Candido Portinari

Candido Portinari is one of the most important artists of Brazilian modernism. He produced an extensive body of work and his murals can be found in Brazilian ministries and the UN headquarters in New York. He was already well known in the early 1930s and received numerous public commissions during the presidency of Getúlio Vargas. Even as the government became increasingly dictatorial, Portinari remained closely associated with the then minister of education – which is why he was criticised.

In the early 1940s, Portinari painted a series of works on the theme of migrants. One of the most famous is this large oil painting from 1944 – an icon of Brazilian modernism! The artist depicts a barren landscape with mountains in the background. Against this backdrop is a family, from small children to an old man. They look poor in their shabby clothes and are not wearing shoes. They appear to be carrying all their belongings in a few bundles. Their faces are marked by suffering and poverty, their emaciated bodies and distended bellies testify to hunger and deprivation. Behind the group is a flock of black birds, seemingly just waiting for someone to die. The barren landscape, littered with bones, suggests the reason for this family’s flight: a drought has forced them to leave the north-east of the country and look for work elsewhere – perhaps in a city.

The artist was not describing immigrants from Europe or Africa, but internal migration within Brazil itself. Economic crises – such as the stock market crash of 1929 – and, above all, periods of drought, repeatedly led to waves of migration and rural exodus. At the time of the painting, Portinari was politically and socially active. He stood as a parliamentary candidate for the Communist Party of Brazil, but was not elected.