José Zanine Caldas Brazil, 1919-2001

José Zanine Caldas is a visionary artist, driven by an idea all his life.

Self-taught in many disciplines, he taught himself drawing, sculpture and architecture. His career began by making models for architects. Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa were his clients, which is worth all the training!

Taking advantage of this know-how in the realization of models, very comfortable in the change of scale allowing him to conceptualize interiors as well as buildings or whole districts, he then develops a design activity.

His creation is divided into two periods with very distinct creations and techniques: the "Móveis Artísticos Z" years and then, from the 1970s onwards, the "Móveis Denúncia" line, which could be translated as "Denunciation Furniture". This formal paradox in his successive stylistic choices can be explained by a guiding principle, the indissoluble link that Zanine Caldas maintains between aesthetics and ethics.

Beyond this major stylistic difference, the essential unity of Zanine Caldas' work is the search for the optimisation of raw materials in a conscious fight against the waste of wood.

In search of a solution to achieve this goal, Zanine Caldas was first a pioneer in the industrialization of furniture production in Brazil, creating his workshop Móveis Artísticos Z in 1949 in São Paulo. At that time, his preferred material was "compensado naval" (a plywood), which allowed him to minimise the amount of wood left over from cutting. This material also gave him great latitude in the choice of shapes, and he used it with great stylistic freedom, with simple curved lines that corresponded to their time. Zanine Caldas then proposed design manufactured in large series, which made the price affordable.

Following persecution by the military dictatorship government from 1964 onwards, Zanine Caldas left his position in São Paulo to return to his native Bahia. This was an opportunity for him to rediscover nature directly, particularly the dense and exuberant forests, with his friend the sculptor Franz Krajberg.

From this very intense link with his environment, Zanine Caldas draws the inspiration for his second style, the design of "Móveis Denúncia". Through an assumed brutalism of form, her pieces carved directly into solid wood offer a sensual design that is as close as possible to the original nature of the tree, preserving its texture, its colours, its imperfections such as knots or cracks.

These handcrafted pieces have the sensitivity of pieces where you can feel the artist's hand.

Alert to ecological issues, his unique pieces, intended as authentic aesthetic shocks, are powerful manifestos in favour of saving nature.

This artist has always been a creator of his time, an avant-gardist, and above all a timeless artist with a timeless style, particularly recognised internationally, as shown by the medal he received from the French Academy of Architecture.

In 1989, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris devoted a retrospective exhibition to him: "Zanine - The Architect and the Forest", a title that suits him perfectly and that he has earned.