WHAT
Marking the late Italian-Brazilian artist’s (1900–1995) first presentation in Asia, this exhibition coincides with Lorenzato’s inclusion in the present 60th Venice Biennale. Although he studied for a brief period at the Reale Accademia delle Arti in Vicenza in 1925, the artist was mostly self-taught, and he developed his technical proficiency in painting through a job restoring frescoes in Rome, having previously worked as a mural painter in Brazil. Among the foremost Brazilian artists of his generation, Lorenzato developed a singular body of paintings centered on his fastidious observations of everyday subjects, including favelas (working-class shantytowns), semi-urban landscapes, and scenes of agriculture and rural industry. With intimate compositions and a colourful language, the selection of paintings celebrates the artist’s contribution to a global modernist canon.

WHY
The artist’s distinctive compositions are characterised by reduced geometric forms and densely-textured surfaces that he has achieved through the use of richly coloured, self-made pigments applied with brushes, combs, and forks. Imbued with an assured freedom of expression, his canvases masterfully capture the vitality of the artist’s surroundings as well as the colours and textures of the natural world.