Antonio Amaral

Antonio Henrique Amaral was born in 1935 in São Paulo, Brazil.

In the 1950s he took drawing classes from Roberto Sambonet and engraving classes from Livio Abramo. He also showed for the first time in a one-person print exhibition held at Museu de Arte Moderna in São Paulo. In 1959 he enrolled at Pratt Graphic Institute, in New York, where he learned wood engraving from Shiko Munakata and W. Rogalsky. In 1967 Amaral published an album of woodcuts titled "O meu e o seu" (Mine and Yours) and began painting. In 1967 he also showed, for the first time, in an individual exhibition his series "Bocas" (Mouths), at Astreia gallery, in São Paulo. In 1971 after being awarded the Foreign Travel Prize, at the Rio de Janeiro Modern Art Salon, he moved to New York, where he lived until 1981.Throughout the last 40 years he has been showing in several individual exhibitions in Brazil as well as abroad. His works have been included in private, public Brazilian and foreign collections.

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA

1970 Does a mural for the Sociedade Harmonia de Tenis club, São Paulo, at the invitation of the architect Fabio Penteado.

1971 Wins the Rio de Janeiro Modern Art Show “Trip Abroad Prize”. Exhibits “Bananas” in the Bonino Gallery, Rio de Janeiro, whit presentation by Flavio Motta, and the OEA, Washington, DC.

1972 Using 1971 award, settles in New York’s Soho district-Meets and spends time with artists such as Leonel Góngora, Bonevardi, Omar Rayo, Paternostro, Mario Toral, Molinari Flores, Rodolfo Abularach, Enrique Castro-Cid, Julio Alpuy and others.
Begins “Campos de batalha” (battlefields) series in 1973, which he continues until 1974, when he does a showing at Lee Ault & Co. Gallery, Madison Av., New York.

1975 Exhibits “Bananas” and “Campos de Batalha” in the Birmingham Art Museum, Alabama, and the Nashville Fine Art Center, Tennessee.
End of “Bananas”. Questions everything and changes work methods.
Begins “Casas de Macunaíma”, (House of Macunaíma).
The journalist Wladimir Herzog is murdered. Begins the oil paintings “A morte no Sábado” (Death on Saturday);

1976 Exhibits “Casas de Macunaíma” in Bonfiglioli Gallery. Presents the exhibition himself in a statement about his recent work.
At the invitation of Fernando Gamboa, exhibits his series of fifty “Bananas” and three works of the “Casas de Macunaíma” in the México City Museum of Modern Art,

1977 Returns to New York for four more years.
Begins a series of paintings based on small doodles that will characterize his “Expansões” (Expansions) series. At the same time, paints “Bambus” (Bamboo).

1978 Participates in the Sao Paulo Latin American Bienalle of Art. In the following years, lives in New York and Sao Paulo, where he begins construction of his studio.

1979 Paints “Polípticos” (Polyptychs) a series of six large-scale works that he exhibits in the Cayman Gallery, Soho, New York.

1980 Shows paintings in the Forma Gallery, Miami.
Small doodles that have been surfacing since 1972 are transformed into oil pastels and exhibited in the Luisa Strina Gallery.
Exhibits a new series of paintings in the Bonino Gallery, Rio de Janeiro.

1981 Participates in the Contemporary Art Forum in Mexico City, with Julio Le Parc, Arnold Belkin, Mirko Lauer, among other Latin American artists and critics.
In late 1981, does individual exhibits in the Grifo Gallery, São Paulo.

1982 Wins “Trip to Japan Award” at the Mokiti Okada Exhibition in São Paulo and, in 1983, visits Japan, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Bali and Singapore.
Co-founds the Sao Paulo Professional Association for Visual Artists with Thomas Ianelli

1983 “Caminhos de Ontem – Trabalhos de Hoje”(Yesterday’s Paths – Today’s Work) Exhibition, small retrospective in the Bonfiglioli Gallery, São Paulo.

1985 Participates in the “Today’s Art of Brazil” Exhibition. Visits Hiroxima and the Museum of the Bomb.
Inaugurates the Imperial Palace in Rio de Janeiro with semi-retrospective exhibit that is later sent to Porto Alegre and São Paulo.

1987 “Art of the Fantastic: Latin America 1920-1987”, Indiannapolis Museum, USA.
“Modernidade: L’Art Brésilien du Xxème Siècle”, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, France.
“Latin American Artists in New York since 1970”, Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, The University of Texas at Austin, USA.

1988 Participates in the “Brasil Já” (Brazil Now) exhibition in Germany.

1989 Invited to participate in a competition to create a mural for the Bandeirantes Palace, in São Paulo, along with Jose Roberto Aguilar, Cláudio Tozzi, Sergio Ferro, Emanuel Araújo and Valdir Sarubbi. This mural will replace Cândido Portinari’s work “Tiradentes”, which will be transferred to the Memorial for Latin America, in São Paulo.
Wins competition to create the “Painel Bandeirantes”.(Bandeirantes Mural). Spends the year working on the mural.

1990 Exhibits “Viva Brasil Viva: Konst fron Brasilien”, in Stockholm, and “Brasilien Entdeckung und Selbstendeckung”, in Zurich.

1991 Theater series exhibited in the Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art, presentation by Maria Alice Milliet
José Martinez-Canãs’ Elite Fine Art, presentation by Donald Kuspit, Coral Gables, Fl. USA.

1994 The painting “Paisagem com facas” (Landscape with Knives) is included in the 20th Century Art Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.
Begins “Torsos” series.

1995 Develops the series of torsos, bodies and bamboos.

1996 Paints 17 oil paintings entitled “Anima & Mania”

1997 Lives and works in São Paulo.