Cavalcanti, Newton

Cavalcanti, Newton

1930

2006

Newton Cavalcanti began his training in the studio of Oswald Goeldi, a mater of woodcut technique and one of the most important figures in the development of modern Brazilian printmaking. He subsequently entered the Escola de Belas Artes at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (1954), and went on to study art education at the Escolinha de Arte do Brasil in 1962. Cavalcanti was professor of printmaking at the Centro Educacional de Niterói between 1960 and 1976, and also taught at the Universidade de Brasília (1966) and at the Instituto de Artes Visuais, Inaert (1976). Active as an illustrator specialising in the illustration of fables, Cavalcanti has published several books of his prints. He has participated in successive editions of the Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna (between 1958 and 1972) and the Bienal Internacional de São Paulo (between 1958 and 1972). In 1965 Cavalcanti's work was included in Brazilian Art Today, a small group exhibition that toured in Norway, Austria, Sweden and England. Between 1973 and 1975 Cavalcanti stayed in Europe, completing courses in Italy, Germany and England, where his work was subsequently shown at the Canning House Gallery (1975). In Germany his study was assisted by funding from the Fundação Brasileira de Educação and the German government, and in 1975 he travelled to Lisbon with a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation. During the 1980s Cavalcanti collaborated on several short films, and designed scenery for the performance of the opera the Barber of Seville at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro (1983). More recently, his work has been included within collective exhibitions, many of which focus upon the development of Brazilian printmaking, including: A gravura fantástica (1989, EAV/Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro); Gravura de Arte no Brasil: proposta para um mapeamento (1992, CCBB, Rio de Janeiro); Xilogravura: do cordel à galeria (1993, Funesc, João Pessoa and 1994, Metrô, São Paulo) and Poética da Resistência: aspectos da gravura Brasileira (1994, Galeria de Arte do Sesi, São Paulo). His most recent solo exhibition Mitos da Terra (Myths of the Earth) took place at the Espaço Cultural Caravelas, Rio de Janeiro in 1999.