TheFrenteGroup

During the first years of the 1950s, young artists in Rio de Janeiro still saw masters such as Cândido Portinari and Di Cavalcanti as the absolute highlights of local and national art. These were two painters whose realist themes still mobilized representations of a Brazil tied to the national-popular ideals of modernism. With the growth of new information, both aesthetic and political, the works of these painters no longer represented, for the new generations, the ideas emerging in different schools and courses across the city.

At MAM-RJ, it was the painter Ivan Serpa who led a popular training course. An active voice in the debates of the time, when the controversy between figurative and abstract art was at its height, Serpa was awarded at the 1st São Paulo International Biennial as the country's best young painter, betting on the latter approach. Amid this context of transformations, it was the teacher and artist who had the idea of gathering a group of students to form a collective for renewing artistic action. Through meetings and exhibitions with his students, the search for spaces for the invention of forms and the affirmation of abstractionism (although also accepting other approaches) resulted in the creation, in 1954, of Grupo Frente.

Image description: The image is a photograph of an old poster or leaflet. The predominant color is a beige tone with lighter and darker stains, suggesting wear or use. On the left side, there are black letters arranged vertically, forming the word "FRENTES." The letters are large and stand out against the background. There are no other visible elements in the image besides the letters and the background.

Given the diversity of the group, the gatherings outside Serpa's classes took place in different spaces around the city: from the teacher's house in the neighborhood of Méier, to the houses of students such as Vicente Ibberson in Leblon, Lygia Pape in Jardim Botânico, or Décio Vieira's house in Copacabana. Although it did not produce an art dedicated to an imagery of the city, the group was essentially linked to the directions that Carioca arts took in the last years of developmentalist momentum, showing a new pictorial, graphic, and urban force that was born from its increasingly dense and industrial everyday life.

Image description: This is an abstract painting with geometric shapes and varied colors. On the left side, there is a dark green square. In the center, there are two horizontal shapes, one brown and one green, which partially overlap. On the right, there is a light green rectangle. In the center of the image, there is a brown square shape with an orange triangle on the upper right.

Names that were then beginners and today have great historical value, such as Abraham Palatinik, Aluísio Carvão, Ivan Serpa, Lygia Pape, Franz Weissman, Aluísio Carvão, Lygia Clark, João José, César, and Hélio Oiticica (then 17 years old), and Décio Vieira, began creating works that shifted the figurative and national appeal of modernist art toward a more graphic, theoretical, and international perspective. Articulated with a new criticism that was emerging through names such as Mário Pedrosa, Mário Barata, and Ferreira Gullar, Grupo Frente managed to mark a turning point in the arts of Rio and Brazil.

Image description: This is an abstract painting with geometric shapes. On the left side, there is a red square above a black rectangle. In the center, there is another red square. On the right, there are two overlapping red squares. At the bottom, there is a black rectangle with black and white lines crossing it.

The first exhibition they held, still in 1954, took place at IBEU with a presentation by Gullar. The second, in turn, was inaugurated at MAM in July of the following year, with a presentation by Pedrosa. The diversity of works, approaches, and techniques – from painting to printmaking, as well as collages and sculptures – opened up a new field for the new generations, who could interact with the group and its works. Grupo Frente also held two exhibitions outside what was then the State of Guanabara: one in March 1956 at the Itatiaia Country Clube, in Resende, and another in June of the same year, at Cia. Siderúrgica Nacional, in Volta Redonda.

Image description: The image is an invitation to the opening of a painting exhibition by "Grupo Frente." It is in black and white. At the top, it reads "THE BRAZIL-UNITED STATES INSTITUTE AND THE 'JORNAL DE LETRAS'." Below, there is a list of names of participating artists: Aluizio Carvão, Ligya Pape, Lígia Clark, Ivan Serpa, João José Costa, Carlos Val, Vincent Ibberson, Décio Vieira. The date and location of the exhibition are mentioned below: "to be held on June 30th, at 5:30 p.m., at Galeria IBEU, at Rua Senador Perqueiro, 103." The invitation was issued in Rio de Janeiro, in June 1954. At the bottom, it reads "Photocopy of the original invitation to the Grupo Frente exhibition at IBEU. (IBEU Archive)".