácio dos Bandeirantes (São Paulo), with modernist proposals and nationalist issues deriving from the panel São Paulo-Brasil: criação, expansão e desenvolvimento (1989), by Antonio Henrique Amaral, with curatorship of Ana Cristina Carvalho; “A Gravura Brasileira na Coleção Mônica e George Kornis”, presented at Caixa Cultural in Rio de Janeiro, in Curitiba, in Salvador, in Brasília and in São Paulo, with curatorship of Mônica and George Kornis and text by Rubem Grilo.

He also takes part in the group shows “Vanguarda Tropical: 8 Artistas do Século XX no Brasil”, with Antonio Dias, Claudio Tozzi, José Roberto Aguilar, Roberto Magalhães, Rubens Gerchman, Tomoshige Kusuno and Wesley Duke Lee (Ricardo Camargo Galeria, São Paulo) and in the 3rd “Bienal Nacional de Gravura ‘Olho Latino’”, as a honoured artist (Centro de Convenções Victor Brecheret, Atibaia).

2008

In July, he takes part in the group show “Masters of the 20th Century: Latin American Art”, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul (South Korea), with curatorship by Choi Eun-ju and Ki Hey-kyung. In September, “Brasil Brasileiro: Nossa Terra, Nossa Gente”, presented at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and in the following year at Museu Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago (Chile). The curatorship of Fabio Magalhães conquers the Maria Eugênia Franco Award of Associação Brasileira de Críticos de Arte. In October, he takes part in the group show “MAM 60”, organized by Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo in celebration of the 60 years of the institution. The exhibition, with curatorship by Annateresa Fabris and Luiz Camillo Osorio, is presented at Pavilhão Lucas Nogueira Garcez (Oca), at Ibirapuera Park, em São Paulo.

He illustrates a commemorative edition of Dez Contos de Machado de Assis, for the writer's death centennial, published by Confraria dos Bibliófilos do Brasil.

2010

In October he takes part in the group show “Arte Vivo de América Latina”, at Universidad de Málaga (Espanha), with the work Tarjeta postal con sombra, belonging to Fundación Arte Vivo Otero Herrera. The curatorship is by Camilo Otero Herrera and Adriana Maria Rios Diaz.

2011

He participates in the group show “Latin American Masters of Today and Tomorrow”, at ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries, in Coral Gables (USA). In October, he is honoured by “Chapel Art Show”, at Chapel Scholl – Escola Maria Imaculada, in São Paulo.

The artist illustrates the book Rupturas: Poemas em Busca de um Eixo, by Ana Maria Amaral, his sister (Ateliê).

2012

In November he is part of the exhibition “A Arte como Narrativa: Um Concurso, Uma História”, at Palácio dos Bandeirantes, in São Paulo. The show tells the story of the contest organized by Radha Abramo in 1989 for the panel at Palácio do Governo, featuring recent works by Claudio Tozzi, Emanoel Araujo, José Roberto Aguilar, Sérgio Ferro and Valdir Sarubbi, and also works by Antonio Henrique, the contest's winner. The curatorship is by Ana Cristina Carvalho.

2013

With the canvas Ainda a morte no sábado (1975), he takes part in the group show “Resistir é Preciso…”, organized by the Ministry of Culture, Instituto Vladimir Herzog and Banco do Brasil. Presented at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Brasília and São Paulo (and at 2014 in Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte), it has the curatorship by Fabio Magalhães.

In December, he has a solo show at Caixa Cultural Sé, São Paulo, in an exhibition curated by Sérgio Pizoli.

Notes

[1] Suzana is today a movie director, with awards in several film festivals. Aracy is a critic and professor of art history at Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Universidade de São Paulo; and Ana Maria is a poet and professor at Escola de Comunicações e Artes, Universidade de São Paulo.

[2] “Partir para o Impossível ou dicotomias de Antonio Henrique Amaral”, text by Ignácio de Loyola Brandão for the catalogue of the artist's exhibition at Galeria São Paulo, June 1985.

[3] Interview to Maria Alice Milliet in 2004, published in the book Antonio Henrique Amaral: obra gráfica 1957/2003 (Momesso Edições de Arte, 2004), p. 31-32. The book also features a text by Ana Maria Belluzzo.

[4] Idem, p. 30-31.

[5] See note 3, p. 33.

[6] “Ao largo das correntes”, interview to Antonio Fernando De Franceschi for the catalogue of the artist's exhibition “Da Gravura à Pintura” (Instituto Moreira Salles, 1997).

[7] See note 3, p. 36.

[8] Idem, p. 11.

[9] Norha Beltrán was several times delegate of Bolivia at “Bienal de São Paulo” and was the director of Museo Nacional de Arte, in La Paz, between 1979 and 1980, invited by the president Lidia Gueiler Tejara.

[10] Interview to the curators and reproduced by the catalogue of the exhibition “Antonio Henrique Amaral: Obra sobre Papel, 30 Anos”, presented at Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Campinas, in 1986.

[11] See note 3, p. 37.

[12] See note 2.

[13] “Bienal da Bahia: 2 – Prêmios”. O Estado de S.Paulo, São Paulo, May 6, 1967.

[14] “Artista fixa a realidade”. O Estado de S.Paulo, São Paulo, Oct. 26, 1967.

[15] See note 2.

[16] “Bananas e criação”. Diário de Notícias, Rio de Janeiro, Sep. 20, 1969.

[17] “As vigorosas bananas (antropofágicas?) de Antonio Henrique”. Correio da Manhã, Rio de Janeiro, Sep. 26, 1969.

[18] Letter to João Marschner, Atibaia, May 24, 1970. The journalist João Marschner (1932-2002) worked for the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo in the 1960's, at Suplemento Literário. After AI-5, he went to Europe, where he worked for Rádio Deutsche Welle. The correspondence between artist and journalist dates back to the beginning the 1970's.

[19] “Pintura didática”. Folha de S.Paulo, São Paulo, May 31, 1970.

[20] Letter to João Marschner, Atibaia, May 24, 1970.

[21] “A hora e a vez do XIX Salão”. Jornal do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, May 24-25, 1970.

[22] “Márcio Sampaio visita o II Salão (II)”. Suplemento Literário, Belo Horizonte, Feb. 20, 1971.

[23] AMARAL, Aracy. Pinacoteca do Estado – São Paulo. Rio de Janeiro: Funarte, 1982. (Col. Museus Brasileiros, 6)

[24] “Bananas para o mundo”. Diário de São Paulo, São Paulo, Aug. 5. 1971.

[25] “Pintor ganha com bananas prêmio do Salão”. Jornal do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Aug. 2, 1971.

[26] Reproduced by O Estado de S.Paulo, São Paulo, Jan. 20, 1972.

[27] “Viagem não modifica o compromisso do pintor”. O Estado de S.Paulo, São Paulo, Jan. 29, 1972.

[28] “Das bananas em cacho ao cacho de artistas”. O Estado de S.Paulo, São Paulo, Dec. 23, 1972.

[29] “O campo de batalha de Antonio Henrique”. Folha de S.Paulo, São Paulo, March 16, 1975.

[30] “O corpo contra os metais da opressão”. In Antônio Henrique Amaral: obra em processo. São Paulo: DBA, 1997.

[31] Deposition by the artist recorded and transcribed, to Galeria Bonfiglioli, in February, 1975. Artist’s archive.

[32] “Bananas de volta”. Veja, São Paulo, n. 341, March 19, 1975.

[33] “Certezas da pintura”. Jornal do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Apr. 12, 1977.

[34] “Seis artistas, seis visões plásticas”. O Estado de S.Paulo, São Paulo, Sep. 4, 1977.

[35] “Antonio Henrique Amaral: a conquista de um espaço [1980]”. In AMARAL, Aracy. Arte e meio artístico: entre a feijoada e o x-burguer (1961-1981). São Paulo: Nobel, 1983.

[36] *Alturas de Machu Picchu, by Pablo Neruda: ‘como una espada envuelta en meteoros, hundí la mano turbulenta y dulce en lo más genital de lo terrestre’; ‘déjame, arquitectura, roer con un palito los estambres de piedra, subir todos los escalones del aire hasta el vacío, rascar la entraña hasta tocar el hombre’.

[37] “Antonio Henrique Amaral”. O Estado de S.Paulo, São Paulo, Aug. 24, 1980.

[38] “Um mergulho profundo na terra dos sonhos”. O Estado de S.Paulo, São Paulo, Nov. 22, 1983.

[39] “Partes de um diálogo com Antonio Henrique Amaral”, by Olívio Tavares de Araújo, text reproduced at the exhibition catalogue.

[40] “Formas em mutação”. IstoÉ, São Paulo, Oct. 21, 1987.

[41] “Crescimento do país é retratado em 64 m2”. Folha de S.Paulo, São Paulo, July 21, 2003.

[42] Schlachtfelder. Foglio Seiten der Sinne, Köln, Oct. 1994.

[43] “Antonio Henrique Amaral brinca com formas e cores”. O Estado de S.Paulo, São Paulo, Oct. 24, 2000.