Sérvulo Esmeraldo – The European Years, 1957–1975
photo © Léonard de Selva
Short Biography
1929
Born in Crato, Ceará, Brazil Late 1940s
Begins his artistic career as a graphic artist, engraver, and painter in Northeast Brazil, where he attends the open studio of the Sociedade Cearense de Artes Plásticas in Fortaleza.
1951
Moves to São Paulo planning to study architecture, his arrival coinciding fortuitously with the first Bienal de São Paulo.
Works at the Empresa Brasileira de Engenharia (EBE) and as an illustrator for the Newspaper Correio Paulistano.
Presents a series of engravings at a solo exhibition at the Museu de Arte Moderna of Sao Paulo (MAM).
Receives a scholarship soon after from the French Government and moves to Paris to study lithographic printmaking at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
Learns metal engraving in the studio of Johnny Friedlaender and visits the Bibliothèque Nationale to study Albrecht Dürer's prints.
1959
Meets Anne Hovelaque, who becomes his first wife. They settle in France for the next 20 years. Lives in close contact with an international community of artists, among them Brazilians, such as Lygia Clark, Sérgio de Camargo, Frans Krajcberg, Arthur Luiz Piza, Flavio Shiró, and Rossini Perez. 1961
Trip to Geneva and Lausanne, where Maurice Bridel, gallery and bookstore owner, buys some of his drawings.
1962
Organizes an exhibition of popular woodcuts from the Brazilian Northeast at the Kunstmuseum Basel which then travels to various cities in Europe.
Spends the rest of the year in Brazil.
Exhibits works in tempera and fresco at the rectory of the Universidade do Ceará. Begins working on tridimensional and kinetic art.
1963
Meets painter Serge Poliakoff and begins to make engravings for the artist based on gouaches and paintings.
1964
Executes a large panel (9 x 1.8 m) designed by Poliakoff for the Hotel Carlton in Cannes. 1965
His production of sculptures made of metal, wood and plastic increases. 1966
Creates his first Excitable, a series of works he pursues until the end of the 1970s. 1967
Creates circular sculptures with variable programmes, some made of transparent Plexiglas, others of metal. In the 2010s these were produced in huge dimensions, made out of Cor-Ten steel.
Spends the summer with his family in Brazil, exhibiting in Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza and São Paulo. 1969
Participates with the Latin American Group in Paris in protests against torture and dictatorship in Latin America and Brazil.
1970
1972
Publishes Variations sur une courbe edited by a group of collectors in Paris by the name of Convergence.
Edition of the Réfléchissant, a Plexiglas sculpture with black and white serigraphic circles. 1975
A summer trip to Fortaleza initiates a period of longer sojourns in Brazil and shorter stays in Europe due to the construction of the first of a long series of public monumental sculptures, the Monumento ao Saneamento Básico da Cidade, at the Náutico Beach, in Fortaleza.
1979
Installs his atelier in Fortaleza and settles there in 1980 where he still lives and works to this day.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2016 Sérvulo Esmeraldo: A linha, a luz, o
Crato, Universidade Regional do Cariri, Campus Pimenta, Crato, Brazil
2016 Sérvulo Esmeraldo Esculturas e Relevos,
Galeria de arte Murilo Castro, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
2016 Sérvulo Esmeraldo, Sicardi Gallery,
Houston, USA, at the Frieze Masters Spotlights section, London, United Kingdom
2015 Traço, Volume, Espaço, Galeria Raquel
Arnaud, São Paulo, Brazil
2015 É pericoloso sporgersi, Armazém da
Cultura, Fortaleza, Brazil
2014 Sérvulo Esmeraldo, Paulo Darzé Galeria
de Arte, Salvador, Brazil
2014 O Arquivo Vivo de Sérvulo Esmeraldo,
Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, São Paulo, Brazil
2013 Sérvulo Esmeraldo, Pinturas, Desenhos,
Gravuras, Esculturas, Objetos e Excitáveis, Pinakotheke Cultural, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2013 Luz, Sérvulo Esmeraldo, Palácio da
Abolição, Fortaleza, Brazil
2012 Simples como um triângulo, Galeria
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
2010 Ocupação do Espaço, Centro Cultural
Banco do Nordeste, Fortaleza, Brazil
2010 Les Excitables, Festival @rt Outsiders
2010, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France
2008 Sérvulo Esmeraldo por Mota Machado –
Obras de 40 anos, Centro Dragão do Mar de Arte e Cultura, Fortaleza, Brazil
2007 Programa Caixa de Adoção de Entidades
Culturais, Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Centro Dragão do Mar de Arte e Cultura, Fortaleza, Brazil
2007 Excitables, Sicardi Gallery, Houston,
United States
2007 Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Centro
Dragão do Mar de Arte e Cultura, Fortaleza, Brazil
2002 Galeria Antônio Bandeira, Fortaleza,
Brazil
2001 I Bienal de Artes do Carirí, Galeria do
Sesc, Crato, Brazil
2001 Múltipla Galeria de Arte, São Paulo,
Brazil
1999 Centro Cultural do Abolição, Salão de
Abril, Fortaleza, Brazil
1989 Galeria Paulo Figueredo, São Paulo,
Brazil
1989 Tríade Galeria de Arte, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil
1988 Gravuras (Trajetória 1949/1987), Museu
Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1988 Gabinete de Arte Raquel Arnaud, São
Paulo, Brazil
1988 Galeria Klee, Escritório de Arte Orlando
Bessa, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Nacional de Belas Artes, Salvador, Brazil
1986 Skultura Galeria de Arte, São Paulo,
Brazil
1985 Trajetória 1947–1985, ARTE Galeria,
Fortaleza, Brazil
1982 Skultura Galeria de Arte, São Paulo,
Brazil
1981 Galeria Aktuell, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1980 Galeria Ignez Fiúza, Fortaleza, Brazil
1980 Jornal “O Povo”, Centro de Convenções,
Fortaleza, Brazil
1979 Hotel Quatro Rodas, São Luís, Brazil
1979 Centro Venezolano de Cultura, Bogotá,
Colombia
1977 Gatsby-Arte, Recife, Brazil
1977 Galeria Memória, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
1977 Sociedade de Cultura Artística, Crato,
Brazil
1976 Gabinete de Artes Gráficas, São Paulo,
Brazil
1976 Petite Galerie, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1976 Palácio das Artes, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
1975 Correio Braziliense, Hotel Nacional,
Brasília, Brazil
1975 Gabinete de Artes Gráficas, São Paulo,
Brazil
1975 Galeria Ignez Fiuza, Fortaleza, Brazil
1975 Galerie Paul Bruck, Luxembourg,
Luxembourg
1975 White Gallery, Lutry, Switzerland
1974 Galerie Sanguine, Collioure, France
1973 Galeria Ignez Fiuza, Fortaleza, Brazil
1971 Galerie La Pierre de Lune, Canet-Plage, France
1971 White Gallery, Lutry, Switzerland
1971 Galerie La Pochade, Paris, France
1969 Galerie Cosme Velho, São Paulo, Brazil
1968 Galerie Maurice Bridel, Lausanne,
Switzerland
1967 Associação dos Amigos do Museu de
Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Brazil
1967 Galeria Itatiaia, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
1967 Museu de Arte da Universidade do
Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil
1966 Galerie Nouvelle Gravure, Paris, France
1966 Festival de Viana do Castelo (guest
artist), Viana do Castelo, Portugal
1966 Galleria Ítalo-Brasiliana, Milan, Italy
1966 Galeria A Gravura, Lisbon, Portugal
1964 Galleria Il Canale, Venice, Italy
1963 Galerie Maurice Bridel, Lausanne,
Switzerland
1962 Centro de Artes, Ciências e Letras,
Campinas, Brazil
1962 Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia,
Salvador, Brazil
1962 Museu de Arte da Universidade do
Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil
1962 Galeria de Arte de Recife, Recife, Brazil
1962 Galeria Relevo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1961 Galerie Maurice Bridel, Lausanne,
Switzerland
1960 Galeria Lemac, Recife, Brazil
1957 Universidade Federal do Ceará,
Fortaleza, Brazil
1957 Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo,
São Paulo, Brazil
1956 Clube dos Artistas, São Paulo, Brazil
1951 Sociedade de Cultura Artística do Crato,
Crato, Brazil
Hélice, 1967/2013 acrylic, h 21 cm, Ø 8 cm
