Arthur Luiz PIZA

Arthur Luiz Piza – Biography, Gouge Engravings and Original Prints

Arthur Luiz Piza (born 13 January 1928 in São Paulo, died 26 May 2017 in Paris) was a Brazilian printmaker, painter and sculptor who spent almost his entire career in France. Trained in intaglio by Johnny Friedlaender, he developed a highly personal way of working thick copper plates with the gouge, burin and hammer, so that each impression carries a genuine relief. Winner of the national printmaking prize at the São Paulo Bienal in 1959, shown at documenta II the same year and awarded the David Bright Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1966, he is represented in London by a collage at Tate and by works at the Victoria and Albert Museum. His roughly 400 original prints are among the most distinctive in post-war abstract printmaking.

Le Coin des Arts holds some forty works by Piza. Among the gouge engravings are Faîte (1967), Anamorphose and Rouge bleu vert (1970), the mineral trio Béryl, Calcédoine and Calcite (1971), Lucarne and Fruit défendu (1972), Cobra, Jacaré and La balade du petit carré V (1973), Espace dans les ronds (1974), Fragmentation (1988), Frémissement singulier (1991), Striation (1992), Bâton rouge (1993), Damier bleu (1995) and Crescendo du noir II (2008), alongside the etching and aquatint Rouge jaune bleu (1970). There is also Le coussin rouge (1970), the ceramic Disque III (1973), two illustrated books, Lichens (1983) and Piège à mots (1991), and a run of engraved greetings cards made for the Galerie Michel in Paris between 1994 and 2007. Each sheet has been chosen for the quality of its impression and embossing, its edition, provenance and condition.

Early Years in São Paulo

A serious car accident at the age of seven kept Piza out of school; taught at home, he read widely and copied the plates of a book on Van Gogh, which settled his vocation. In the 1940s he joined the studio of the modernist painter Antônio Gomide (1895-1967), learning oil painting and fresco. There he met a fellow pupil, Clelia Dente, whom he married in 1949. After showing work with a Surrealist flavour at the first São Paulo Bienal in 1951, he left with Clelia for Paris, where they would remain.

Friedlaender’s Studio and a New Kind of Print, 1951-1959

In Paris Piza studied at the studio of Johnny Friedlaender, learning etching, aquatint, drypoint and engraving. His first plates echo his teacher’s irregular, faintly Surrealist line, but by the late 1950s the image had become constructed: circles, squares and triangles set against finely worked grounds. A purchase prize at the second São Paulo Bienal (1953) was followed by his first solo exhibition, at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo in 1958, and in 1959 by shows at the MAM in Rio and at the Galerie La Hune in Paris, which championed him for almost four decades. In 1959 he took the national printmaking prize at the fifth Bienal and exhibited at documenta II in Kassel.

Piza’s Printmaking: Technique, Publishers and the Catalogue

Piza took intaglio to its limit. Cutting deep into heavy copper with gouges, burins, nails and a hammer, he turned the plate into a bas-relief; under the press the damp paper is forced into the hollows, and the finished print is embossed as much as it is inked. Because the cuts are so deep, several colours can be printed in a single pass, each ink staying in its own cell. He has been called a ‘sculptor of plates’ rather than a printmaker. His main publisher was the Galerie La Hune, run by Bernard Gheerbrant (Calcite, 1971, in an edition of 95), and in the 1990s Jacqueline de Champvallins, whose stamp appears on Damier bleu (1995). His books were printed at the Atelier Georges Leblanc: Piège à mots, with poems by Claude Roy (Fata Morgana, 1991), has eight engravings in 40 copies, while Lichens (1983), on poems by Jacques Lacarrière, contains five signed etchings in an edition of 60.

The standard reference is K. Masrour, Piza, catalogue général de l’œuvre gravé, with a preface by Jean-Pierre Seguin (Art Moderne International, 1981). Dealers cite it as ‘Masrour’ plus a number: Anamorphose is Masrour 140, Calcite Masrour 146. Bernard Gheerbrant’s Piza, gravures à la gouge 1989-1996 (Éditions J. de Champvallins, 1997) covers the later prints. The Bibliothèque nationale de France holds 183 of his prints and the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo a complete set.

Biennials, Collages and International Recognition, 1960-1979

The 1960s brought a string of awards: printmaking prizes at the Grenchen Triennial in Switzerland and at Ljubljana in 1961, at Havana and Santiago de Chile in 1965, and the David Bright Prize at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966. In 1970 came a gold medal at the Florence print biennale and a prize at the Kraków biennial. Meanwhile Piza carried the logic of the plate into painting, cutting up his own watercolours and reassembling the fragments as collages on canvas, paper, copper or wood. One of these, an untitled work of about 1970 in painted papers and acrylic, is in the Tate collection; the V&A also holds his work. His exhibition record lists no solo show in London: in Britain, his work is known above all through these two museum collections.

Incised Paper, Porcelain and the Espace latino-américain, 1980-2017

In 1980 Piza co-founded the Espace latino-américain in Paris with Julio Le Parc, Roberto Matta, Luis Tomasello and Horacio Garcia-Rossi, and chaired it for many years; he and Clelia had long sheltered Brazilians exiled after the 1964 coup. The “Corte / Recorte” works of 1984-1985 cut deep into white paper; in 1986 he made a mural panel for the French cultural centre in Damascus. He worked in Sèvres porcelain, designed jewellery for Artcurial and later built wire-mesh pieces. Major retrospectives followed at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (1981) and the Pinacoteca do Estado (2002). Appointed Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, he died in Paris on 26 May 2017, aged 89.

Collecting Arthur Luiz Piza Prints: A Buyer’s Guide

Catalogue number. For any plate made before 1981, ask for the Masrour number; for 1989-1996, the Gheerbrant catalogue.

Edition size. Editions vary: 85 for Anamorphose, 95 for Calcite, 99 for Damier bleu, 211 for Le coussin rouge. See our notes on printing and editions.

Signature. Edition impressions are signed and numbered in pencil. The small greetings cards engraved for dealers are often unnumbered. More on the signature.

Embossing and condition. The relief is the whole point. A print that has been pressed flat, rolled or framed tight against the glazing loses much of its quality; choose a frame with a spacer.

Provenance. A publisher’s blind stamp (La Hune, Champvallins) or an exhibition label is valuable evidence.

Pitfalls. A photographic reproduction has no relief: always look at the sheet in raking light. Be wary, too, of unmarked objects and ceramics attributed without documentation. See our authenticity guarantee.

We show Piza alongside his teacher Johnny Friedlaender, his friends Zao Wou-Ki and Nicolas de Staël, and fellow Latin Americans in Paris such as Roberto Matta and Jesús Rafael Soto. Explore contemporary art and our engravings and lithographs.

Sources and further reading

K. Masrour, Piza, catalogue général de l’œuvre gravé, Art Moderne International, 1981 · Bernard Gheerbrant, Piza, gravures à la gouge 1989-1996, Éditions J. de Champvallins, 1997 · Christine Frérot and Michel Nuridsany, Arthur Luiz Piza, Cosac & Naify, 2002 · A gravura de Arthur Luiz Piza, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 2015 · Tate – Arthur Luiz Piza, Untitled, c.1970 · Fonds Arthur-Luiz Piza – Biography · Galeria Raquel Arnaud – CV