Elusive, yet famous
Born in 1927 in Vespasiano (Brazil), Arlinda Corrêa Lima had a brief passage through the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg, where she attended Willem Grimm’s painting class in 1958. At first sight, her life seems to oscillate strangely between anonymity and prominence. An initial search offers two main leads: her participation in the III National Salon of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro in 1954, and the currently active “Arlinda Corrêa Lima Gallery,” a public exhibition space located in Belo Horizonte.
The III National Salon of Modern Art, in which Côrrea Lima participated in the “Drawing and Graphic Arts” section with the works The Rooster and Fishermen1 , was an especially notable edition. Widely known as the “Black and White Salon,” the exhibition featured 323 artists, including Lygia Clark, Cândido Portinari, Iberê Camargo, Djanira, and Carlos Scliar. Its concept was a form of protest: a “color strike”, motivated by the poor quality of Brazilian paints at the time and the high cost of imported materials. The words of painter Iberê Camargo captured the spirit of the Salon: “The Black and White Salon represents our struggle for survival. Regarding its results, we must believe in something, even if it is absurd. Victory is essential for the class. We have the largest biennial in the world, the largest stadium in the world. The reality, as no one says, is this, and only this: we have the greatest misery in the world. How can a people be great when its artists do not even have materials to work with?”2
In 1984, four years after her early death, a government-run gallery space bearing Corrêa Lima’s name was inaugurated. The “Arlinda Corrêa Lima Gallery” is part of the Palácio das Artes (Palace of Arts), the largest artistic and cultural complex in Latin America, a public institution designed by renowned architect Oscar Niemeyer. The eponymous exhibition space is dedicated to solo and group exhibitions by young emerging artists selected through public calls.
Both leads suggest an influential career, yet the search quickly runs dry. The works exhibited at the National Salon are unavailable. The catalogue of the “Salão Bahiano,” in which Corrêa Lima also participated, was lost and removed from the São Paulo Biennial archive. Not much more can be found beyond an untitled engraving of sunflowers, a painting depicting a sturdy male figure in front of a lake,3 , and a play entitled A invenção do mundo (The Invention of the World), written by Celina Ferreira and illustrated by Arlinda.
However, the eulogy written by actress Magda Lenard on the occasion of Arlinda Corrêa Lima’s passing in 1980, published in the newspaper Diário da Tarde, provides further insight.4 The two women met in 1972, when Magda Lenard requested an interview about Corrêa Lima’s pedagogical initiative, “NAC” – Núcleo de Atividades Criativas (Center for Creative Activities). Unfortunately, my research didn’t yield much information on NAC. In her tribute, Lenard recalls the painter’s career: “The artist held degrees in Fine Arts, Art Psychopedagogy, and Psychopathology of Expression, with studies in Brazil, Germany, and France. She founded and directed the Núcleo de Atividades Criativas, a school of visual arts and theater that offered Art Education and Art Therapy for children and adolescents. She also served as a special advisor on Art and Education at the Municipal Department of Education and as a delegate for the Brazilian Society of Education and Art in Minas Gerais.”5 And yet, when asked for a portrait, Corrêa Lima – surrounded by the children she taught – rejected the request, urging them to speak about the school instead: “A portrait of me? What for?”6
Judging by her eulogy, Corrêa Lima dedicated her life to teaching, grounded in a firm belief in the necessity of art education, and particularly in the use of art as occupational therapy for children and teenagers. Nevertheless, she never stopped painting: “I feel a daily, almost physiological need to address themes of nature (sky, water, flowers, birds, etc.), themes whose simplicity and purity lead us to rediscover our own roots. Perhaps it is the ‘law of compensation’… as life becomes more complicated –especially in cities, with polluted air and noise– the spirit seeks to compensate through what it can create.”7