ArtistTelles, Sergio Barcellos

Artist Years1936-2022

Artist NationalityBrazilian

TitleThe Docks, Sao Paolo

Year1980

MediumPainting > Oil

DimensionsCanvas: 15 X 21.5 inches

ProvenanceExibited: Nagasaki Museum of Art, 1980; Kobe Museum of Art, 1981

Accession NumberRC1462

NotesSergio Barcellos Telles was a Brazilian diplomat and painter. As a diplomat, he served in South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. He was Brazil's ambassador to Malaysia (1995–1998), Lebanon (1998–2002) and Tunisia (2003–2006).

Sergio Telles was born in 1936 in Rio de Janeiro and began painting at the age of nine in Quinta da Boa Vista guided by Levino Fânzeres, a landscape artist. In 1954 Sergio Telles participated for the first time in the National Salon of Fine Arts. Subsequently, he obtained several awards in the salons of the Brazilian Society of Fine Arts, Association of Brazilian Artists, and was even honored with a trip to Bahia. The following year, he held his first solo exhibition in Rio de Janeiro.

In 1957 Sergio Telles traveled to Europe and visited the main museums in Italy, France, Holland and Portugal. That same year, as an intern, he provided restoration services at the Vatican Pinacoteca. After his return to Brazil, he worked in the studios of Rodolfo Chambelland, Oswaldo Teixeira and Marie Nivouliès de Pierrefort, in Rio de Janeiro.

In 1964, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through a public examination and, as a diplomat, held various positions in Brazil and in countries such as Portugal, Argentina, Angola, Japan, France, Malaysia, Lebanon, Switzerland and Tunisia. He retired as a first-class minister from his diplomatic career, returning to Brazil in 2006. He currently resides in São Paulo

In August 2005, Sergio Telles was decorated by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with the highest commendation of the Order of Rio Branco, the ordinary Grand Cross.

The work of Sergio Telles, drawings, watercolors, engravings and paintings made in Brazil, France, Portugal, Lebanon, and Tunisia (urban landscapes, beaches, markets, popular dances, interiors of his studios) appears in important museums such as Carnavalet, the Beaubourg, the Modern Art Museum in Paris, Grenoble and Marseille, the Petit Palais in Geneva, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, the Pouchkine in Moscow, the MASP in São Paulo, the National Museum of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro, the Gulbenkian Foundation and the Lisbon Museum, the Bridgestone in Tokyo, the Albertina in Vienna and the Kheireddine Palace in Tunis.

His main exhibitions were organized by some of the museums listed above and by the galleries Wildenstein in London, Tokyo and Buenos Aires, Bernheim Jeune, « La Cave » and Claude Marumo in Paris, Perron in Geneva, Jean Boghici in Rio de Janeiro, Renato Magalhães Gouvêa in São Paulo, S. Mamede in Lisbon, Nuno Lima de Carvalho in Estoril, Fujikawa in Tokyo and Stuker in Zurich.

Texts about Sergio Telles' painting were written by art critics and intellectuals such as Bernard Dorival, Gaston Diehl, Raymond Cogniat, Arnaud d'Hauterives, Pierre Courthion, Pierre Seghers, Henri Dauberville, Jeanine Warnod (Paris), François Daulte (Lausanne) , Antonio Bento, Jorge Amado, Olivio Tavares de Araujo, Ferreira Gullar, Fabio Magalhães, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Mario Barata, Clarival do Prado Valladares, José Roberto Teixeira Leite, Jacob Clintowitz, Gilberto Gil, Rachel de Queiroz (Rio and São Paulo ), Antonio Valdemar, José Carlos Vasconcellos, Fernando Namora (Lisbon), Rafael Squirru, Cesar Magrini, Eduardo Baliari, Sigmart Blum (Buenos Aires), Chisaburo Yamada, Yasuo Kamon (Tokyo). These are prints that appear in books, print albums and catalogs of his exhibitions published in France, Brazil, Argentina, Portugal, Tunisia and Japan.

Telles died on January 24, 2022, aged 85.
(source: wikipedia.org)