Maria Helena Andrés

Maria Helena Coelho Andrés Ribeiro (born 1922, Belo Horizonte, MG) is a Brazilian visual artist, writer, and professor. She currently lives in Retiro das Pedras, Brumadinho, Minas Gerais. Her artistic training began in the 1940s when she studied painting with Carlos Chambelland from 1940 to 1944 in Rio de Janeiro and with Alberto da Veiga Guignard from 1944 to 1947 in Belo Horizonte. She also had private lessons with Aurélia Rubião during her childhood. In 1961, she studied with Theodorus Stamus in New York.

In the 1960s, Maria Helena Andrés wrote about art for the newspapers Diário de Minas and Estado de Minas. In 1965, she became the director of the Guignard School, where she also taught drawing and painting.

Maria Helena has made cultural trips to India and participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Brazil, the United States, Europe, and Latin America. She has taken part in several São Paulo International Biennials, notably in the Special Rooms: Constructed Art at the XII Biennial (1973), Abstract Painting, Biennial Effect at the XX Biennial (1989), and Abstractions at the Brazil XX Century Biennial (1994).

Her works are included in significant public collections, such as the Pampulha Museum, Minas Gerais Museum, and Clóvis Salgado Foundation in Belo Horizonte; Tancredo Neves International Airport in Confins; Municipal Hall and Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo; National Museum of Fine Arts and Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro; City of Peace Foundation in Brasília; Spokje Museum in Serbia; Phillips Collection and Brazilian American Cultural Institute in Washington DC (USA), and Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe (USA).

Maria Helena Andrés is also the author of several books, including "Vivência e arte" (Agir, 1966), "Os caminhos da arte" (Vozes, 1977 and C/Arte, 2000), "Encontro com mestres no oriente" (Luz Azul, 1993), "Maria Helena Andrés - depoimento" (Coleção Circuito Atelier, C/Arte, 1998), "OrienteOcidente: integração de culturas" (Morrison Knudsen, 1984), and "Maria Helena Andrés" (C/Arte, 2004).

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