Ernesto de Fiori

An Artist in Exile

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The Paulo Kuczynski Gallery is pleased to present the works of a renowned European modernist artist: the Italian-German painter, sculptor, and draftsman Ernesto de Fiori. The exhibition De Fiori: An Artist in Exile will open on August 16 at 11 a.m., featuring around 35 works, including paintings, sculptures, and drawings, among the most significant created during the period in which the artist lived in Brazil.

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Ernesto de Fiori raised his voice against the horrors of war. He enlisted in the First World War in 1915 and worked as a correspondent for an Italian newspaper. In 1936, he left Nazi Germany and took refuge in Brazil, intending to eventually move to the United States. However, he remained in Brazil until his death in 1945, a period in which he focused more on painting than on sculpture. His works stand out for contrasts created through varied techniques, such as quick brushstrokes or strokes diluted in solvent, and the use of toothed instruments, among others.

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“It is a pleasure to present this exhibition of Fiori, whose core comes from the collection of Ernesto Wolf, bringing together the most significant paintings from his period in Brazil. An artist who left the high intellectual and artistic circles of Berlin and who, here, free from the oppressive society of National Socialism—even in the sadness of exile—reinvented himself through painting, notably in the colors and freedom of his brushstrokes. As Benjamin Steiner once said, Fiori painted with the gesture of a samurai in combat,” highlights Paulo Kuczynski.

In Europe, Ernesto de Fiori was known mainly for his sculptures, while in Brazil he became more recognized as a painter. His sculpture was marked by a certain sobriety and formal restraint, essentially classical, aligned with the European canon and tradition. In contrast, his painting offered a space for freedom, experimentation, and contemplation.

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Among the sculptures executed by Ernesto de Fiori, the first created in Brazil stand out: portraits of Menotti del Picchia, Francisco Matarazzo, and Greta Garbo—the latter made from memory. In both Europe and Brazil, his sculptures became increasingly faithful to the human form, acquiring a certain expressionist connection, as in The Bather (1917), a standing female figure in a pose that conveys tranquility and sentiment. In the 1920s, in Berlin, he created his first portraits, such as the head of the dancer Carina Ari (1922). He modeled three versions of Adam (1920), a male figure walking and turning back in greeting, with his right hand raised. He also produced the Man in Motion series, the bust of Marlene Dietrich (1929), The Fugitive (1936), among other works.

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The central theme of his sculptures is always the human body, whether suggesting movement or in stillness, executed with rough modeling and a strong psychological charge. One of his most notable works—Walking Man (1921), over two meters tall—will be featured in the exhibition, as well as one of the versions of Adam and The Resting Athlete (1938). Among the paintings, visitors will see Family (1942), works from the Saint George and the Dragon series (1942), landscapes, and human figures portrayed with the artist’s reflective mastery over each subject, as he himself described.

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“I paint battles not because I am mad about war, but because the theme of battles lends painting a beautiful liveliness that, at the same time, efficiently represents the violence of ideas—which often can wound more mortally than weapons (…) These battles are not historical battles; they are those of the eternal war between light and shadow, between wickedness and goodness, between courage and treachery, between spirit and matter,” explained Ernesto de Fiori.

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Likewise, he justified his Saint George and the Dragon series: “If I paint Saint George thrusting the spear into the dragon’s throat, I want, above all, to symbolize the fight—the eternal fight—that has taken place since the world began, between good and evil. (…) Life has been nothing else but this: the struggle between good and evil.”

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Ernesto de Fiori died on April 24, 1945, from cirrhosis of the liver caused by liver cancer—just fifteen days before the armistice that ended five years of conflict on the European continent.

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Venue: Paulo Kuczynski Gallery
Address: Al. Lorena 1661, São Paulo - SP, Brazil - 01424-002
Dates: August 16 to October 4
Visiting Hours: Monday to Friday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. | Saturday: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.