Carnaval 1970 - 1979

Maria Hélena Vieira Da Silva

Print
50 ⨯ 40 ⨯ 1 cm
ConditionMint
Currently unavailable via Gallerease

The Millen House

• About the artwork
  Maria Helena Vieira da Silva lithograph — “Carnaval,” 1978, a vibrant three-colour print signed and numbered (136/190), published by La Source, Paris and printed by Pons; a rare late graphic work by the celebrated Portuguese-born abstractionist.
  
  This lively 1978 lithograph (41 × 41 cm including frame) captures Vieira da Silva’s distinctive ability to translate crowds, movement, and spatial complexity into rhythmic, semi-abstract compositions. In “Carnaval,” loosely constructed figures and architectural fragments cluster around an open central space, rendered in a refined palette of black, red, and yellow. The work exemplifies her late graphic style, where calligraphic linework and fractured geometry reflect both urban energy and psychological depth.
  
  The lithograph is signed lower right and numbered 136/190 lower left. It was published by La Source, Paris and printed by Atelier Pons, one of the major Parisian print studios of the late 20th century.
  
  Catalogue raisonné: Schneider 52.
  Condition is unrestored in newly mounted frame.
  
  About the Artist
  Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1908–1992) is regarded as one of the central figures of postwar European abstraction. Associated with Art Informel and the Paris School, her work is held in major museums including Centre Pompidou, MoMA, Tate, and the Guggenheim.
• About the artist

  Maria Elena, also rendered Marie-Hélène, was a Portuguese- born painter of semi-abstract compositions. When she was seven years old, she began studying drawing and painting at the Academie de Belas-Artes in Lisbon.

  In her teen years she studied painting, sculpture and engraving. In 1928 Vieira da Silva settled in Paris to study sculpture in Paris, but decided to focus on painting in 1929. Her paintings were exhibited in Paris in 1930: the same year she married the Hungarian painter Árpád Szenes.
  
  After a stay in Lisbon and a period spent in Brazil during World War II (1940-1947), Vieira da Silva returned to Paris and became a French citizen in 1956. Vieira da Silva received the French government's Grand Prix National des Arts in 1966.

  She was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1979. She died in Paris, France on 6 March 1992. Although the abstract patterning of Vieira da Silva’s early paintings tended toward the decorative, in her mature work she combined highly detailed, complicated patterns with spatial manipulations.

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