Maurício Nogueira Lima - Latin America New York Tuesday, November 15, 2011 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Private Collection of Prof. Mário Schenberg, São Paulo

  • Catalogue Essay

    Visual artist Maurício Nogueira Lima was one of Brazil’s foremost graphic visionaries. Encompassing the realms of painting, architecture, and design, the Brazilian artist’s work came to embody many of the Concretist tenets without being confined to a simple label: his work exhibits many complex relationships between solid line and color— soaring abstractions liberal in their use of both color and geometric figure. The present lot, Objeto Rítmico, N° 4 (Rythmic Object, N° 4), 1953/1974, displays many of Nogueira Lima’s signature graphic design in the painterly medium of watercolor, lending a personal edge to what may initially seem like an impersonal image.

    The present lot displays patterns of advanced graphic technique. Evolving from bent parallelograms into sharpened kites, Nogueira Lima’s intricate pattern is a conflux of bright orange and painted black, a heightened contrast that provides a mirror image of each half. Within the world of Nogueira Lima’s complex geometric network, we witness the illusion of a pulsating series of concentric circles, rendered from the alternating lines of rectangular flux. It would seem that the present lot is a precursor of computer-driven design, even though it is only comprised of a series of vertical lines, deliberate in their coloring.

    The present lot comes from the collection of Professor Mário Schenberg, Twentieth-Century Brazil’s leading scholar in the realm of theoretical physics. In addition, as an avid art critic, Schenberg was privy to the company of many of the century’s greatest artists, including Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso. By his death in 1990, Schenberg had amassed one of Brazil’s most renowned collections of visual art. Objeto Rítmico, N° 4 blends in well with the collection of a theoretical physicist; both Nogueira Lima and Schenberg research rapid losses of energy in order to achieve a greater effect. While Nogueira Lima analyzes energy loss in color alternation that achieves a Gestalt effect and Schenberg explored a loss of electrons that trigger supernovas, both record findings of a greater design—in which a loss of energy is necessary for its resurgence. The present lot is a testament both to Lima’s scientific mind and to its brilliant portrayal in his art.

BRAZILIAN

15

Objeto Rítmico, N° 4 (Rythmic Object, N° 4)

1953/1974
Watercolor on cardboard laid on plywood.
19 5/8 x 19 5/8 in. (50 x 50 cm).
Signed, titled, dedicated and dated "Objeto Rítmico Nº4, (segunda versão), 1953/1974, Guache s/ cartão s/ eucatex, Maurício Nogueira Lima, Maurício N. Lima, Para Schenberg e Lurdes, com carinho, 31-12-75" on the reverse.

Estimate
$120,000 - 180,000 

Sold for $122,500

Latin America

14 & 15 November 2011
New York