Arazzo Tarsila© Abaporu Tapestry

Abaporu is one of Tarsila’s most famous works. The name, of indigenous origin, means ‘a man who eats human flesh’. Painted in 1928, it is highly representative of the artist’s Anthropophagic phase, which lasted until 1930. The painting was a gift from her to her then-husband, the writer Oswald de Andrade, and inspired him to found the Anthropophagic Movement, one of the most significant art movements on record. The painting is currently part of the collection at the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires. Tarsila do Amaral was a luminous and enlightened woman, ahead of her time, a visionary and a trailblazer. She was an artist of fundamental importance to the history of Brazilian painting and the visual arts. The Modernist and Anthropophagic movements are key cultural icons in both the artist’s career and that of her country. In this work, dating from 1929—the pinnacle of the artist’s Solar and Surrealist phases—the vegetation has already been completely transformed into cylindrical forms with rounded tips, tilted to one side, whilst the capybaras in the lake remain easily identifiable within this natural world reinvented by Tarsila. The sunset is depicted through a gradient from orange to yellow, which is intense and spread across several arcs that divide the space. Tarsila do Amaral was a luminous and enlightened woman, ahead of her time, a visionary and a trailblazer. She was an essential artist in the history of Brazilian painting and the visual arts. The Modernist and Anthropophagic movements are important cultural icons in the careers of both the artist and her father.Design: Tarsila do Amaral