Djanira da Motta e Silva

Djanira da Motta e Silva (1914–1979) was “a central artist in Brazilian mid-century modernism,” says curator Rodrigo Moura. Born in São Paulo of an Austrian mother and a father with Native ancestry, she was a self-taught painter who spent her career traveling the country, seeking to reflect Brazil’s diverse cultural identities. Her subjects include self-portraits, popular festivals and diversions, work and workers, market scenes, dreamscapes, Afro-Brazilian and Catholic religiosity, and the Canela indigenous people of Maranhão. In 2019 the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) ran a major retrospective of her work, Djanira: Picturing Brazil, which included Largo do Pelourinho, Salvador.