Brazilian Modernist

Burle Marx, who called himself “the poet of his own life” and one of the most influential landscape architects of the twentieth century, is on show at The Jewish Museum, NY.

Organized by the Jewish Museum in New York, and in collaboration with the Sítio Roberto Burle Marx in Rio de Janeiro, “Burle Marx: Brazilian Modernist” is an exhibition on one of the most influential landscape architects of the twentieth century, best known for his iconic seaside pavements on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach, and for his abstract, geometric garden designs.

Burle Marx was a painter and sculptor, a designer of textiles, jewelry, theater sets, and costumes, a ceramicist and stained-glass artist. He was an avid art collector, a talented baritone, a consummate cook, and a visionary self-taught botanist and ecologist. For him, all these endeavors were equally important, facets of one another.

Roberto Burle Marx, mineral roof garden, Banco Safra headquarters, São Paulo, 1983. Photo Leonardo Finotti

The artist embraced modernism in the early 1930s, as the movement was taking hold in Brazil. He revolutionized garden design by using abstraction and grand colorful sweeps of local vegetation, abolishing symmetry and rejecting imported flora and European models. The son of a German Jewish father and a Brazilian Catholic mother, he viewed the role of the landscape architect in ideal terms: to mitigate the loss of the primeval garden and repair the rift between humanity and nature.

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Left: Roberto Burle Marx, Avenida Atlântica, Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, 1970. © Burle Marx Landscape Design Studio, Rio de Janeiro. Right: Gardens of the Ministry of Education and Health, Rio de Janeiro, 1938. Photo Cesar Barreto

Roberto Burle Marx, Gardens of the Walter Moreira Salles residence, now the Instituto Moreira Salles, with Burle Marx’s azulejo tile wall and plantings around a fountain, 1951. Photo Cesar Barreto

Roberto Burle Marx painting a tablecloth in the loggia of his home, 1980s; the azulejo tile walls and chandelier composed of fruit and flowers on a metal armature are his work. Photo Tyba

Roberto Burle Marx, design for a mineral roof garden, Banco Safra headquarters, São Paulo, 1983, gouache on paper. © Burle Marx Landscape Design Studio, Rio de Janeiro. Photo Cesar Barreto

Roberto Burle Marx, design for the Minister’s Rooftop Garden, Ministry of Education and Health, Rio de Janeiro, 1938, gouache on paper. © Burle Marx Landscape Design Studio, Rio de Janeiro

Roberto Burle Marx, Carnival study, Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, c. 1960s. Graphite, gouache, and collage on paper. © Sítio Roberto Burle Marx, Rio de Janeiro

until 18 September 2016
Roberto Burle Marx: Brazilian Modernist
The Jewish Museum
1109 5th Ave. at 92nd St.
New York

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Brazilian Modernist

Burle Marx, who called himself “the poet of his own life” and one of the most influential landscape architects of the twentieth century, is on show at The Jewish Museum, NY.

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