Abstract
In 1948, the painter Cícero Dias was already living in Paris for almost ten years and began to make abstract painting. Part of the Recife’s intellectuals saw less Pernambuco in its new phase and, therefore, less interest. In reaction, a group close to the painter, among them Gilberto Freyre and Mário Pedrosa, acted in his defense. The analysis of the reception of Cicero Dias works of assists in the understanding of the Brazilian modernism beyond the Rio de Janeiro - São Paulo axis. Always remembered in retrospectives of the national art, Cícero Dias occupies a dubious position in the scene of the Pernambuco arts because his identitie is put in question by the use of the abstraction. Recovering this debate, one can glimpse what were the possibilities and the constraints imposed on the artists who wanted to make their careers in the periphery of the Brazilian cultural system.
Keywords:
Cícero Dias; Regionalism; Modernism; Pernambuco; Sociology of art.
