Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (13 June 1908 – 6 March 1992) was a Portuguese abstract painter. She was considered a leading member of the European abstract expressionism movement known as Art Informel. Her works feature complex interiors and city views using lines that explore space and perspective. She also worked in tapestry and stained glass.
Life
Vieira da Silva was born in Lisbon, Portugal. At an early age, she traveled around the world because her affluent father was a diplomat. During this time, she came in contact with various avant-garde groups, such as the Italian Futurists and the Ballets Russes. At the age of eleven she had begun seriously studying drawing and painting at the Academia de Belas-Artes in Lisbon.
In 1928 Vieira da Silva left Lisbon to study sculpture in Paris. She enrolled for a few months at the Académie Scandinave in Paris to study sculpture under Charles Despiau, and later she shifted her focus to painting, studying under Charles Dufresne, Henry de Waroquier, and Othon Friesz.
By 1930 she was exhibiting paintings in Paris; that same year she married the Hungarian painter Árpád Szenes, whom she had met in the French capital in 1929 when he was attending the Académie de la Grande Chaumière there. At the onset of World War II in 1939, Vieira da Silva moved to Portugal from France. The following year, she left for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she gained prominence as an artist for her dense and complex compositions.
Work
Vieira da Silva’s initial work featured a decorative style of abstract patterning. She enjoyed toying with the idea of space and creating a false perception of space by having her painting set on a neutral background with flecks color giving a sense of depth. As she evolved as an artist, she focused more on spatial manipulations using a wide range of techniques. She employed detailed patterns to create fabricated architectural forms and worked with complex lines, luminous spots and patterned surfaces.
In November 1994, the Árpád Szenes-Vieira da Silva Foundation was inaugurated in Lisbon, a museum that displays a large collection of paintings by both artists.
From 2019 to 2020, a substantial survey exhibition of her paintings and works on paper toured from Jeanne Bucher Jaeger in Paris, to Waddington Custot in London, and Di Donna Galleries in New York.
Vieira da Silva’s work was included in the 2021 exhibition Women in Abstraction at the Centre Pompidou. In 2023 her work was included in the exhibition Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970 at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.
Art market
The best selling painting of the artist was L'Incendie I (The Fire I) (1944), sold by £2,048,750 ($2,844,708) at Christie's, on 6 March 2018.
Public collections
Vieira da Silva’s work is included in the collections of many art museums worldwide, such as the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, in Lisbon, the National Museum of Contemporary Art of Chiado, in Lisbon, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in Madrid, the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, the Stedelijk Museum, in Amsterdam, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tate Modern, in London, the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in New York,
See also
- La gare inondée (The Flooded Station)
Bibliography
- Wat, Pierre and Kent Mitchell Minturn (2019). Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Waddington Custot, Di Donna Galleries.