Nuca de Tracunhaém [Manuel Borges da Silva]

1937, Nazaré da Mata | PE - Brazil

2014, Recife | PE - Brazil

Nuca was born on the sugar plantation of Pedra Furada, and when still a lad moved with his family to Tracunhaém, where his father bought a small plot of land. There the family lived and planted for their subsistence. It is natural that Nuca, when he arrived at the large ceramic center of Tracunhaém, would become interested in the brickworks, and would closely see the work of Lídia Vieira and Zezinha, of whom he is an admirer (O Reinado da Lua, 1980). He married Maria and continued working in the brickwork trade and planting to survive. He was 37 years old when he began modeling clay, at the request of an antique dealer from Recife. Nuca then created beautiful sculptures of his lions that could be almost one meter long. Perhaps the lions of Portuguese porcelain decorating the entrance to old houses in Recife had being his starting point.

But these animals, completely different from the realistic portrait, first recall the early centuries of the classic ancient times. With an archaic and solemn look of guardians – not of common dwelling, to where they finally arrived, but of sacred spaces - , they are the result of a harmonious concept of volume and treatment of the alternately smooth and worked surfaces with curly manes, or grooved with a knife. Nuca on this occasion would also carve human figures with the same ascetic and archaic simplification of shape, where the only ornaments are foliage and flowers. His wife, Maria Gomes, models small lions that she calls carrancas or figureheads. Roberto Burle Marx put Nuca’s lions at the entrance to his house on his museum-farm in Guaratiba, Rio de Janeiro. One of them is part of the collection of the museum of popular art the São Francisco Cultural Center in João Pessoa, in Paraíba State, after being part of the Brésil, Arts Populaires, in Grand Palais exhibition in Paris, 1987.    

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

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

2025 — Em cada canto: Casa Fiat de Cultura and Instituto Tomie Ohtake Visit the Vilma Eid Collection
Casa Fiat de Cultura, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil

2025 — Instituto Tomie Ohtake Visits the Vilma Eid Collection – Em cada canto
Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2021 — Eles Já Estavam Aqui [They Were Already Here]
Galeria Base, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2019 — CRAB Exhibition
Centro Sebrae de Referência do Artesanato Brasileiro (CRAB), Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

2012–2013 — Janete Costa “Um Olhar” [Janete Costa: A Gaze]
Museu Janete Costa, Niterói, RJ, Brazil

2010 — Coleção Domingos Giobbi: arte, uma relação afetiva [Domingos Giobbi Collection: Art, an Affective Relationship]
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2009 — Artevida Brasileira [Brazilian Art-Life]
Galeria Cândido Portinari – UERJ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

2008–2009 — Imaginário do Povo Brasileiro [Imaginary of the Brazilian People]
Restaurante Antiquarius, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2008 — Bienal Naifs do Brasil [Naïfs of Brazil Biennial]
Sesc SP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2007 — Do tamanho do Brasil – Mostra de Arte Popular [As Big as Brazil – Popular Art Exhibition]
Sesc Paulista, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2006 — SOMOS – a criação popular brasileira [WE ARE – Brazilian Popular Creation]
Centro Cultural Santander, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

2005 — Tradição e Ruptura [Tradition and Rupture]
Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, PR, Brazil

2005 — Forma, Cor e Expressão [Form, Color and Expression]
Galeria Estação, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2002 — Pop Brasil: a arte popular e popular na arte [Pop Brazil: Popular Art and the Popular in Art]
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB), São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2001 — Arte Popular de Pernambuco [Popular Art of Pernambuco]
Espaço Cultural Bandepe, Recife, PE, Brazil

2000 — Arte Popular: Mostra do Redescobrimento [Popular Art: Rediscovery Exhibition]
Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

1992 — Viva o Povo Brasileiro | Artesanato e arte popular [Long Live the Brazilian People | Crafts and Popular Art]
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

1987 — Brésil, Arts Populaires
Grand Palais, Paris, France (PT) Portfolio Nuca (1)

PUBLICATIONS

2025 — Moderno Contemporâneo Popular Brasileiro | O olhar de Vilma Eid [Brazilian Modern, Contemporary and Popular Art | The Gaze of Vilma Eid]
Daniel Rangel, Germana Monte-Mór and Lorenzo Mammi. Editora WMF, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2024 — Moderno Contemporâneo Popular Brasileiro: O olhar de Vilma Eid [Brazilian Modern, Contemporary and Popular Art: The Gaze of Vilma Eid]
Daniel Rangel, Germana Monte-Mór and Lorenzo Mammi. WMF Martins Fontes, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

2012 — Janete Costa “Um Olhar” [Janete Costa: A Gaze]
Mario Santos, Lis Gráfica, p. 22

2009 — Artevida Brasileira [Brazilian Art-Life]
UERJ, Rede Sirius / NPROTEC, p. 19

2008 — Bienal Naifs do Brasil [Naïfs of Brazil Biennial]
Catalogue, Sesc SP, p. 170

2002 — Pop Brasil: a arte popular e popular na arte [Pop Brazil: Popular Art and the Popular in Art]
Gama Editora, pp. 90–91

2001 — Arte Popular de Pernambuco [Popular Art of Pernambuco]
Donnelley Cochrane, p. 70 (PT) Portfolio Nuca (1)

2000 — Brasil +500: Mostra do Redescobrimento – Mapa do Tempo e do Espaço, Programa Ação Educativa [Brazil +500: Rediscovery Exhibition – Map of Time and Space, Educational Program]
Takano Editora Gráfica Ltda.

2000 — Arte Popular: Mostra do Redescobrimento [Popular Art: Rediscovery Exhibition]
Takano Editora Gráfica Ltda., cover and pp. 104–105

1992 — Viva o Povo Brasileiro [Long Live the Brazilian People]
Catalogue, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, p. 74

1980 — Reinado da Lua [Reign of the Moon]
Silvia Coimbra, Flavia Martins and Leticia Duarte. Editora Salamandra, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

1977 — O barro na Arte Popular Brasileira [Clay in Brazilian Popular Art]
Artes Gráficas e Editora Ltda., pp. 66–67