?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
MIGUEL DOS SANTOS Caruaru II.
Oil on canvas mounted on board, 1985. 1190x795 mm; 47x31½ inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower right recto, and signed and titled in pencil, verso.
Provenance: DAN Galeria, São Paulo, with the label; private collection, New York.
A self-taught artist, dos Santos (born 1944) was born in Caruaru, Brazil. Dos Santos' grandfather was an architect who wrote cordel literature, printed booklets of folk poetry or stories illustrated by woodcut prints, serving as inspiration for the young artist.
Dos Santos was a major proponent of the Movimento Armorial (Armorial Movement), founded in 1970 by the playwright, intellectual, and poet Ariano Suassuna in the capital city of Recife. This movement sought to cultivate appreciation for northeastern Brazil's unique popular culture through the propagation of a distinct aesthetic that synthesized the region's European, indigenous, and African cultural roots. Dos Santos' works constitute a diverse visual vocabulary referencing the iconography of the indigenous Tupi-Guarani people, Yoruba traditions seen in Afro-Brazilian culture, and the folk art from the region.
Works, such as Caruaru II, embody the magical realism of these varied cultural references, frequently manifesting in fantastical hybrid figures and creatures. These figures are often ancestral references to gods, demons, and nightmarish imaginary beasts.
