Vincente Do Rego Monteiro Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1899 - d. 1970

Vicente do Rego Monteiro (December 19, 1899 — June 5, 1970[1])), born in Recife, in a family of artists, was a Brazilian painter.

Already in 1911 Vicente do Rego Monteiro was in Paris (in company of his older sister), attending a course, for little time, at the Académie Julian. Precocious talent, in 1913 he participated of the Hall of the Independent Artists, in the French capital. In return to Brazil in 1917, two years later he carried through, in Recife, its first individual sample; in 1920 and 1921, he presented it in Rio de Janeiro, in São Paulo and Recife.


Vicente do Rego Monteiro was born in Recife, moving to Rio de Janeiro in 1908, in which year he began his artistic studies, at the National School of Fine Arts (Enba). In 1911, his family moved to Paris, where the artist attended the Académie Colarossi, studying drawing, painting and sculpture at the Académies Julien and La Grande Chaumière, returning to Rio de Janeiro in 1915 because of the First World War. At the start of his career, he briefly devoted himself to sculpture. In 1920, he held an exhibition of drawings and watercolours in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Recife. This show already revealed his interest in the legends and customs of Amazonia, which would become an inspiration for most of his work. At the start of the 1920s, he produced watercolours depicting indigenous legends, using geometric figuration and the ornamentation of Marajó ceramics. The 1920s were the artist's most productive period. In the following decade, he abandoned painting, dedicating himself principally to illustration. In 1930, he brought an exhibition of the School of Paris to Recife, including paintings by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Joan Miró, Gino Severini (1883 - 1966), Fernand Léger and his own works. This exhibition is important as the first international show of modern art ever held in Brazil, with artists linked to major innovative trends in the arts, such as cubism and surrealism. Over the course of his career, Rego Monteiro lived alternately in Brazil and France. He developed his graphic work and did illustrations for the magazines. Also a poet and translator, he encouraged young writers to contribute their texts to these publications. From the 1950s onwards, he returned more intensively to painting, with regional themes. Notable at the end of his life was his important work as a professor of painting at the National School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Pernambuco, in Recife, between 1957 and 1966.