“Vicente do Rego Monteiro was born in Recife and in 1922 he participated in the Modern Art Week, showcasing ten paintings of his own. As he was in Paris during the event, Ronald de Carvalho, his friend and poet, included the works in the exhibition.
Vicente was a multiple artist: besides being a painter, he was also a sculptor and dedicated himself to poetry and dance – areas that brought many influences to his production. His interest in Amazonian legends and customs led him to study Marajoara art, with its pottery of geometric and allegorical motifs, fostering greater integration between the modernist movement and the national culture.
His studies in Paris and his contact with modern avant-gardes such as Picasso's Cubism and the Art Déco movement brought him geometrization, simplification and harmony, as well as a reduced color palette.
One of his recurrent themes was to combine sacred art with modern aesthetics, like many modernist artists did, such as Tarsila do Amaral, Fulvio Pennacchi, Alfredo Volpi and others. All these references can be found in the work “Indigenous Maternity (Madonna and the Child)”. It represents Mary and the Child Jesus with native Brazilian peoples features, besides Cubist influences and Art Déco aesthetic.
Take a careful look at the shapes, color and light in this work. Do the volumes approach this painting to a piece of pottery? Can you identify the cultural references we mentioned? Now, imagine how this work representing Jesus and Mary as indigenous people was received in 1924. How about nowadays - what are the possible interpretations for this approximation?”.