Chico da Silva

SILVA, Chico da – Francisco Domingos da Silva – 1910, Alto Tejo, AC – 1985, Fortaleza, CE

Son of a Peruvian Indian father and Brazilian mother, he left Acre as a child and moved to Fortaleza. Following a surprising creative instinct, he began painting the wall of the houses of fish men in his neighborhood, portraying the fantastic birds, dragons and fish which became to be his signature He was discovered in 1943 by the Swiss artist Jean Pierre Chabloz, then living in Fortaleza. Under his guidance, Chico da Silva learned the use of brush and paint. Nine years later he was introduced to Paris by Chabloz in the Cahiers d’Art. Awarded from the Venice Biennial and frequent presentations in the Cahiers d’Art, he was termed by French ex-Minister of Culture André Marlaux 'one of the great primitive artists of the world'. At no time did Chico da Silva acknowledge his international fame, but remained the same Indian from Ceará, of abrupt and enigmatic speech, a drinker of cachaça, impulsive and pure in his relationship with his art. Until 1972 his work remained balanced and honest, but from that date he began to employ assistants and gradually succumbed to a conscious process of falsification which now deserves more careful study. Chico da Silva not only participated in the cooperative efforts of his assistants who completed his sketches, but also authenticated these group efforts with his signature. With time the assistants began to work independently and flooded the Fortaleza market with thousands of works by various authors, following the master’s style. Thus a personal and recognized art came into the public domain, and the buyers of these colorful and decorative canvases obtain only offspring of his style. In fact, authentic Chico da Silva can only be recognized through the beginning of the 70’s when the expropriation of his art began, at first unfortunate and today transformed into spurious rehashing, an indictment of one of the most fascinating phenomena of Brazilian painting. Referring to the work of Chico da Silva, critic Rubens Navarro wrote: ”The gouaches of his naïve artist are something quite serious. This Indian is a sort of Dali in the natural state. Parallel to his primitive surrealism, if we may call it that, there is a touch of applied art that might serve well as ceramic ornament, recalling Chinese bird motifs or old vases from past civilizations”.

ONE-MAM EXHIBITIONS:

1945 – Askenasi Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1949 – Beau-Regard, Geneva (Switzerland);

1950 – Pour-L’Art, Lausane (Switzerland);

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

1965 – Quirino Gallery, Salvador (BA);

1965 – Arte Brasileira, Neuchâtel (Switzerland);

1965 – Goeld Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (RJ);

1966 – Petite Galerie, Rio de Janeiro (RJ).

MAIN GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

1943 – April Exhibit, Fortaleza (Ceará)

1965 – Primitive Painters, Galerie Massol, Paris (France);

1965 – 33rd Venice Biennial, Award (Italy);

1967 – 9th São Paulo Biennial (SP);

1970 – Clube Pueblo, Madrid (Spain);

1971 – 3rd SNAP (CE).

Dictionary of Brazilian Painters, 1997, Walmir Ayala.