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Artworks
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva
Composition aux damiers bleus, 1949Signed 'Vieira da Silva' and dated '49' (lower right)Gouache on paper49.6 by 65 cm (19½ by 25⅝ in.)63498© 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, ParisFurther images
Executed in 1949. Vieira da Silva created an undulating fabric of checkered space in Composition aux damiers bleus, one of her most accomplished works in gouache. She first explored the...Executed in 1949.
Vieira da Silva created an undulating fabric of checkered space in Composition aux damiers bleus, one of her most accomplished works in gouache. She first explored the concept of checkered spaces as early as the 1930s, inspired in part by the paintings of Pierre Bonnard. The Nabis artist would continue to inspire Vieira da Silva, though she would translate the quiet intimacy of his interiors (seen in a work such as La Toilette, 1932, The Museum of Modern Art, New York) into raucous abstraction. Composition aux damiers bleus evokes an interior room, with clear recession into a background, but the artist resists the urge to resolve the composition into a narrative space.6of 6