Revisiting the work of Lenio Braga

Abstract

Lenio Braga was an artist born in Paraná who lived his most productive phase in the city of Salvador, amidst the cultural effervescence of the 1950s and 1960s. Involved with the main names of the culture of the time, the artist left a legacy of important works scattered throughout in Bahia. The artist gained prominence by receiving the National Painting Award of the I Bienal da Bahia (1966). Lenio's arrival in Bahia took place in a revolutionary period in the cultural life of the state, which eventually influenced the cultural life of the nation itself. It is at this moment that an unprecedented avant-garde tide swept the city of Salvador, forging in a certain sense phenomena such as Cinema Novo and Tropicalismo. His work echoes the contact with the first two generations of modern Bahian art, with a first phase more linked to the representation of Afro-Brazilian culture and a second phase, of building a personal universe, focused on a magical realism. Lenio Braga was a restless experimenter all his life. After studying traditional techniques - drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking - became interested in photography, film and graphic design, among other techniques. In 1968 he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he died in 1973 at the age of 43.