Homage to Paul Klee (Boy’s Head)

In addition to his abstract photographs, the Fotoformas, Geraldo de Barros began to work with negatives at the end of the 1940s: he scratched them with a needle, drew on them, painted over them, blackened them, cropped and overlaid them.

De Barros used the negative of a photograph of a cemetery wall, of which we see a small section, as the starting point for this Homage to Paul Klee. There are several holes and dents in the wall. De Barros used these for the eyes and nose. The drawing in the picture also appears to have been scratched into the wall. A closer look reveals that the lines are not on the wall, but were scratched into the negative by the artist and then painted over. The result is a cartoon-like creature that seems to be staring at us from behind a wall. The creature is reminiscent of the many late drawings by Paul Klee in which he depicted dozens of figures – executed in just a few lines.

After the Second World War, art institutions such as the Museu de Arte, the Museu de Arte Moderna, the Bienal and the Biblioteca Mario de Andrade were established in São Paulo. They all left their mark on Geraldo de Barros. It was here that he learnt about Paul Klee’s work and his theoretical writings. During his time in Paris in the 1950s, he also travelled to Bern and saw original works by Klee at the Kunstmuseum Bern.

De Barros’ photographs were also initially rejected. However, his 1951 exhibition at the Museu de Arte in São Paulo, entitled Fotoforma, is now considered a turning point and a milestone in the history of photography in Brazil.