This book brings together the principal works of the painter from Minas Gerais, Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato.
Lorenzato produced an estimated body of work ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 paintings featuring a wide array of themes and iconographies that reflect his biography and his relationship with the landscape of the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte, its surroundings, and its urbanization. His known works date from the 1940s, when he returned to Brazil after spending almost thirty years in Europe, up until 1995, the year of his death. Unique in their techniques and styles, his paintings hark back to his origins in the working class, a condition that led him to combine artistic ambitions with the necessity of supporting himself and his family through work in the construction industry. He was only able to dedicate himself entirely to art after the age of fifty, when he retired due to a work accident.
His profession as a decorator-painter inspired the creation of an original painting technique, using tools adapted from wall decoration. With the help of a comb, he repeatedly scraped the paint over the surface, creating a fusion of colors with textures and promoting a sense of movement. He often manipulated paints from mineral pigments found in the market, frequently applying them over a layer of whitewash that intensified the vibrancy of the colors. The making of his painting supports, an important part of his economy of means, led him to reuse pieces of wood panels and packaging, sometimes covered with fabric or paper, sewn or glued by hand. The formats were almost always small or medium – at most one meter on the longest side – indicating a certain sense of domesticity. His paintings have a rough appearance: they are opaque, tactile, and sensory.
For many years, his work was limited to a small circle of admirers, mainly artists and dealers from his hometown. However, in the last twenty years, Lorenzato’s work has been gaining new audiences through exhibitions, especially in commercial galleries, culminating in a series of international presentations in 2019. This reevaluation has consolidated his place among modern Brazilian artists, contributing to the expansion of the canon. Like other artists, often prejudicially labeled as primitive or naïve, Lorenzato drew from popular sources, reprocessing them with scholarly references within a non-hierarchical perspective. His work should thus be understood as part of Brazil's late modernity. Nevertheless, despite this renewed commercial interest, the art system has not been able to produce reflection on his work at the same pace through institutional exhibitions and academic studies.
