Centennial of Ismael Nery and Murilo Mendes' Friendship Overlooked Amid Modern Art Week Celebrations

While preparations for the 2022 centennial of São Paulo's 1922 Modern Art Week dominate attention, the 1921 meeting in Rio de Janeiro between artist Ismael Nery and poet Murilo Mendes marks another crucial centennial being overlooked. Their profound friendship, lasting until Nery's death in 1934, involved intense libidinal bonds that made Mendes Nery's first major collector, rescuing works from destruction. Mendes' collection became one of the most important modern art holdings in Brazil's former capital, introducing intellectuals like Mário de Andrade to Nery's work. Following Nery's 1934 death, Mendes experienced a mystical possession during the wake that converted him to Nery's Catholicism and led to his unrequited passion for Nery's widow Adalgisa. Beyond personal dynamics, Nery hosted influential gatherings at his home attended by figures like Jorge Burlamaqui, Mário Pedrosa, Antonio Bento, Alberto da Veiga Guignard, and Jorge de Lima, where he developed philosophical postulates blending surrealist aesthetics with Catholicism. These ideas influenced Mendes' poetry and extended to Guignard's painting and Lima's photomontages created with Mendes in the mid-1930s. Despite the loss of these collaborative photomontages, Lima continued producing solo works, publishing the photomontage book 'A pintura em pânico' in 1943 with Mendes' preface. The friendship opened particular pathways for surrealism's development in Brazil with clear resonances in subsequent generations' work.