Maria Elena Vieira da Silva - The Man - Original Handsigned Etching 1974

Maria Elena Vieira da Silva - The Man - Original Handsigned Etching 1974 Handsigned and numbered Edition of 100. Dimensions: 33 x 22 cm Maria Elena Vieira da Silva Maria Elena Vieira da Silva was born in Lisbon (Portugal) in 1908 in a wealthy family. Her father disappeared when she was only 2 years old. Her mother supported her early artistic-interest. She drew from the age of eleven, and sculpted at 16 years old. She made numerous journeys with her family, these journeys awoke her to the art. The girl joined, naturally, Paris when she was twenty years old. At first she was Bourdelle and Despiau’s student in the Academy La Grande Chaumière.. She became Dufresne, Waroquier and Friesz’s student, frequented the Academy of Léger and the Stanley William Hayter’s Atelier 17. She got married to the Hungarian painter Arpad Szenes. In 1932, perfectionist, she frequented the Roger Bissière Atelier in the Academy Ranson. This last one introduced her to Jeanne Bucher, the famous trader of this time. With the second world war, the couple settled down in Portugal, then in Brazil. Post-war-years, Vieira da Silva participated in huge collective exhibitions in Paris. The Gallery Jeanne Bucher organized her first personal exhibition in 1933 and supported her during all her artistic life, presenting regularly her work. Vieira da Silva was exposed in the biggest museums of the world, she painted, she engraved, she created canvases for the tapestry, she illustrated poets. In 1931, she lived in Marseille, a seemingly insignificant experience but which represented, doubtless, the genesis of her work: drawing, then painting a transfer bridge (today disappeared), the metal structures of this one, cutting sky and sea fragments revealed her a whole architecture of the space, fantastic architecture, labyrinth architecture, poetic architecture which became her work-foundation. The Brazilian period (1940-1947) was the blooming of her art. Naturalized French in 1956, she died in Paris in 1992.