Agostinho Batista de Freitas

1927, Campinas | SP - Brazil - 1997, São Paulo | SP - Brazil

When he was 17 years old he moved to the city of São Paulo, and settled down in Imirim. His parents were Portuguese immigrants from the Madeira Island, rural workers in the interior of the State. As a child, Agostinho cleared the farmland and took care of livestock. His first drawings were sketched on the ground and on trees. He learned to read and write in São Paulo, where he had several occupations: stonemason’s assistant, packer, and electrician. He was discovered by Pietro Maria Bardi, who saw him selling his work on Sundays in the Post Office plaza, and organized his first exhibition in the São Paulo Art Museum (MASP) in 1952. He painted São Paulo’s urban landscape: “The city is like that, with these skyscrapers, buildings, seems that we’re in the middle of a rock, looks like a mystery, a cemetery” (interview by Lélia Coelho Frota, 1976). Agostinho also painted the countryside, but preferred the city to the countryside: “Neons here, signs there, there’s so much to study in the mind, isn’t there? But not in the countryside, where you only see woods, the only thing to think about is planting.” The city, on the other hand, is a place with gravestone architecture and movement, seems hyper-realistic. And the countryside, in his word, is “a state of imagination”, perhaps due to idealizing distance and nostalgia for the past. Between these images of town and country, adding some scenes of a Catholic mass and only a few still lifes, Agostinho gave unique form to his creator’s talent, taking part into numerous exhibitions at home and abroad, such as, for example, the Venice Biennial (1966), Brazilian Primitives, in the United States (1975), and Arte Naïf: Cinco Artistas, in São Paulo State (1998).

Source: Little Dictionary of the Brazilian People’s Art – 20th Century, by anthropologist and poet Lélia Coelho Frota

Individual Exhibitions:

2022 Master of the Streets, Galeria Estação, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2016-2017 Agostinho Batista de Freitas, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2008 Right to Poetry, Galeria Estação, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1978 Agostinho Batista de Freitas: paintings, Shopping News Arts Center, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1952 Agostinho Batista de Freitas, MAM / SP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1952 Agostinho Batista de Freitas, MAM / BA, Salvador, BA, Brazil

1952 Agostinho Batista de Freitas, MACC, Campinas, SP, Brazil

Collective Exhibitions:

2021 They Were Already Here, Galeria Base, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2019 Naïve Art – No museum less, Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage (EAV Paque Lage), Rio de Janeiro

2019 The sacred in Brazilian Modern Art, Museu de Arte Sacra de São Paulo, São Paulo

2017 The Venture of the Modern, Pinacoteca Ruben Berta, Porto Alegre

2017 Ways to see Brazil: Itaú Cultural 30 Anos, Oca, São Paulo

2017 Avenida Paulista, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2016-2017, 1969 The Hand of the Brazilian People, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2016 Childhood stories, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2016 Picture Gallery in Transformation, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2015 Art of Brazil in the 20th century, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2014 New MAM Acquisitions, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

2009 Casa Brasil Fair, Bento Gonçalves Event Park, Bento Gonçalves, RS, Brazil

2008 Brazil Brazilians, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB São Paulo), São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2003 The Art Behind the Art: where art works are and how they travel, MAM, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2002 Pop Brasil: popular art and the popular in art, CCBB, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2002 Santa Ingenuidade, Unifieo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2002 6th Naifs of Brasil Biennial, Sesc, Piracicaba, SP, Brazil

2001 Form-and-color as Light in the Naifs, Itaú Cultural Gallery, Penápolis, SP, Brazil

2001 Form-and-color as Light in the Naifs, Itaú Cultural Gallery, Brasília, DF, Brazil

2000 Brazil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition. Popular Art, Bienal Foundation, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1998 Paulistana Iconography in Private Collections, Museu da Casa Brasileira, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1998 Naïve Art - 5 Artists, Jacques Ardies Gallery, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1996 The World of Mário Schenberg, Casa das Rosas, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1996 3rd Art Exhibition, Centro Universitário Fieo, Osasco, SP, Brazil

1996 Expo FIEO: donation from Luiz Ernesto Kawall, Centro Universitário Fieo, Osasco, SP, Brazil

1995 2nd Art Exhibition, Centro Universitário Fieo, Osasco, SP, Brazil

1994 Great Exhibition of Brazilian Naïve Art, Jacques Ardies Gallery, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1990 Reopening Exhibition, Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1988 Brasiliana: man, and land, Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1985 6th Northeastern Fine Arts Salon, Penápolis Educational Foundation: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras, Penápolis, SP, Brazil

1985 Agostinho Batista de Freitas, José Duarte de Aguiar and Ricardo Camargo Studio, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1984 Festival of colors, Art Museum of Goiânia, Goiânia, GO, Brazil

1980 People of Earth, Paço das Arte, São Paulo

1980 Folk Painters and 3 Engravers from Brazil, Instituto Nacional de Belas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico

1979 Art in Brazil: a history of five centuries, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1975 Brazilian Primitives, Itinerant, United States

1966 33rd Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

1966 The Artist and the Machine, MAM - RJ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

Public Collections:

MASP - Assis Chateaubriand Art Museum of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

Pinacoteca of the State of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

MAM São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

MAM Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

Selected Publications:

2019 Naïve Art – No museum less, Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage (EAV Paque Lage), Rio de Janeiro

2019 Lina Bo Bardi’s Museu de Arte de São Paulo, publishing company Ipis Grafica e Editora, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2017 Avenida Paulista, MASP, publishing company Ipis Grafica e Editora, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2016-2017 The Hand of the Brazilian People, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2016 Agostinho Batista de Freitas, MASP, São Paulo, SP

2016 Childhood stories, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2015 Concrete and Crystal: MASP's collection on Lina Bo Bardi's easels, MASP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2008 Right to Poetry, Catalog, Galeria Estação, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2005 Small Dictionary of the Art of the Brazilian People - 20th century, Lélia Coelho Frota, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2000 Brazil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition: Popular Art, Catalog, Biennial Foundation, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1998 Naïve Art in Brazil, Jacques Ardies, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1988 Thinking about Art, Mario Schenberg, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1988 Critical Dictionary of Painting in Brazil, Jose Roberto Leite, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

1983 Collection of Brazilian Art, João Marino, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1978 Aspects of Brazilian Primitive Painting, Aquino de Flavio, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

1977 L’arche de Noe et Les Naifs, Louis Pauwels, Paris, France

1976-1980 Brazilian Dictionary of Fine Artists, Carlos Cavalcanti, Brasília, DF, Brazil

1975 History of Brazilian Art, Pietro Maria Bardi, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1969 Dictionary of Fine Arts in Brazil, Roberto Pontual, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil