Amilcar de Castro
Sculptor, engraver, drawer, graphic designer, set designer and professor. He moved with his family to Belo Horizonte in 1935, and studied Law at Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais – UFMG, from 1941 to 1945. From 1944, he attended a free painting and drawing class with Guignard (1896 – 1962), at Escola de Belas Artes de Belo Horizonte, and studied figurative sculpture with Franz Weissman (1911 – 2005). At the end of the 1940’s, he started working in some public job positions, but after a while he dropped, such as his career as an Attorney.
Meanwhile, with his works, he moved from painting to the dimensionality. In 1952, he moved to Rio de Janeiro and worked as a graphic designer in many newspapers. In that time, he did some graphic improvements at Jornal do Brasil. After he got acquainted with the works of Max Bill (1908 – 1994), he created his first constructive sculpture and exhibited it at Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, in 1956, and signed the Manifesto Neoconcreto in 1959. In the next year, he took part of the Mostra Internacional de Arte Concreta in Zuriche, organized by Max Bill. In 1968 he went to the United States using a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fund and the prize he got in 1967 at Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna (SNAM). Back to Brazil in 1971, he established himself at Belo Horizonte, and became a teacher at Escola Guignard, teaching composition and sculpture, until 1977. He also taught at Faculdade de Belas Artes of UFMG, between the 1970’s and 1980’s. In 1990, he retired from teaching and dedicated his time to artistic activities.