Myra Landau (December 5, 1926 – July 14, 2018) was an artist and abstract painter involved in art research. Born in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

, Romania, she was known largely for the work she made in Brazil, then Mexico for many years and later in Italy, Israel and The Netherlands.

History

Landau was born on December 5, 1926, in Bucharest, Romania. At the age of 12, her Jewish family, fearing persecution by rising fascist forces, fled Romania just ahead of

Ion Antonescu Ion Antonescu (; ; – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian military officer and Mareșal (Romania), marshal who presided over two successive Romania during World War II, wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister of Romania, Prime Minister and ''Conduc� ...

's coup d'état. After extensive travel throughout Europe, she finally arrived in Brazil. There, her great interest in artistic and intellectual life gave her the opportunity to meet painters like Di Cavalcanti, Antonio Dias,

Wesley Duke Lee Wesley Duke Lee (December 21, 1931 in São Paulo – September 12, 2010 in São Paulo) was a Brazilian painter. Career Lee was a grandson of Americans and Portuguese and started his learning of art in the drawing course of São Paulo Muse ...

Francisco Brennand Francisco Brennand, or ''Francisco de Paula de Almeida Brennand'', (June 11, 1927 – December 19, 2019), was a Brazilian painter and sculptor, best known for his work in ceramics. Life Francisco de Paula de Almeida Brennand was born in Recif ...

, Antonio Dias and João Camara, the sculptor

Sergio Camargo Sergio Andres Camargo Peñaranda (born August 16, 1994) is a Canadian professional soccer player who plays as a midfielder for Cavalry FC in the Canadian Premier League. Club career Toronto FC In 2009, Camargo went on trial with Vitória de G ...

, the writer

Jorge Amado Jorge Amado ( 10 August 1912 – 6 August 2001) was a Brazilian writer of the modernist school. He remains the best-known of modern Brazilian writers, with his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in film, includi ...

and poet-musician-diplomat Vinicius de Morais, the musician-painter

Dorival Caymmi Dorival Caymmi (; April 30, 1914 – August 16, 2008) was a Brazilian singer, songwriter, actor, and painter active for more than 70 years, beginning in 1933. He contributed to the birth of Brazil's bossa nova movement, and several of his samb ...

. Shy but determined, she started to paint. Her first works were figurative but gradually she began to realize that this was not her style and, influenced by

Dufy Dufy is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Jean Dufy (1888–1964), French painter * Raoul Dufy Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French painter associated with the Fauvist movement. He gained recogn ...

, turned to

Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

. She was greatly influenced by her uncle

Marcel Janco Marcel Janco (, ; common rendition of the Romanian language, Romanian name Marcel Hermann Iancu ; 24 May 1895 – 21 April 1984) was a Romanian and Israeli visual artist, architect and art theorist. He was the co-inventor of Dadaism and a leading ...

(one of the founders of

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) and the Brazilian engraver

Oswaldo Goeldi Oswaldo Goeldi (31 October 1895 – 16 February 1961) was a Brazilian artist and engraver. He was the son of Swiss naturalist Émil Goeldi. Biography Goeldi was born in Rio de Janeiro, but lived in Belém in the state Pará, until he was 6 year ...

. Critics, including Jorge A. Manrique who described her work as being "brutal and refined’ have recognized Landau's artistic contribution, describing it with high esteem. Landau has lived in six countries. She married Miguel Salas Anzures, head of Fine Arts- INBA,

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. He broke with Socialist Realism, represented by painters like

Diego Rivera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...

José Clemente Orozco José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siquei ...

David Alfaro Siqueiros David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with ...

. This new expression of art was called'' Generación de la Ruptura''. The members of this generation of artists include native-born Mexicans and immigrants, many of whom were refugees from World War II. Along with

José Luis Cuevas José Luis Cuevas (February 26, 1934 – July 3, 2017) was a Mexican artist, he often worked as a painter, writer, draftsman, engraver, illustrator, and printmaker. Cuevas was one of the first to challenge the then dominant Mexican muralism ...

, these include Fernando García Ponce, Roger Von Gunten, Edmundo Aquino,

Francisco Toledo Francisco Benjamín López Toledo (17 July 1940 – 5 September 2019) was a Mexican painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. In a career that spanned seven decades, Toledo produced thousands of works of art and became widely regarded as one of M ...

, Arturo Rivera,

Leonora Carrington Mary Leonora Carrington (6 April 191725 May 2011) was a British-born, naturalised Mexican Surrealist painter and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movem ...

Alberto Gironella Alberto Gironella (26 September 1929 – 2 August 1999) was a self-taught Mexican painter born in Mexico City. Heavily influenced by the politics and artist in Mexico, he showcased his works in Brazil, United States, Spain, France, Japan, Sweden ...

, Ricardo Martínez, Arnaldo Coen, Lilia Carrillo, Vlady,

Manuel Felguérez Manuel Felguérez Barra (December 12, 1928June 8, 2020) was a Mexican abstract artist, part of the Generación de la Ruptura that broke with the muralist movement of Diego Rivera and others in the mid 20th century. Early life Felguérez was ...

Gilberto Aceves Navarro Gilberto Aceves Navarro (September 24, 1931 – October 21, 2019) was a Mexican painter and sculptor and a professor at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas and Academy of San Carlos. There have been more than two hundred individual exhibit ...

, Gustavo Arias Murueta, Luis López Loza, Luis Almeida, Peggy Espinosa, Adolfo Falcón, Efraín Herrero, Rafael López Castro, Bernardo Recamier, Pablo Rulfo and

Vicente Rojo Vicente Rojo Lluch (8 October 1894 – 15 June 1966) was Chief of the General Staff of the Spanish Armed Forces during the Spanish Civil War. He is considered to have been one of the best commanders of the civil war. Early life He was the p ...

. Landau introduced a new technique of engraving on metal, utilizing acids, but printed from the surface, called ''Metal Relief''. She had her first exhibition in Mexico in 1963 and gradually became one of the leading Latin American women artists. Her Metal Relief works were well received by art critic

Paul Westheim Paul Westheim (7 August 1886 in Eschwege, German Empire, Germany – 21 December 1963 in East Berlin, East Germany) was a German art historian and publisher of the magazine ''Das Kunstblatt.'' The fate of Westheim's art collection, which was ...

in the important magazine ''El Nuevo Arte de los Metales'' and by art connoisseur, reviewer and historian Jorge Olvera. She continued her in-depth research and found her definitive expression in painting with pastel on raw linen. In this technique she was a pioneer. Her thematic approach was also new: she was the first Latin American abstract painter to use movements of free geometrical lines. All her works since 1965 are called ''Rhythms''. In 1974, she began working as a teacher in the University of Veracruz in the Faculty of Fine Arts. In 1975 she became a full-time researcher for the Institute of Aesthetics and Artistic Creation at the University. Landau had more than sixty individual exhibitions, the most important of which was held in 1987 in th
Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City
She participated in 150 group exhibitions in Mexico, France, Italy, Brazil, Chile, the United States and Cuba. In 1994, she moved from Mexico to Rome,Italy where she stayed until 2010 and later to Jerusalem, Israel where she lived for 6 years. Landau resided in The Netherlands for two years and died there on July 14, 2018. Politically, she was a vocal critic of the Israeli government and described herself as stateless: "I don't believe in borders, I don't like flags, I have no boundaries. My only homeland: friendship, love and justice for all."

References

Sources

* https://www.artforum.com/interviews/carla-stellweg-on-her-life-and-work-90818 * https://issuu.com/mssachile/docs/catalogo_mexico_full * http://www.latinamericanart.com/es/artistas/myra-landau/biografia.html * https://issuu.com/la_sonrisa/docs/zo19_web * http://discursovisual.net/1aepoca/dvweb08/art01/art01.html * * http://www.milenio.com/cultura/Exposion_en_Museo_de_Arte_Moderno-50_aniversario_del_Museo_de_Arte_Moderno-muestras_del_MAM-exposicion_La_coleccion-muestra_Estio-muestra_Estudio_de_Trazo_0_307169564.html * https://web.archive.org/web/20161107155023/http://www.mauc.ufc.br/expo/2000/02/obras1.htm#Myra_Landau * http://www.evandrocarneiroleiloes.com/145675?artistId=123454 * http://www.imgrum.net/media/1401674701884936333_2003320146 * * https://mssa.cl/exposicion/a-los-artistas-del-mundo-museo-de-la-solidaridad-salvador-allende-mexicochile-1971-1977/ * http://www.henriquefaria.com/exhibition?id=133 * https://digilander.libero.it/mlandau/about_myra.htm * https://www.cronica.com.mx/cultura/mejor-zona-maco-2022.html * https://muac.unam.mx/exposicion/myra-landau * https://www.artnexus.com/es/magazines/article-magazine-artnexus/6851bfeed231b9c8f204e70a/124/myra-landau {{DEFAULTSORT:Landau, Myra 1926 births 2018 deaths Artists from Bucharest Mexican Jews Mexican painters Romanian emigrants to Mexico Jewish women painters Jewish Romanian painters Jewish Mexican painters Romanian painters Romanian women painters 20th-century Romanian women artists 21st-century Romanian women artists 21st-century Romanian painters