Augusto Rodrigues

Pernambuco native Augusto Rodrigues, born in 1913 in Recife, was what today is called multiartist: painter, draftsman, photographer, engraver, illustrator, caricaturist and poet, as well as a great educator, having founded the Escolinha de Arte do Brasil, in Rio de Janeiro, an early childhood education experience replicated in several states, which encouraged children to express themselves freely through art. With a project, research and organization by journalist, designer and photographer Antônio Carlos Rodrigues, son of Augusto Rodrigues, the collection contains in four books the ideas, ideals, life history and collection of the multiartist in the fields of caricature, education, photography and painting. A work started more than two decades ago by Antônio and which also proved to be a significant personal journey. The book ARTISTA reveals Rodrigues great concern with the direction of art in Brazil. In collective initiatives (alongside names such as Cícero Dias, Di Cavalcanti, Segall, Portinari, Francisco Brennand and Lula Cardoso Ayres) or individual he was present in all plastic movements (popular or avant-garde) that opened new cultural fronts in the country. He became interested in popular art soon after participating in the 1st Afro-Brazilian Congress (1934), becoming one of the most active defensive voices. And it is the women who essentially present themselves in intensity and lyricism in this volume with photos, simple notes such as those by Cora Coralina, Drummond, Fernanda Montenegro and reproductions of works in various techniques. The volume CARICATURISTA comprises more than 150 images including photos, journalistic records and drawings produced between 1931 and 1993). His cartoons and caricatures appeared on the pages of the Brazilian press, such as the magazine O Cruzeiro, O Estado de São Paulo and the Associated Diaries of Assis Chateaubriand, becoming the first caricaturist to appear on national newspapers. The volume EDUCADOR comprises interviews given by Augusto himself, reports, testimonies and texts signed by names like Anísio Teixeira (jurist, writer and one of the most important names in education in Brazil), Aníbal Machado (teacher and essayist), Artur da Távola (writer and journalist), Rubem Braga (writer and journalist) and Noêmia Varela, who alongside Augusto Rodrigues, Paulo Freire, Francisco Brennand, Aloísio Magalhães, Hermilo Borba Filho and Lula Cardoso Ayres created the Escolinha de Arte do Recife, in 1953. Finally, the volume titled FOTOGRAFO addresses a lot of this artist's relationship with Largo do Boticário - historic and natural corner located in the Cosme Velho neighborhood, in Rio de Janeiro, where he moved in the 1950's. A resident of the number 1 house, which had Burle Marx gardens, Augusto Rodrigues was a staunch defender of the secular stronghold, which escaped being completely destroyed in the 1960s solely by the resistance of its residents. The photos are a narrative of the cozy daily life of the space, with its big houses, the Atlantic Forest, anonymous characters and women, who never failed to fill the creative universe of the artist.