Art and artists

Maria Auxiliadora: paintings, texture and life in São Paulo

Look at Maria Auxiliadora da Silva's paintings through Umbanda, Capoeira, Três mulheres and Velório da noiva: fabric, raised surfaces and life in São Paulo.

A woman draws back a curtain while two others discuss their plans for the evening. In another painting, capoeira players turn upside down among musicians and trees. Maria Auxiliadora da Silva (1935–1974) painted these scenes with close attention to each person’s clothes, hair and gestures. Black women’s lives and Afro-Brazilian cultural practices fill her canvases.¹²³

To get to know her work, follow what happens between the figures and look at the surface itself: fabric is applied to the canvas, and some parts project outwards. Different materials help distinguish one garment from another and give bodies volume.¹⁴

From an artistic family to São Paulo’s art markets

Maria Auxiliadora was born in Campo Belo, Minas Gerais, in 1935 and moved with her family to São Paulo as a child. She worked as a domestic worker and embroiderer. Historian Raquel Barreto dates her professional artistic activity to 1968–1974, the year she died of cancer, aged 39.⁵

She also learned at home. Her mother, Maria Almeida da Silva, was a sculptor; other relatives painted and wrote. Maria Auxiliadora joined the circle of artists around the poet Solano Trindade in Embu das Artes and exhibited in Praça da República. Her archive at MASP’s Research Center includes records of these activities.⁶⁵

The São Paulo districts of Casa Verde and Brasilândia figure in MASP’s account of her work. The museum held solo exhibitions in 1981 and 2018. In the latter, curators Adriano Pedrosa and Fernando Oliva connected her paintings with family life and the Afro-Brazilian cultural practices she knew.³

A surface made of paint, paste and fabric

Raised surfaces are one way to recognise her paintings. Maria Auxiliadora combined materials and sometimes incorporated locks of her own hair. Her methods vary between works: the record for Umbanda lists oil on canvas; Três mulheres combines PVA paint, polyester paste and fabric.⁴¹

In the reproduction, light reveals small shadows alongside the raised areas. The eye can follow a fold or the edge of a garment and see where the drawing gains thickness. The scenes below show some of these differences.

Umbanda, 1968: a room filled by a ceremony

The altar occupies the left side; in the centre, two musicians play atabaque drums. A reclining figure stretches across the floor, while a man on the right raises his arms. Colourful necklaces and white strips of clothing stand out against the grey walls. A framed landscape opens another space at the back of the room.⁴

Adriano Pedrosa identifies Saint Sebastian associated with Oxóssi, a Preto-Velho spirit and Saint Lazarus associated with Obaluaê on the altar. The MASP text also identifies the religious leader, or mãe de santo, in white, holding a cigar beside the child. These identifications draw on the curator’s reading of the scene and its religious imagery.⁴

Hands offer a route through the painting: one strikes a drum, others rise or approach the body on the floor. The ceremony extends across the room, with actions taking place at different heights. The title names the religious practice that brings these people together.

Capoeira, 1970: bodies that turn the eye around

The inverted bodies turn the viewer’s eye around. Hands meet the ground, legs spread and heads appear beside instruments. Movement continues in the dark branches crossing the top of the painting. Small green tufts repeat across almost the entire ground.²

Clothes offer other routes. Red and pale stripes follow arms and legs; yellow trousers cross the centre and reappear near the musicians. Each figure occupies a readable position, even where one person’s legs pass close to another’s face.

Standing spectators and seated musicians gather near the edges. At the top, houses appear between the tree trunks. Capoeira takes place close to people’s homes, in a shared space. MASP received the painting as a gift from Pietro Maria Bardi in 1981.²

Três mulheres, 1972: clothes, conversation and a night out

Hanging dresses form a band across the top of the bedroom. Two women talk on the bed; another holds the curtain. Speech bubbles tell us their plans: going to a forró dance in Brasilândia or meeting a boyfriend. The writing is part of the painting, allowing us to hear a conversation grounded in the city.¹

Lace has a strong presence in the composition. It covers the bed and almost hides the woman on the right, leaving gaps through which a hand and part of her face can be seen. Pale flowers on the rug repeat the patterns of the fabrics. Skin tones and the colours of clothes vary from figure to figure.

MASP’s curatorial commentary reads the scene through intimacy and women’s freedom to move around the city. The bed, scattered garments and conversation give shape to this time spent getting ready before going out.¹

Velório da noiva, 1974: painting her own farewell

A pink wall stretches across the background. The open blue coffin, covered in flowers, takes up almost the full width. Around it, people hold their hands to their faces; of the two children, the one on the right holds a bunch of roses. A length of white lace falls from the head of the coffin and reaches the lower edge of the painting.⁷

According to MASP’s curatorial team, Maria Auxiliadora made self-portraits showing herself laid out as a bride during the period when she was living with cancer. Velório da noiva belongs to that context. The museum dates the canvas to 1974, the year she died.⁷

Lace returns in the windows and dress. The flowers have volume, and small strokes and patterns cover the mourners’ clothes. These details keep the scene close to the domestic world seen in Três mulheres, now filled with the gestures of people attending a farewell.

Was Maria Auxiliadora a naïve painter?

The term is part of the reception of her work. Raquel Barreto notes that Maria Auxiliadora was often classified as primitive or naïve and criticises the limits of that approach.⁵ In the 2018 exhibition, Pedrosa and Oliva also proposed looking at her paintings beyond those categories.³

This discussion places the term within the history of criticism. The paintings reveal specific choices: applied fabric, the drawing of a hairstyle, the arrangement of bodies or the inclusion of a written conversation. Readers who encounter her through Brazilian naïve art will find her own ways of organising these scenes in the works themselves.

The paintings reproduced here belong to MASP in São Paulo. The museum’s records allow readers to keep looking and consult information about each work.