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Tapestry

From 1953 on, Roberto Burle Marx begins to design large-format tapestries, which are then hand-made on high-warp looms. He contributes significantly to the establishment of tapestry as a medium within modern Brazilian art. The first private commission he receives reflects the enthusiasm for modern wall hangings that was beginning to spread among Brazil’s elite as well as within the country’s museums. In particular, interest in tapestries had been awakened by artists like Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Le Corbusier and Jean Lurçat, whose works were being woven in France’s storied Aubusson workshops.

In 1965 Burle Marx receives a commission which will lastingly impact his textile practice. The Brazilian government entrusts him with designing a wall tapestry for the ballroom of the Palácio Itamaraty, the new Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Brasília. For this commission, Burle Marx will produce the sketches that are exhibited here, drawing upon the forms of Brazilian plant species and ecosystems such as the Caatinga, the Cerrado, the Amazonas region and the Pantanal, and transforming them into artistic abstraction. The design is realised in five pieces, each of 5.5 x 4.2 metres. A further work made for an emblematic edifice in Brasília is the wall tapestry Burle Marx designed for the Brazilian National Congress.

The largest single panel tapestry ever produced in Brazil, designs for which are shown here in four colour variations, was created for the Centro Cívico de Santo André in São Paulo, and covers 80 square metres. Burle Marx will go on to design numerous other wall hangings for private clients.

For his studio, which will only be completed posthumously in 1994, he designs the large-format wall hanging with abstract forms, which can likewise be seen here in the exhibition. Although his signature identifies it as a landscape-oriented work, it hangs in portrait orientation in the studio.