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June 15 - July 28, 2017

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JUDITH LAUAND
Brazilian Concrete Abstractions

Essay by
Aliza Edelman, Ph.D.

Exhibition on view
June 15 - July 28, 2017

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 JUDITH LAUAND: FROM THE CIRCLE TO THE OVAL
Aliza Edelman

In each picture we create a problem and the picture is the solution.

–Judith Lauand

J udith Lauand had an invaluable experience in her early career that catalyzed her future.1 She participated as one
of the first gallery monitors or docents at the now celebrated II São Paulo Biennial, held from late 1953 to early
1954. The second biennial—the international exhibition with over thirty-two participating countries from Europe,
the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia—also coincided with the celebration of the city’s fourth centenary at the
newly constructed Ibirapuera Park by architect Oscar Niemeyer. Wolfgang Pfeiffer directed the early courses and
workshops for the biennial monitors, a group that included the future art critics and curators Aracy Amaral and Radha
Abramo, with whom Lauand become friends. In a striking photograph, Lauand is lecturing in one of the galleries
to a captivated audience of well-dressed men from variously diverse backgrounds (fig. 1). In another, Lauand, in the
company of her colleagues from the biennial workshop, listens with rapt attention to British sculptor Henry Moore,
who was awarded the International Sculpture Prize (fig. 2).2
This biennial was an unparalleled opportunity for emerging artists, and for Lauand, specifically, as modernism
unfolded before her eyes. In addition to special galleries devoted to individual artists, there were on display
monumental examples of De Stijl, Cubism, and Futurism. Alexander Calder’s kinetic sculptures and mobiles floated
in the company of Paul Klee’s intricately woven drawings, and Picasso’s anguished masterpiece, Guernica (1937),
sought a momentary dialogue with the pure rhythmic tension of Mondrian’s late Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-
43).3 And she beheld the works of artists soon associated with the Brazilian Constructivist project, including Geraldo
de Barros, Lothar Charoux, Luiz Sacilotto, Alexandre Wollner, Ivan Serpa, Abraham Palatnik, and Lygia Clark, among
others. It was in the same year that Lauand declared the significance of her encounter with Concrete art: “Em 1954,
eu me encontrei com a arte concreta.”4
Judith Lauand: Brazilian Concrete Abstractions is the second survey presented by Driscoll Babcock Galleries
that examines the legacy of the artist. Spanning her career from the mid-1950s to 2008, this exhibition offers another
opportunity to consider the clarity of Lauand’s vision and the historical significance of her personal and aesthetic
relationship to Concretism. Unlike the trajectories of her female Brazilian contemporaries who had experimented
with stylistic modes and directions beyond Concrete painting, such as the large-scale three-dimensional sculptural
installations of Lygia Pape (1929-2004) and Mira Schendel (1919-1988), or the therapeutic practices of Lygia Clark
(1920-1988), respectively, Lauand’s enduring identification with this geometric language was rather imperious and
unmitigated. Moreover, there is an underlying connection between Lauand’s lifelong adherence to the structural
problems and investigations of Concretism and the emergence of her identity as a postwar modern woman.5

Opposite (detail): Do Círculo à Oval, 1958, Paint and stucco on particle board, 24 x 24 inches (60 x 60 cm), Plate 11, p. 26

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 Even as Lauand’s career was fashioned on a serious dedication
to mathematical thinking, she continually released her art from strict
precision through the subtle appearance of irregular angles, diverging
vectors, and chromatic imbalances. In many instances, Lauand sets her
own pictorial or geometric constraints in order to depart from them, a
process that invites the viewer to find the works’ inherent contradictions
and tensions. These multiple encounters explore the picture plane’s
critical and material affirmation—based on a dialectical relationship
between the object and the viewer—but equally suggest the artist’s
unintentional and even involuntary expressiveness. Ultimately, Lauand
not only negotiates the social constraints of her position as a woman
Figure 3 artist, she unhinges the painterly strategies implicit in Concretism’s
Study for Concreto 33, 1956
impersonal structures to arrive at a broader meaning of the term rupture.
In Lauand’s working method, we find the artist’s resourceful
manipulation of space in the singular calibrations of line, color, and
surface. Like many of her contemporaries, she exhaustively analyzed
and adapted her artworks in gouache, linocut, textile, and painting. She
was equally drawn to the experimental use of industrial and synthetic
polymer paints in neutral colors that amplified illusory surfaces of gloss
and matte and reduced the gestural mark. At times, the only noticeable
Figure 1 distinction between two images is the surface and medium, where
Judith Lauand as a gallery docent at the II São Paulo Biennial of 1953-54. Courtesy Arquivo Histórico
Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo a design might be duplicated, for example, in canvas as well as on
slender boards projecting off the wall like a shallow relief. Furthermore,
numerous sketchbooks, recently uncovered, are filled with the artist’s
careful studies, with accompanying notes, measurements and colors,
corresponding to existent pieces.
For a preparatory draft of Concreto 33 (1956), Lauand loosely
paints a chessboard repetition of circles in white, red, and blue-green
with an annotated list of colors in the upper right corner (fig. 3). In its
subsequent construction, sixteen circles skillfully cut into a square black
board resemble a mechanical template, however any standardized
pattern is counteracted by the syncopated rhythm of apertures and
enamel laid underneath distributing color and light (pl. 4). Likewise,
individual studies explore an endless repertoire of modular grids and
serial latticework, radiating vertices and optical patterns, to which she
returned faithfully throughout her oeuvre (fig. 4 & 5). Lauand methodically
Figure 4
executed the expanding and contracting spirals in Concreto 66 (1957) Untitled study, c. 1950s, Parchment paper, 13 ½ x 19 ¼ inches
(pl. 8–10) in linocut and gouache as well as glossy enamel on board; (35 x 49.5 cm)

viewed together, the repetition of jagged lighting bolts produces a Figure 5

rotating plane at full tilt (fig. 6). Untitled study, c. 1950s, Parchment paper, 13 ½ x 19 ¼ inches
Figure 2 (35 x 49.5 cm)
Judith Lauand (second from left) in a workshop for the gallery docents led by British sculptor Henry
Moore at the II São Paulo Biennial, 1953. Courtesy Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo / Fundação Bienal
de São Paulo

5 6
 In 1959, Lauand summarized her approach in an interview for the popular newspaper
Folha da Manhã that covered a group exhibition of her paulista colleagues at the Galeria de
Arte das Folhas (fig. 7 & 8): “[Painting] has no philosophical, literary, social basis whatsoever—
it is based on elements inherent to painting itself: form, space, color and movement.”
She asserted, further, “A work of art does not represent anything. A work of art is.”6 Here,
Lauand offers a direct pedagogical line to the Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg’s signification
of “concrete” art as “devoid” of external references beyond the pursuit of pure plastic
elements.7
Lauand’s exposure to the Concrete proposals and debates set forth in Brazil by Max
Bill, the Swiss artist and industrial designer, and local critics, including Mário Pedrosa, closely Figure 6
followed her family’s move to the city of São Paulo in 1952. More broadly, it reflected the Concreto 66, 1957, Linocut plate,
8 11/16 inches (22 cm diameter)
enormous changes in immigration, commerce, and urban planning experienced throughout
a modernizing nation. Rio de Janeiro had claimed the country’s cultural and literary center
with the realization in 1948 of the Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM-RJ), while São Paulo’s artistic scene in the late
1940s and early 1950s provided successive opportunities for both transnational and local dialogue through the
establishment of two important modern art museums: the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP)
in 1947, and the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP). Under Juscelino Kubitschek’s presidency (1956-
61), the country’s ostensible progress and industrial infrastructure was manifest on a global stage at the nation’s
political capital, Brasília.
Lauand’s swift immersion in Concretism compelled the artist to abandon her own previously figurative and
expressive paintings executed at the Escola de Belas-Artes de Araraquara, where she graduated in 1950.8 Later in
her career, she articulated this profound shift from figuration as one of “total” absorption and “integration.” In her
alignment with Max Bill’s earlier distinction between abstraction and
Concretism, Lauand offered that the concrete was the opposite of
abstraction’s foundation in “analytical thinking,” which essentially
transposes forms from nature: “‘Concrete art is a thought that has
become visible’ …. It derives from concise thought or a mathematical
idea.”9 At her first individual show in São Paulo at Galeria Ambiente in
1954, Lauand presented, along with some loosely derived abstractions,
geometric compositions that included the strikingly bold and industrial
pattern in green and black gouache shown on the gallery brochure cover,
later conceived as a wall textile (fig. 9). By 1960, Bill included Lauand’s
gouache Concreto 122, Captação do Espaço (1958) in his international
retrospective, Konkrete Kunst: 50 Jahre Entwicklung (Concrete Art: 50
Years of Development) in Zurich.
Lauand’s aesthetic syncretism with her fellow São Paulo-based
Concrete artists was fully realized at the fourth edition of the Salão
Paulista de Arte Moderna, held at Galeria Prestes Maia in 1955, at which
she displayed two paintings among the artists associated with Grupo
Ruptura. Subsequently, she was invited to join the movement by the
Figure 7
Exhibition catalogue, Prêmio Leirner de Arte Contemporânea: group’s mercurial spokesman, Waldemar Cordeiro, which provided a
Seis Concretistas (Leirner Award for Contemporary Art: Six significant network for her to exchange ideas and to exhibit as the only
Concretists), held at the Galeria de Artes das Folhas, São Paulo,
1959
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woman artist participating in the group. Soon thereafter, she exhibited at the third São Paulo Biennial of 1955
(appearing once again as a gallery monitor) and the 1st Exposição Nacional de Arte Concreta (1st National Exhibition
of Concrete Art) in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in 1956 and 1957. The universal and objective vocabulary declared in
the Ruptura Manifesto, presented at the exhibition Grupo Abstracionista at MAM-SP in 1952, espoused “intelligent”
principles in art that would determine not only “new forms” but a new concept of reality, embraced contemporary
ideas of “space-time, movement, and matter,” and identified the potential for “practical development.”10
Notwithstanding Lauand’s frequent arguments with Cordeiro, she identified with his early proposals for a material-
based productive art—an object—where “the content is not a point of departure, but the point of arrival.”11
Lauand’s sustained interest in the structural relationships of “plural forms” advanced an understanding
of Concretism embedded not only in the progressive environment of São Paulo but reflected in the impact of
philosophical and phenomenological systems of human visual perception, or the Gestalt, appropriated by many
contemporary artists.12 For example, an oblique chain of quadrilateral arrowheads playfully terminates at the
uppermost triangle in Lauand’s Sem título (Untitled), Acervo C. 177 (1960) (pl. 17). Many Ruptura artists utilized
optical patterns to express non-Euclidean renderings of space and temporal experiences; Cordeiro’s important
series Idéia visível (Visible Idea) of 1956 and 1957 delineated the scientific properties of the Golden section and
logarithmic spirals, manipulating techniques that gave the illusion of symmetry while maximizing dynamic geometrical
relationships. For the unusually descriptive Do Círculo à Oval (From the Circle to the Oval) of 1958 (pl. 11), Lauand
commences two overlapping and unwinding sets of rays from one central angle that establishes a mathematical
constraint or constant: in counterclockwise rotation, the inner angles are progressively acute by miniscule degrees;
analogously, the outer subset of angles are gradually smaller clockwise. As much as Lauand was drawn to the
generative potential of logarithmic spirals, it is revealing to point out the artist’s clever use of the ellipse, not the
oval, for the curved shape in From the Circle to the Oval. This shape-shifting technique disregards her own title and
original postulate, a liberating gesture towards organic growth and intuition in its counterproposal to Concretism’s
analytical constructions.13
Correspondingly, Lauand uses color in Acervo 82
(1963) (pl. 18) to invigorate the square’s interlocking key
pattern—a central white rectangle grounded by two red
symmetrical shapes reflect each other, while opposing
blue and black halves propel the vorticular spin of the
picture plane. Similarly, she returns to a colorful radial
pattern in her later Sem título (Untitled) of 2001 (pl. 30).
The five vertical bands ordering the floating palette of
circles and ovals—in pink, blue, and purple—create a
rhythmic fusion in her earlier untitled tempera of 1967
(pl. 23). Comparatively, the unfolding horseshoe curve of
hexagons, pentagons, cubes and triangles is interspersed
with eccentric geometries in her later untitled canvas of
1986 (pl. 26).
Lauand’s later works of the 1960s and 1970s
incorporate hybridized elements of concrete poetry,
assemblage, and Cinema Novo to reflect the critical
Figure 8
reception of Pop and Neo-Figuration in Brazil. Even as she Grupo Ruptura artists at Galeria de Artes das Folhas, São Paulo, 1959 (pictured left to
right: Luiz Sacilotto, Waldemar Cordeiro, Kazmer Féjer, Judith Lauand, and Maurício
Nogueira Lima)
 continually re-defined her relationship to Concretism, she was clearly engaged in this era’s proto-feminist dynamics
and politics that addressed the censorial policies of Brazil’s prolonged dictatorship and military regime.14 While
respecting the serious “open work” of Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, she nevertheless rejected the experimental
and theoretical ideas explored by her fellow Concrete artists aligned with Grupo Frente in Rio de Janeiro, and later
pursued in Neo-Concrete systems posited beyond the institutional frame of art. However, like her peers from both
cities, Lauand evolved a prolific and ambitious practice formulated on her own set of mathematic constraints that
were invariably disrupted by the natural laws of chaos and entropy.
Figure 9
Exhibition brochure, Galeria Ambiente, São Paulo, 1954
9 10
NOTES
1
My gratitude to the Judith Lauand Archives, São Paulo, for granting me access to the artist’s artwork and documents, and to the Fundo Arquivístico /
Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, São Paulo for its gracious assistance in providing photography. I would also like to thank Celso Fioravante for discuss-
ing his vast knowledge of Lauand with me.
2
From September-October 1954, Lauand worked as a gallery monitor or docent for the exhibition Da Caravaggio a Tiepolo, Pittura Italiana del XVII e
XVIII Secolo, curated by Gilberto Ronci at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP), to honor Italy’s important contributions to Brazil. See
Celso Fiorvante, Judith Lauand: os anos 50 e a construção da geometria (São Paulo: Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, 2015), 69.
3
For a historic development of the early biennials and their national impact in Brazil, see Adele Nelson, “Monumental and Ephemeral: The Early São
Paulo Bienais,” in Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America, 1920s-50s, ed. Mary-Kate O’Hare, exh. cat. (Petaluma, CA: Pomegranate
and The Newark Museum), 127-142.
4
Lauand, cited in Paulo Herkenhoff, “Judith Lauand: Arte de delicadezas concretistas,” in Judith Lauand: Obras de 1954-1960 (São Paulo: Sylvio Nery
da Fonseca Escritório de Arte, 1996), n.p.
5
For an expanded discussion of geometric abtraction and the gendered relationships among South and North American women artists, see my essay,
“The Masquerade of Geometry: Identity and Abstraction in the Americas,” in Constructive Spirit, 104-126.
6
Lauand, quoted in “Judite Lauand entre os concretistas que vão export na Galeria de Arte das ‘Folhas,’” Folha da Manhã (São Paulo), January 7, 1959,
p. 9. See also, “Judith Lauand,” in Projeto construtivo brasileiro na arte, 1950-1962, ed. Aracy A. Amaral, exh. cat. (Rio de Janeiro: Museu de Arte Mod-
erna do Rio de Janeiro; and São Paulo: Secretaria da Cultura, Ciência e Tecnologia do Estado de São Paulo, Pinacoteca do Estado, 1977), 214.
7
Theo van Doesburg, “Base de la peinture concret,” Art Concret: AC (April 1930): 1.
8
Lauand produced skilled landscapes and portraits at the Escola de Belas-Artes de Araraquara, under the direction of teachers Quirino Campofiorito,
Mário Ybarra de Almeida, and Domenico Larrazini, among others. In group exhibitions, she had won first prize at the fifteenth Salão de Belas Artes de
Araraquara in 1952, and she was critically recognized at an exhibition of Young Painters from the School of Fine Arts (Jovens Pintores da Escola de Belas-
Artes) at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP).
9
Lauand, “Da figuração para a abstração,” manuscript in preparation for a lecture, potentially at Galeria de Arte do SESI, São Paulo, SP, in Judith
Lauand Archives, São Paulo; cited in Fioravante, Judith Lauand: os anos 50 e a construção da geometria, 6. See also, Max Bill, “Konkrete Gestaltung,” in
Zeitprobleme in der Schweitzer Malerei und Plastik, exh. cat. (Zurich: Kunsthaus, 1936).
10
It was also reprinted in the supplement of the local newspaper Correiro Paulistano in 1953. The original Ruptura members, an interesting group from
international backgrounds and disciplines in graphic design, photography and communications, included Waldemar Cordeiro (1925-73), Leopoldo Haar
(1910-54), Geraldo de Barros (1923-98), Kazmer Féjer (1923-89), Luiz Sacilotto (1924-2003), Lothar Charoux (1912-87), and Anatol Wladyslaw (1913-2004),
with later members Maurício Nogueira Lima (1930-99) and Hermelindo Fiaminghi (1920-2004).
11
See Waldemar Cordeiro, “O objeto,” Arquitetura e Decoração (São Paulo), no. 20 (November-December, 1956): n.p.
12
See Ana Maria Belluzzo, “Ruptura e Arte Concreta / Rupture and Concrete Art,” in Arte construtiva no Brazil: Coleção Adolpho Leirner / Construc-
tive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, ed. Amaral, exh. cat. (São Paulo: DBA Arte Gráficas, 1998), 118-19. On Gestalt theory, see Rudolf Arnheim,
“Gestalt and Art,” Journal of Aesthetics and Criticism 2, no. 8 (1943): 71-75.
13
Lauand was drawn to mathematics from a young age, and she often used the public libraries to study where she had access to Einstein’s writings.
Changing her focus, from the spiral to the cube, for example, was considered too great a departure by her fellow Ruptura artists, who preferred that she
pursue one dominant motif. Lauand, interview with the author, October 10, 2012, São Paulo.
14
For a further discussion of Lauand’s relationship to feminism and politics, see my essay, “Rupturing the Plane: Judith Lauand’s Infinite Constructions,” in Judith
Lauand: Brazilian Modernist, 1950s-2000s, exh. cat. (New York: Driscoll Babcock Galleries), 9-19.
All artworks © 1956-2008 Judith Lauand Archives; Courtesy Fundo Arquivístico / Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, São Paulo
 Plate 1
CONCRETO 245, 1955
Gouache on paper
4 x 4 inches (10 x 10 cm)

Plate 2
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1955
Gouache on paper
4 x 4 inches (10 x 10 cm)

1 2

11 12
 Plate 3
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), c. 1958
Oil on canvas
24 x 24 inches (60 x 60 cm)

13 14
 Plate 4
CONCRETO 33, 1956
Enamel on cut particle board
20 x 20 inches (50.3 x 50.3 cm)

15 16
 Plate 5
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1956
Collage on canvas
4 x 4 inches (10 x 10 cm)

Plate 6
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1956
Woodcut on rice paper
4 x 4 inches (10 x 10 cm)

5 6

17 18
 Plate 7
CONCRETO 53, ACERVO 192, 1957
Gouache on paper
19 x 20 inches (48 x 52 cm)

19 20
 Plate 8
CONCRETO 66, 1957
Enamel on particle board
15 ¾ inches diameter (40 cm diameter)

21 22
 Plate 9
CONCRETO 66, 1957
Gouache on paper
5 ½ inches diameter (14 cm diameter)

Plate 10
CONCRETO 66, 1957
Linocut on rice paper
8 ½ inches diameter (22 cm diameter)

9 10

23 24
 Plate 11
DO CÍRCULO À OVAL (FROM THE CIRCLE TO THE OVAL), 1958
Paint and stucco on particle board
24 x 24 inches (60 x 60 cm)

25 26
 Plate 12
CONCRETO 139, 1958
Ink on paper and eucatex
18 x 14 inches (45 x 36.5 cm)

27 28
 Plate 13
ACERVO 183, C 117, 1958
Gouache on paper
25 x 19 inches (64 x 48 cm)

29 30
 Plate 14
C 108, ACERVO 202, 1958
Gouache on paper
12 ½ x 12 ½ inches (32 x 32 cm)

31 32
 Plate 15
C 118, 1958
Ink on paper
25 ½ x 29 inches (58 x 66 cm)

33 34
 Plate 16
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), ACERVO 187, 1959
Ink on paper
23 x 19 inches (59 x 48 cm)

35 36
 Plate 17
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), ACERVO C. 177, 1960
Oil on canvas
34 x 53 ½ inches (86 x 136 cm)

37 38
 Plate 18
ACERVO 82, 1963
Oil on particle board
18 x 18 inches (45 x 45 cm)

39 40
 Plate 19
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), ACERVO 124, 1965
Tempera on canvas
24 x 24 inches (60 x 60 cm)

41 42
 Plate 20
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1965
Fabric and thumbtacks on canvas
12 x 12 inches (30 x 30 cm)

43 44
 Plate 21
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1967
Tempera on canvas
29 ½ x 29 ½ inches (75 x 75 cm)

45 46
 Plate 22
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1967
Tempera on canvas
30 x 30 inches (75 x 75 cm)

47 48
 Plate 23
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1967
Tempera on canvas
29 ½ x 29 ½ inches (75 x 75 cm)

49 50
 Plate 24
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1976
Oil on canvas
24 x 24 inches (60 x 60 cm)

51 52
 Plate 25
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1978
Acrylic on cardstock
7 ½ x 11 inches (19 x 28 cm)

53 54
 Plate 26
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1986
Acrylic on canvas
31 x 31 inches (80 x 80 cm)

55 56
 Plate 27
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1990
Oil on canvas
31 ½ x 31 ½ inches (80 x 80 cm)

57 58
 Plate 28
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1993
Oil on canvas
31 x 31 inches (80 x 80 cm)

59 60
 Plate 29
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 1993
Oil on canvas
31 x 31 inches (80 x 80 cm)

61 62
 Plate 30
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), 2001
Oil on canvas
31 x 31 inches (80 x 80 cm)

63 64
 Plate 31
SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED), ACERVO 485, 2008
Oil on fibre board
16 ½ x 12 ½ inches (42 x 32 cm)

65 66
JUDITH LAUAND

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2010-11 Fundação Iberê Camargo, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul and 1996 Sylvio Nery da Fonseca Escritório de Arte, São Paulo, Brazil, Concretos São Paulo, Brazil, 1º Salão de Arte Contemporânea de São Caetano do Sul
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, Desenhar Neo-Concretos
MAC, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, 3º Salão de Arte Contemporânea
2017 Driscoll Babcock Galleries, New York, Judith Lauand: Brazilian o Espaço
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tendências
Concrete Abstractions Teatro Nacional, Brasília, Brazil, 4º Salão de Arte Moderna Distrito
2010 Austin Desmond Fine Arts, London, England and Matteo Construtivas no Acervo do MAC-USP
Federal
Lampertico Arte Antica e Moderna, Milan, Italy, Abstraction-Creation:
2015 Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, São Paulo, Brazil, Judith Lauand: Galeria de Arte do SESi, São Paulo, Brazil, Bandeiras: 60 artistas
Post-War Geometric Abstract Art from Europe and South America 1966 Museu de Arte Brasileira da FAAP, São Paulo, Brazil, Premissas 3
os anos 50 e a construção da geometria homenageiam a USP
Newark Museum, New Jersey, Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in Galeria Prestes Maia, São Paulo, Brazil, 15º Salão Paulista de
2014 Driscoll Babcock Galleries, New York, Judith Lauand: Brazilian 1994 Pavilhão da Bienal, São Paulo, Brazil, Bienal Brasil Século XX
South and North America, 1920s-50s Arte Moderna
Modernist, 1950s-2000s
1991 Galeria Choice, São Paulo, Brazil, Mostra Coletiva
Galeria Berenice Arvani, São Paulo, Preto no Branco, do Concreto MAC, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, 2º Salão de Arte Contemporânea
2013 Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England, Judith Lauand: the 1950s ao Contemporâneo 1990 Rio Design Center, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Arte Como Construção
1965 Pavilhão da Bienal, São Paulo, Brazil, 8º Bienal Internacional de São Paulo
2012 Galeria Berenice Arvani, São Paulo, Brazil, Judith Lauand: Guaches, 2009-11 Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California; Es Baluard 1987 Fundação Bienal, São Paulo, Brazil, A Trama do Gosto
Desenhos e Colagens Anos 50 Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, Palma de Mallorca, Galeria Prestes Maia, São Paulo, Brazil, 14º Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna
Spain; and Kunst und Ausstellunghshalle der Bundesrepublik Museu de Arte Brasileira da FAAP, São Paulo, Brazil, Projeto Arte
2011 Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, Brazil, Judith Lauand: Experiências MAC, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, 1º Salão de Arte Contemporânea
Deutschland, Bonn, Germany, The Sites of Latin American Abstraction: Brasileira – Anos 50
2008 Galeria Berenice Arvani, São Paulo, Brazil and Palacete da Esplanada Selections from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection Museu de Arte Brasileira de FAAP, São Paulo, Brazil, Propostas 65
Funarte, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Abstração Geométrica 1
das Rosas, Araraquara, São Paulo, Brazil, Judith Lauand – 65 Anos de
2009 Galeria Berenice Arvani, São Paulo, Anos 50 50 Obras 1964 Galeria Prestes Maia, São Paulo, Brazil, 3º Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna
Arte – Xilogravuras 1985 Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Geometria Hoje
2008 Galeria Berenice Arvani, São Paulo, Ruptura Frente Ressonâncias 1963 Pavilhão da Bienal, São Paulo, Brazil, 7º Bienal Internacional de São Paulo
2007 Galeria Berenice Arvani, São Paulo, Brazil, Judith Lauand – 50 Anos 1984 Pavilhão da Bienal, São Paulo, Brazil, Tradição e Ruptura
Musée de Saint-Tropez, France, Art Cinétique et Mouvement
de Pintura Galeria NT, São Paulo, Brazil, Coletiva de inauquração da Associação de
Paulo Figueiredo Galeria de Arte, São Paulo, Brazil, Geometria 84
2006 Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, Brazil, Concreta 56: A Raiz Artes Visuais Novas Tendências
1996 Sylvio Nery da Fonseca Escritório de Arte, São Paulo, Brazil, Obras de
da Forma 1983 Centro Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil, Exposição Waldemar Cordeiro
1954-1960 1962 São Paulo, Brazil, Exposição Coletiva no Clube dos Artistas de São Paulo
Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil, Pincelada: Pintura e Método 1978 Museu Lasar Segall, São Paulo, Brazil, As Bienais e a Abstração
1994 Casa de Cultura Manoel de Vasconcelos Martins, Pontal, São Paulo, Brazil 1961 Galeria Prestes Maia, São Paulo, Brazil, 10º Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna
Dan Galeria, São Paulo, Brazil, Concretismo e Neo-Concretismo Museu de Arte Brasileira da FAAP, São Paulo, Brazil, Objeto na Arte
1992 Museu de Arte Contemporânea – USP, São Paulo, Brazil 1960 Helmaus Zürich, Switzerland, Konkrete Kunst: 50 Jahre Entwicklung,
Brasil Anos 60
2004 Galeria Brito Cimino, São Paulo, Brazil, Versão Brasileira curated by Max Bill
1986 Choice Galeria de Arte, São Paulo, Brazil
1977 Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo and Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de
2002 Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Caminho do Contemporâneo Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, Brazil, Contribuição de Mulher às
1977 Museu de Arte Contemporânea – USP, São Paulo, Brazil Janeiro, Brazil, Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte 1950-1962
1952-2002 Artes Plásticas do País
1971 Galeria Alançia Francesa, São Paulo, Brazil 2º Salão Feminino de Maio Eucatex Pro, São Paulo, Brazil
Collección Patrícia Phelps de Cisneros, Museu de Arte Moderna, São Galeria de Arte das Folhas, São Paulo, Exposição de Arte Concreta
1965 Galeria NT – Novas Tendências, São Paulo, Brazil Paulo and Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Paralelos: 1972 Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, Brazil, 2º Exposição internacional
Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Exposição de
Arte Brasileira da Segunda Metade do Século XX em Contexto de Gravura
1962 Galeria Aremar, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil Arte Concreta
2001 Fogg Art Museum and David Rockefeller Center for Latin 1970 Porto Alegre, Brazil, 25 Pintores do Acervo do Museu de Arte Moderna
1954 Galeria Ambiente, São Paulo, Brazil 1959 Munich, Germany; The Hague, Holland, and Vienna, Austria, Mostra Arte
American Sudies, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, de São Paulo, Brazil
Brasileira Atual
Geometric Abstraction: Latin American Art
1969 Pavilhão da Bienal, São Paulo, Brazil, 10º Bienal Internacional de São Paulo
from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection Galeria Prestes Maia, São Paulo, Brazil, 8º Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, Brazil, Panorama da Arte
2000 Fundação Bienal, São Paulo, Brazil, Brasil + 500 Mostra do 1958 Galeria Prestes Maia, São Paulo, Brazil, 7º Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna
Atual Brasileira
2017-18 The Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA, Making Art Concrete: Works from Redescobrimento: Arte Moderna e Arte Contemporânea
Argentina and Brazil in the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros 1957 Palácio Gustavo Capanema – MEC, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 6° Salão
1968 Galeria Prestes Maia, São Paulo, Brazil, 17º Salão Paulista de Arte
Centre d’Art Contemporain, Mouans-Sartoux, France, Un Siècle Nacional de Arte Moderna
Moderna
d’Art Concret
2014 Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, Brazil, Vontade Construtiva na
Palácio Gustavo Capanema – MEC, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Buenos
Coleção Fadel 1968 Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, Brazil, Os Concretistas
1999 Jo Slaviero Galeria de Arte, São Paulo, Brazil, Década de 50 e seus Aires and Rosario, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; and Lima, Peru,
Envolvimentos São Paulo, Brazil, 2º Salão de Arte Contemporânea de São Caetano do Sul Exposição Nacional de Arte Concreta
2012 Dan Galeria and Centro Brasileiro Britânico, São Paulo, Brazil,
Concretos Paralelos / Concrete Parallels 1998 Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, Brazil, Arte Construtiva no Brasil – Galeria Espaço, São Paulo, Brazil, Coletiva de pinturas 1956 Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo and Museum de Arte Moderna,
Coleção Adolpho Leirner Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Exposição Nacional de Arte Concreta
Galeria Berenice Arvani, São Paulo, Brazil, Do Concretismo ao Pop
1967 Pavilhão da Bienal, São Paulo, Brazil, 9º Bienal internacional de São Paulo
Anos: 50, 60 e 70 1997 Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, 2º Bienal do Mercosul Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Brazil, Prêmio de Arte
Galeria Prestes Maia, São Paulo, Brazil, 16º Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna
Contemporânea
Casa das Rosas, São Paulo, Brazil, Desexp(l)os(ign)ição

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1955 Pavilhão da Bienal, São Paulo, Brazil, 3º Bienal Internacional de São Paulo

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 4º Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna

Galeria Prestes Maia, São Paulo, Brazil, 4º Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna

1954 Galeria Prestes Maia, São Paulo, Brazil, 3º Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna

1953 São Paulo, Brazil, 16° Salão de Belas Artes de Araraquara

1952 Salão do antigo Trianon, São Paulo, Brazil, 2° Salão Paulista de

Arte Moderna

Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, Brazil, Jovens Pintores da Escola

de Belas-Artes de Araraquara

São Paulo, Brazil, 15° Salão de Belas Artes de Araraquara

1945 São Paulo, Brazil, 9° Salão de Belas Artes de Araraquara

SELECTED AWARDS AND HONORS

1964 13° Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna – Prêmio Aquisição

1959 8° Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna – Prêmio Aquisição
1958 7° Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna – Prêmio Aquisição
1955 4° Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna – Pequena Medalha de Prata
1954 3° Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna – Grande Medalha de Bronze
1953 16° Salão de Belas Artes de Araraquara – Prêmio Cidade de Araraquara
1952 15° Salão de Belas Artes de Araraquara – Primeiro Lugar
1945 9° Salão de Belas Artes de Araraquara – Prêmio Estímulo de Desenho

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Fundação do Livro do Cego no Brasil

Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói
Museu de Arte Contemporânea de São Paulo
Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro
Museu de Arte Moderna de Grenoble, France
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo

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 ABOUT ALIZA EDELMAN Publication © 2017 Driscoll Babcock Galleries, LLC
All artworks © 1956-2008 Judith Lauand Archives; Courtesy Fundo Arquivístico
Aliza Edelman, Ph.D., is a curator with an art historical focus on the transnational narratives of postwar women / Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, São Paulo
artists and abstraction in the Americas. In 2014, she organized the survey Judith Lauand: Brazilian Modernist,
Page 70: © Gui Mohallem
1950s-2000s at Driscoll Babcock Galleries. Her current scholarly writings are included in Women of Abstract
Expressionism (Yale University Press and Denver Art Museum) and American Women Artists, 1935-1970 —
Gender, Culture, and Politics (Ashgate Press), both 2016. Previously, she was an advisor to the critically acclaimed Driscoll Babcock Galleries
exhibition, Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America, 1920s-50s at the Newark Museum, NJ, 525 West 25th Street
for which she contributed an essay to the catalogue. She is a regular contributor to the Woman’s Art Journal. New York, NY 10001
+1 212.767.1852
info@driscollbabcock.com
www.driscollbabcock.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, whether
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of Driscoll Babcock Galleries.

Cover image: Judith Lauand (b. 1922), CONCRETO 53, ACERVO 192, 1957, Gouache on paper, 19 x
20 inches (48 x 52 cm)

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