Jeppe Curth: 0:00

Hi and welcome to the Collector's Edge for Nordic Art Partners. In today's episode we will talk about the work and the career of Chico da Silva, a Brazilian artist largely forgotten, who is now enjoying a significant renaissance in his reputation. Let's get started.

Nicholas Robinson: 0:17

It is with Alex Rotter, at 400 million Selling here at Christie's 400 million dollars is the bid and the piece is sold. We've all heard about it. Sometimes it's front page news Important works of art are being sold for incredible sums of money, but can you get involved and become a part of the exclusive club yourself, and how do you get started while avoiding buying the wrong things? That's exactly what this podcast is about. This is the Collector's Edge from Nordic Art Partners, a podcast for those of you interested in the mechanics of the art industry, want advice about putting money into art, or simply want to buy something for your walls, to beautify your surroundings. Whatever your objectives, it is possible to put money into art wisely, to be considered, thoughtful and well informed in your choices and actions. Welcome to the art of collecting with an eye for curated beauty and practical value.

Jeppe Curth: 1:23

Hi Nick welcome, hello, jeppe thank you, Nicholas Robertson, a contemporary art expert with more than 25 years of experience. Nick has worked in London and was in New York for 20 years, and more recently in Copenhagen. He has worked in the auction industry and was a gallerist in Manhattan for many years. Worked in the auction industry and was a gallerist in Manhattan for many years. For the last decade, he has focused on heavily resource-based acquisitions for his family portfolio, for private high net worth clients, family offices and fine art investment funds. So we're going to talk about Chico de Silva, also just called Chico, I guess Francisco.

Nicholas Robinson: 2:04

Chico de Silva. Yeah, I justico, I guess, uh, today Francisco, Francisco Chico de Silva.

Jeppe Curth: 2:06

Yeah, just pronounce it as Chico, is that okay?

Nicholas Robinson: 2:08

that's his how he's commonly known. Yes, good.

Jeppe Curth: 2:12

So for the last, you can say for the last 12 months, it's been a quite crazy ride. Uh, following him and just to try to understand, could we maybe just take a step back and ask ourselves the question who is chico de silva?

Nicholas Robinson: 2:28

yeah well, chico de silva was a brazilian artist who came to prominence in the 1960s, the son of a peruvian indian and brazilian woman Born. There are some doubts as to his birth date, but the common consensus is around 1910. And he died in 1985, largely in obscurity and probably destitution. So his heyday, if you like, was in in the 1960s, somewhat in the 1970s, um, but he was working uh record show. He was working as early as the 1940s makes sense.

Jeppe Curth: 3:15

That's who he is and he's no longer with us, but it also came to our attention like 12 months ago, right why? Why haven't you heard so much about him before?

Nicholas Robinson: 3:24

um, it's difficult to say. I mean, I think that the art world, the art market, is always on the lookout for interesting things from history that have been overlooked for whatever reason. And you know, there are certain attitudes in the art world now that embrace a much wider church, a much broader church of practices also from different ethnicities, geographical areas that maybe have not previously been included in the traditional canon of art history. So there's appeal to discover new things, and there's appeal to discover new things that already have some kind of compelling story attached to them, but of course they also have to be of a, you know, they have to be qualitatively interesting. They have to, they have to be good art, interesting art, original, unique art, um, that stands up by itself. And then, of course, if you have these other narratives and compelling information attached to these artists, then, you know, then there starts to be a bigger picture that becomes interesting.

Jeppe Curth: 4:46

Thanks, nick. So the last 12 months have been really good for Chico. I guess we could say quite by museums had a lot of good exhibition. But could we again take a step back and try to describe his works and these Amazon creatures?

Nicholas Robinson: 5:07

try to describe his works and these amazon creatures. Um, his work focuses on the sort of myths and legends of um amazonian culture. So we see a lot of fictitious, fantastical creatures related to life in the amazon, life in the rainforest, we see birds, we see fish, we see the food chain in nature. These works were often executed on somewhat cheap materials, but he was introduced to gouache and tempera by a Swiss artist who was traveling in Brazil, by a Swiss artist who was traveling in Brazil, and this is another sort of side note which maybe is a little interesting to note.

Nicholas Robinson: 5:50

But when he was discovered by this Swiss gentleman, chablot was his name Chablot championed his work and assisted Chico in getting into some exhibition, some galleries in Brazil, some opportunities to exhibit his work in the West, and this culminated in Chico representing Brazil in the 1966 Venice Biennale, for which he was given a special mention, a special commendation, so in an international context, and I guess we joke about Biennale calling it the Olympics of the art world, but he garnered genuine international attention in this forum in 1966. So anyway, we have this very exotic um uh language of creatures, we have the works executed in this sort of indigenous, sort of naive style, but we have the work executed in this very sort of meticulous, traditionally Western medium. Uh, gouache and tempera, um, uh, yeah.

Jeppe Curth: 7:06

Okay, so they're deeply rooted in amazon they are.

Nicholas Robinson: 7:09

I mean, they look very exotic. They look like a fantastic array of creatures chasing and eating other creatures okay, and and does the painting tell us a story?

Nicholas Robinson: 7:20

well, I mean, you said something about the food chain carefully, because I also look at this kind of culture through the lens of my own experience.

Nicholas Robinson: 7:46

And when Chablot was traveling in Brazil and when he was bringing Chico to prominence, he was describing him as this sort of local Indian, this naive painter, and I think that we can't ignore the fact that there's a certain sort of colonialism, uh, at play here, um, with the championing of this works, especially in the 1960s, especially in the way it was talked about and presented to western audiences. And when we look at it, look at it today, you know we, we look at it as almost a new category of art being brought into the mainstream art market. And so, you know, we look at it with the eyes that are influenced by the things that we've grown up seeing, the things that we're most familiar with in museums and galleries. But but you know, we have to, we have to, we have to try and I don't know, be careful of this more to try and I don't know be careful of this more patronizing aspect, I suppose.

Jeppe Curth: 8:49

Okay, so, the works are, I guess, deeply rooted in Chico's own visual culture. Of course, I suppose it's an aesthetic we are a bit unfamiliar with. Also, when we look at the works, what are we most looking for? Are there any or some specific features that his best works have in common, and is this what the market's recognizing?

Nicholas Robinson: 9:18

Yes, there are some recurring motifs. We see lots of birds, fantastic birds with very sharp beaks, um, very uh, aggressive talons, um, often chasing after smaller birds. Or fish. Um, we see, we see a lot of fish um motifs large fish with wide open mouths with very sharp teeth, most often chasing consuming other fish, insects, et cetera, et cetera. These depictions are always stylized and, I think, not of any specific kind of fish, so they're not literal. Um. And then we see more completely made up creatures, um, where we see fantastical sort of dragons and lizards and these kinds of things. But often the the way these animals are rendered, the kinds of decorative patterns we see on their bodies, the way the open mouth and the teeth are depicted and the sort of wide-eyed look that they have. These often from one painting to another. These creatures all have these kinds of features in common, and Chico's work went through various stages.

Nicholas Robinson: 10:38

I mean his works that are perhaps now becoming a little more prized are works that were executed in gouache on paper throughout the 1960s and most often mounted on wood, and these have a certain kind of pictorial space. There's a sort of a swirling, stippled painterly patterns around the figures. There's quite a lot of breathing room around the figures themselves. Often they're sort of surrounding a tree where they're trying to eat things from the tree or eat each other, and this is a sort of a category of work that's emerging as something that people are really looking to. And then later in the 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the paintings became much more colourful, painted on canvas instead of paper, and often much more vibrant colours, much brighter, solid coloured backgrounds.

Jeppe Curth: 11:41

So they have a slightly different characteristic stylistically as as they evolved so over the last 12 months or so, or maybe going back a bit farther than that, we have been buying quite a significant number of works by Chico, learning as we go to some extent. How do you advise someone about Chico's works, especially since many will never have seen something like this before?

Nicholas Robinson: 12:24

Well, I mean, we buy them. We buy them because we like them, we respond very strongly to them and we see the innate quality in them, I think. But I think it would be disingenuous to say that we, you know, we we buy them just because we love them. There's lots of things in the world that look great, that have interesting properties, that one could spend money on, um, but, you course, when you have an artist, um who's you know, you, you could say that Chico is a, is a historic artist who's been rediscovered. But essentially, the market for Chico that we have now is, is a, is a new market. For all intents and purposes, it's one that did not exist before. His work, you know, is now regularly trading at auction and that's because his work has gained some traction, it's gained a following, and it's only gained a following because there are a number of prominent galleries that have now been taking up the mantle to push Chico's work into a mainstream consciousness. So we have David Kordansky, who, of course, is a very reputable gallery, based primarily in Los Angeles but has a gallery in New York.

Nicholas Robinson: 13:51

The first major Chico show, if you like, in a commercial sense, was in his gallery in New York. He had previously taken one or two paintings to the art fairs in the summer autumn, uh, in the autumn of 2023. Um, and then the gallery exhibition was the the first sort of major thing that started to propel attention to a new level. Um, further to that, uh, there have been a few isolated uh paintings come up at auction, some of which have done quite well, some of which have a little bit fallen between the cracks just because the appetite is not so evolved or developed yet for his work. Subsequently, there's been an exhibition by a Belgian dealer who had a solo booth of Chico's work that was very well presented with works of very high quality, at Art Genève in Geneva. And then, laterally, there's been an exhibition at Massimo Di Carlo, who has shown Chico's works in his Paris space, and the last, most recent exhibition is with a gallery called Bank, which is a very nice Basel exhibiting gallery based in Shanghai, and they've also done a Chico de Silva exhibition.

Nicholas Robinson: 15:13

So we look at this cross-section of exhibiting galleries and we see a deep interest and a deep appetite across multiple major markets. In the Americas, with Kordansky he has a high profile and a big reach. Massimo Di Carlo in Europe is a big, big gallery with a powerful brand, if you will, and a gravitas to also extend the reach and build a market. And then you know the gallery in Shanghai is less noted and less established than those two that I've mentioned. Um, but also a good, a good place and something that builds credibility, builds awareness, and presumably they also have a collecting reach in Asia. So when you see this depth of collecting across these markets, plus a burgeoning awareness even in Sao Paulo, which is the sort of center of the Chico market in Brazil, then you can say that you know, it's not just a small, isolated pocket of interest, it's a deep, wide interest globally.

Jeppe Curth: 16:24

Okay, but you can also easily say that there's no doubt that Chico have a quite unique position they've had for many years in Brazilian art history. So I mean, it's also quite interesting that from 12 months ago there was no exhibition in a global scale of Chico, and now I guess he is all over the place, or many places anyway. Do you see his legacy like influence the global contemporary artists in the market we have right now?

Nicholas Robinson: 17:01

I mean I think it's a bit too soon to say I mean, you know we can't. There's information, visual information, everywhere these days and, and I suppose you know, things don't get made in a vacuum and the more things that artists see and absorb, the more likely they are to somehow recycle those things, consciously or unconsciously. I mean, I don't see, you know, chico, like work sort of populating the, the, the market. But we've seen in the recent past figurative work that's shown very lush, exotic landscape. Um, obviously, you know there's a there's a strong interest in in nature, what with the climate problems that we've had and that we continue to have and that somehow remain unaddressed.

Nicholas Robinson: 17:49

I mean, I think obviously nature has always been a big inspiration for artists, going back, well, going back hundreds of years. You know we see the natural sublime in Romanticism, in German art and British art, landscape art in the 18th and 19th centuries. You know we see strong feelings of nature, the power of nature, even in abstract expressionist painters. I mean, I think it's always been there. So yeah, I mean Chico's work is a very distinctive body of work that was consistent over 20, 30 years and there's a number of paintings obviously that are out there, that are now finding their way, being sort of recycled into the market. Obviously, when an artist is uh rediscovered and and experiences a building market where, where the prices are you know vastly more than they were only a relatively short time ago, then then you have sellers who are kind of keen to take their opportunity, if you like, to get money that previously was impossible for them to think that they could get.

Jeppe Curth: 19:06

Well, you said that he had been exhibited in the Venice Biennale in 1966, so it was almost 60 years ago. Yes, is he represented by other?

Nicholas Robinson: 19:15

institutions. Yes, I mean his work is in a number of very prominent museums. There was a very interesting survey exhibition last year in the Pinacoteca in Sao Paulo, and important works by Chico have been acquired by the Tate, by the Guggenheim and the Pompidou. And just last month the Pompidou acquired two more gouaches, and this again these are of that 60s type that I referred to earlier, gouache on paper mounted on a wooden board. So of course his works now are being quite hungrily absorbed into these powerful Western institutions, and that only helps to substantiate a sense of confidence in in the work so in november last year a new auction record for chico's work was hammered at sotheby's in new york on the 14th november, actually for 330 000 new,000 new record.

Jeppe Curth: 20:42

Um, if we send in a broader context of buying, collecting art, how do you think how does a Chico's work stand in terms of value, appreciation and potential in in in the market right now?

Nicholas Robinson: 20:56

Well, I mean, I think that was a you know in in many, in many markets and and the art market is no exception a you know in many markets and the art market is no exception. You know, timing is key and this was a sort of a perfect synergy of factors, including the contemporaneous Kordansky show. You know, kordansky is an important gallery with a fantastic roster of artists and a real track record in identifying and building markets for interesting things. And this particular painting that was sold for this price was a painting that had been exhibited at the Venice Biennale. So it was absolutely the most sort of prestigious work, um, by Chico that could have come to the market at this time, um, and it was, uh, in the same collection, an important collection in Chicago, um, and it had been in the same collection since 1966. Um, so you know, it was not only was it the the best example of Chico's work that could have been offered for sale, it was also completely fresh to the market and a and a very, maybe unique opportunity to to acquire this seminal example of Chico's work. So that's, that's one one thing. Not only that, it was a very large painting and these large paintings, obviously for paintings very big, it's worth more than if it's very small. But these very large paintings are relatively rare.

Nicholas Robinson: 22:25

We see lots of works by Chico that are 60, 70, 80, even 90 centimetres, maybe a little bit less in this sort of one metre size, but lots of paintings that are 60, 70 centimetres in size and typically these galleries that I've mentioned are selling these paintings for somewhere around 50, $60,000 euros. Um, that's the, that's the market price. Um, when they have sold at auction they've been selling, you know, anywhere from sort of 30 to $70,000 to 70 000. So you know a much bigger plus or minus range relative to this quite strict pricing structure that you know these galleries independently collectively, I mean, I think independently have determined, and I think you know they're all sticking to this, this price that kordansky has set, because you know the, the, the key to building a market is to consistently adhere to a price um and to, to, to, you know, to ensure that they don't go out into the, into the world, unless that's the price Um. You know if, if, if, the works are vetted carefully for condition and authenticity then, I think you know they're good, good things to buy.

Nicholas Robinson: 23:48

I think it's possible to buy them for less, um, if you scour auctions, especially auctions in Brazil. But of course, then you, you know you have to. You have to deal with dealing with dealing with a business in Brazil. You know authentication, who's been responsible for that? You know all of these kinds of things. Are you able to check out the condition? Probably not. It's a little bit more of a leap of faith. Say, the market premium price from Kordansky or Massimo Toccarolo, for instance. You know, you, you presumably buying the safety of all of those things already having having been done for you, um also because we have seen some fake works out there.

Nicholas Robinson: 24:33

Yeah, we've seen some fake works. Um, yeah, and you know there's a slightly different set of criteria. I suppose that we apply to the term fakes, at least in this particular context. There are some overt forgeries where people are attempting to copy a Chico type work or make something ostensibly in his style that they then try and pass off as an authentic Chico de Silva painting. But there are also other works sort of related to Chico and his production, made in the region at the time where there was a kind of a different attitude towards fakes.

Nicholas Robinson: 25:17

Obviously, you know, we're not proposing that similar or related works are the same or equivalent to Chico's paintings, but, um, just to sort of dive into the nuance of this question, um, when Chico was in his pomp in the late sixties and seventies, um, he was um, successful, very commercially successful, selling paintings, uh, selling paintings to, you know, to the collecting classes of Brazil. And he had a studio, a production facility that was making paintings. There's the exhibition at the Pinacoteca in Sao Paulo addressed this, they call it the Pirambu School and there were, I think, four or five artists that that constituted the members of his studio and each of them made different contributions to the evolution of Chico Starr, some of them painted at his direction, some of them innovated additions to the, to the style, to the repertoire of motifs that were being painted, um, and so now it's able to, you're able to, sort of pass some works, uh, from others as to whose hand is involved in making them. Ultimately, chico's signature was applied to these paintings, um, because they were paintings made in his studio. But this is simply akin to old master studio guild systems, whereby you would have a master who was responsible for producing the painting and was, you know, ultimately the author of the painting, but where you might have, let's say, rembrandt, responsible for painting the face, the eyes, the hands, the most expressive components of a painting. You would have other journeyman painters that specialized in different elements of painting. You would have somebody who would be a specialist in painting drapery of the clothes or the food and the tablecloth, or the landscape or the physical environment behind the people. All of these, all of these tasks were divided up in a division of labor according to different specializations, and you know, it's of course not quite the same in Chico's studio, but there are some parallels to this. And Chico and his colleagues, they also celebrated the communal nature of making these paintings. So what to them was a certain kind of cooperative collaboration, is sort of collegial um enthusiasm with which they were making these paintings.

Nicholas Robinson: 27:54

Um, you know, in in the seventies, for instance, um Chablot made some unfortunate comments which cast aspersions on uh authenticity of Chico's work, because he was, you know, I don't know his, his motives for doing this, um, but but but his comments at least caused Chico great deal of despair and uh were significant catalyst for an already deteriorating mental and emotional state and a serious dependency on alcohol. So you know, when we look at Chico's paintings and we question their authenticity, there are certain things you have to bear in mind. There are certain elements of the works you need to interrogate. But if you do this, you know, mindful of these points that I've made, then you know you can arrive at. You know, mindful of these points that I've made, then you know you can arrive at, at, at you know the right conclusion, um, but I think if you are conscious of those things and you take care of making sure those criteria are properly satisfied, then you know buying work, um is, is a, is a sound thing. I mean, certainly the museum representation is something that's continuing and is, you know, looking very strong and probably there'll be some institutional exhibitions that we can look forward to, hopefully in interesting Western institutions that help to cement Chico's place and his reputation amongst these sort of great, you know, artists of the 20th century.

Nicholas Robinson: 29:27

The interesting thing about his work, I think you know, I mean his work was highly praised by Andre Malraux in the 1960s. That's a sort of interesting point to make. That's a sort of interesting point to make. You know, there's always artists who are maybe a little bit bit of an outlier. I mean the prevailing trends in the 1960s.

Nicholas Robinson: 29:50

You can look at pop art. You can look at minimalism art. You can look at the infancy of conceptual art, post-minimal conceptual art. You know, chico does not fit into any of those boxes. His work is much more in this expressive trajectory. Um, you know, you can look at artists in the early 20th century like henry russo, who was known as a le douanier or the customs officer. He was a self-taught artist who made these very exotic scenes and his work was was adored by the avant-garde. Picasso thought his work was spectacular, the surrealists thought his work was spectacular and he was a big inspiration to them. And you know so Chico is an artist who plows this very singular furrow for himself, is an artist who, because of these unique qualities, is able to appeal in a very broad way.

Jeppe Curth: 30:41

Thanks, nick. Nick, some interesting points of reference. Maybe also people listening here would be interesting to dive a bit more into his works. Um, first thing, we maybe see if it's something they like to look at. Uh, these creatures, amazon creatures, um, but what, what? What can you do? If you want a deep dive into the Chico works, what would you recommend?

Nicholas Robinson: 31:07

Well, I mean, I think that, like most people, when you're looking to try and learn something new, you look online and you search and you see what comes up. And I think that you know, if you're interested in seeing a number of examples of the work and then reading some contextual information about it, then look at Kordansky's site, look at Massimo Di Carlo's site and you can read the sort of potted history that these galleries have put together. There's a couple of really great galleries in Brazil that have got interesting texts about the artists. If you look at there's a gallery called Galatea, there's a gallery called Gomide. All of these galleries have got information that you can absorb if you wish to see, see some Um, and then you know you'll find you'll find information related to his institutional shows, the Pinacoteca.

Nicholas Robinson: 32:08

You know you can search online in the museums I've mentioned Pompidou, tate, guggenheim, they'll all. They'll all record the acquisitions and have probably some information about about the work and have probably some information about the work. If you're interested in buying work, then you can look on Artsy, which is the leading online marketplace for art, for modern, contemporary art, and you'll see a number of examples there. You can inquire after them, you'll find. Maybe there's not so much available and you'll find that they're typically 50, 60,000 bucks. Um, you know, I mean we, we, we carry an inventory of works. If, if you're interested in in in finding more out about what we have, then you're welcome. Welcome to reach out to us too, right?

Jeppe Curth: 32:55

Yeah, of course. And are we? Are we finished buying Chico works?

Nicholas Robinson: 32:58

um, probably not. I, I think that you know, um, I mean, we're, we're, we're art dealers, of course. So you know, we, we always have to be opportunistic a little about our acquisition price. Um, it's getting much harder to find them. The ones that are coming our way are fewer and farther between and typically more expensive. But I think you know, I mean, all being well, we'll, we'll continue to buy, to buy Chico works, and we'll continue to encourage people to look seriously at them as as a really interesting thing to acquire thank you for the conversation, nick, and thank you for letting us into the world of chico.

Nicholas Robinson: 33:55

Yeah, it's an interesting world. You should um dive into it, um, although you should avoid the sharp teeth of the fish make sense.

Jeppe Curth: 34:05

Well, if you have anything, any question, if you want to buy or sell some arts, yours, welcome to contact me at jeppe at nordic art partnerscom, and thank you for this time.