Benjamin Silva

1927, Juazeiro, CE

First studies art in 1950 at the People’s School in Rio de Janeiro, where he was a student of Inimá de Paula. He learned engraving techniques from Orlando da Silva at the Arts and Craft School and later at the Museum of Modern Art with Santa Rosa. From 1960 to 1962 he studied in museums in Europe and the Orient. Following a phase of lyrical abstractionism, Benjamim Silva returned to figure painting filtering reality through a prism of fantasy. Referring to this consolidation of the painter’s current idiom, José Paulo Moreira da Fonseca wrote: 'The outdoors in a diffuse light, architecture, anonymous objects, remnant of machines, all in an enigmatic and brightly lit scene, peopled by still figures, close but solitary. There is a quite power in this painting, so solid, so consistent, hiding its meaning in serene gravity. The viewer is invited to state that he whishes before such a clear silence, there is a greatness of the old masters but the scenes are contemporary, around us and within us: the immemorial adventure of man who portrays his dreams, sketches the echo of the world in its intimacy, in the attempt to decipher it and himself'.

ONE-MAM EXHIBITIONS:

1957 – ENBA, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1958 – Ginástico Português Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1958 – As Folhas Gallery, São Paulo (SP);

1959 – Barcinsky Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1959 – Piccola Galeria, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1963 – Relevo Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1964 – Montmartre Gallery - Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1967 – Meira Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1969 – Brazilian-American Institute, Washington (USA);

1971 – Ulysses Art Gallery, Venice (Italy);

1972 – AMI Gallery, Belo Horizonte (MG);

1974 – Quadrante Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1974 – Barney Weinger Gallery (USA);

1976 – Mini Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1977 – Picasso Gallery, Recife (PE);

1983 – Bonino Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (RJ).

MAIN GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

1953 – SNAM, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1953 - SMBA, Honorable Mention, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1962 – L’Oeil du Boeuf, Paris (France)

1969 – SNAM, Overseas Travel Award, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1970 – MAM, São Paulo (SP);

1971 – Elvaston Gallery, London (England);

1973 – IBEU, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1980 – Moderne Brasilianische Kunst, (Germany);

1983 – Banerj Art Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (RJ).

1996 – Visions of Rio, 50 Years BANERJ, MAM, Rio de Janeiro (RJ).

Dictionary of Brazilian Painters, 1997, Walmir Ayala.