Lasar Segall

Brazilian-Lithuanian, b. 1891

Painter, engraver and Brazilian sculptor of Lithuanian origin, born on July 21, 1891 in the Jewish community of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, at that time under Russian rule; and died August 2, 1957, in São Paulo.

He received the first guidelines in drawing of Markus Antokolski, who encouraged him to make continued his education in Germany, where he moved in 1906. He attended the school of fine arts in Berlin (1907-1910), from which participated in the shows of the Berliner Sezession ('Berlin secession') with his painting mother and child (1909). In 1910 he moved to the Academy of fine arts in Dresden, where he was influenced by impressionism of Liebermann, and won the prize "Max Liebermann", expressly dedicated to the avant-garde. At the end of his studies he managed to create a very personal style, a mixture of futurism, Cubism and Expressionism, always against the background of their Jewish origins. In 1912 he traveled to Brazil where he resided three of his brothers, and remained little more than one year.

Expuo works in Germany, which are considered as precursors of modernism. Back in Germany, at the beginning of world war I was expelled from the Academy of fine arts and confined in Meissen. Back in Dresden, in 1919 he founded, together with Otto Dix, the 'Dresden secession"group.

After years of intense activity in Europe, with solo and group exhibitions in various places, he returned to Brazil in 1923, this time to settle permanently there. It was soon identified with their new country, both in his style of painting, and his personality, acquiring the Brazilian nationality in 1927. Their baggage of German Expressionism, he joined the experience of the original purity of the land, giving new forms to his art, and became a central figure of Brazilian modernism, and co-founder and organizer of the modern ensembles society.

In 1928 he returned to Europe and lived four years in Paris. Here he began to exploit her talent as a sculptor. In 1937, three of his paintings and seven engravings were included in the "exhibition of art degenerated", organized by the nazis in Munich, to disqualify the modern art. This year and the following, exhibited at the Salon de may de Sao Paulo. At the same time he alternated exhibitions in Europe and the United States.

Segall is the painter of solidarity, reflected in his paintings the human suffering, migration, wars, poverty, prostitution and marginalization. Evidence of this concern are, among others, works as: wandering Eternals, visions of war (1940-1943), women of the Mangue, field of concentration, ships, emigrants, the damned.

Other of his works are: Bubu album, with 8 lithographs (1921); the album remembrance of Vilnius in 1917 (1922); illustration of Maasse-Bichl ('little book of stories') (1922), David Bergelsohn, with 17 engravings; Bananal (1927), Paisagems of Campos do Jordão, portraits of Luci, Pogrom, ship of emigrants, farpado Arame, etc.

Sources:
Photo: http://www.grupoescolar.com/pesquisa/lasar-segall.html
Text: https://thebiography.us/en/segall-lasar