MASP

Born on a farm near Bragança Paulista, in the state of São Paulo, Noêmia Mourão belonged to an aristocratic family with links to the coffee industry. At 20, she began to study painting at Clube dos Artistas Modernos [Club of Modern Artists], with teachers such as Emiliano Di Cavalcanti (1897-1976), who she married in 1933. As a painter, Mourão depicted mostly female figures placed in the foreground against a background that was normally outside the domestic space with which they were typically associated. As a key player in the effervescent phase of Brazilian modernism consolidation, the artist was also influenced, like most of her contemporaries, by concepts of Brazilian-ness through the incorporation of regional, popular and indigenous traditions, as well as cosmopolitan urban cultures. Between 1935 and 1940, she lived in Paris, where she painted Ladies of Boulevard Raspail, held in the MASP collection. The painting shows a typical scene in a Parisian café. There are four women: one at the front, who is not looking directly at the viewer, and another three seated at a table at Rive Gauche, an area known for its bohemian atmosphere and as a meeting place for intellectuals. The picture reveals the way Mourão often represented her figures, with a melancholy gaze, voluminous limbs, undetailed forms and vibrant colors. Alongside artists such as Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938) and Marie Laurencin (1883-1956) — with whom Mourão also exhibited — she was part of the Société des Femmes Artistes Modernes, whose main mission was to acknowledge the profession of women artists. In 1940, Mourão and her husband Di left Europe hurriedly to escape the Second World War. They left behind, in a warehouse, the paintings of this period, with which the artist was only reunited 26 years later.

— Guilherme Giufrida, assistant curator, MASP, 2020

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