Lasar Segall

Lasar Segall (Vilnius, 1891 - São Paulo, 1957) was a painter of Lithuanian Jewish origin who spent much of his career in Brazil, whose citizenship he acquired in 1927. His work combines German Expressionism, elements of Cubism and a steady concern with social themes, which makes him a key figure in bringing European modern art to South America.

Born in Vilnius, then part of the Russian Empire, he moved to Berlin at fifteen and later to Dresden, where around 1910 he began to develop a personal style. In those years he explored his Jewish roots, as in Torah Scribe (1917), which refers to his father's trade. In 1912 he travelled to São Paulo, where three of his siblings lived, and his time in Brazil reshaped both his subjects and his way of painting. He depicted the jungle as masses of green geometric forms and painted interracial couples, as in Encounter, a common sight in Brazil yet socially problematic. He is considered the first painter to present German Expressionism in South America.

In 1919 he co-founded the Dresdner Sezession Gruppe 1919 in Dresden with other artists. In 1923 he settled in São Paulo with his first wife, Margarete, and the following year organised a major exhibition. He mixed with the leading figures of Brazilian modernism, among them Mário de Andrade, whose well-known portrait he painted. From 1928 to 1932 he lived in Paris, where he took up sculpture. In 1932 he moved into a house-studio designed by the modernist architect Gregori Warchavchik, which is now a museum devoted to his work.

With the rise of Nazism, his work was labelled "degenerate art" and around fifty of his pieces were confiscated, some of them shown in the Entartete Kunst exhibition. In his later years he turned to poverty in the Rio de Janeiro slums, in the Mangue series, and to emigration, in Ship of Emigrants (1939-1940). He died in 1957 of heart problems.