José Pancetti

José Pancetti

Brazil - 1902 - 1958

Brazilian, b. 1902

Giuseppe Giannini Pancetti, better known as José Pancetti (Campinas, June 18, 1902 - Rio de Janeiro, February 10, 1958) was a Brazilian modernist painter.

Born into a humble family of immigrants from Tuscany, Italy, he lived in Campinas until he was 10 years old, when his father, a master carpenter, moved with his wife and children to the state capital, São Paulo, where he hoped to find better working conditions. One year later, José and one of his sisters moved to Italy, to live under the care of an uncle and grandparents.

There, he learned the craft of a carpenter in a small workshop. But he didn't like the routine of the job and thus went to work, always briefly, in some factories until the conflict ended.
Wishing to fix a better job for José, his uncle arranged for him to be a sailor in the Italian merchant navy, where he learned the seafaring profession. He boarded the "Maria Rosa" sailboat, which ran trips throughout the Mediterranean, especially between the ports of Genoa and Alexandria. But the fickleness of his character caused him to leave the ship and to go wandering the streets of Genoa, with serious problems of subsistence, until someone took him to the Brazilian consulate, which provided for his return to Brazil.

On February 12, 1920, Pancetti landed in Santos. To survive, he worked in different places and different crafts until, in 1921, he moved to São Paulo again, where a businessman, also of Italian origin, offered him a job as a painter of walls and posters, which seems to have been his first contact with painting.

In that same year, the painter Adolfo Fonzari offered to Pancetti an opportunity to assist him in decorating the house of another Italian in the coast of Guarujá.

His recognition as a painter began in 1933, with a participation at the Salão Nacional de Belas Artes (National Fine Arts Exhibition). He was invited again in 1934, 1936, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1947 and 1948. In 1941 he was awarded one of the prizes, which gave out an educational trip to Europe.
His first solo exhibition took place 10 years later, only, in 1945, featuring more than 70 of his paintings. His first international exhibition took place in 1950 at the Venice Biennale. The following year, he was accepted at the first International Art Biennial of Art São Paulo, having participated also in the third biennial (1955).

Sources:
Photo: http://www.pinturabrasileira.com/images/artistas/Pancetti.jpg
Text: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Pancetti

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