Hélio Oiticica - Latin America New York Tuesday, November 20, 2012 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Provenance

    Private collection, Rio de Janeiro

  • Artist Biography

    Hélio Oiticica

    Brazilian • 1937 - 1980

    Hélio Oiticica is one of Brazil's most influential artists. His work ranges from abstract compositions to early environmental installations exploring color, form, and material. He studied under Ivan Serpa in the mid-1950s and joined Grupo Frente, an association of artists in Rio de Janeiro interested in developing the legacy of European Constructivism within the context of the modernization of Brazil. Disagreements with the São Paulo Ruptura group led Oiticica and Lygia Clark to create the Neo-Concrete group (1959-'61).

    His Metaesquemas (1957-'58) are an important series of gouaches where color is reduced to a few tones and broken into irregular shapes that are isolated within a grid. However he soon rejected this conventional art form for more radical ones that demanded viewer participation, including his Parangoles (1964–'68), three-dimensional sculptures based on traditional Brazilian Carnival costumes. Yet an exploration of the physical nature of color remained a constant in his work up until his untimely death in 1980.

    View More Works

BRAZILIAN

15

Metaesquema 167

1958
gouache on cardboard
11 3/4 x 15 1/4 in. (29.8 x 38.7 cm)
Signed, titled, inscribed, and numbered by César Oiticica "Cesar O Projeto HO N 446 MET 167" on the reverse. This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by César Oiticica.

Estimate
$200,000 - 300,000 

Sold for $242,500

Latin America

20 November 2012
New York