Paintings / Ceramic designs
Frans Krajcberg carried out an important work of painting and ceramic creations, which were less known than his sculpted work. First of all he painted the nature that surrounded him and was part of Osir Arte’s studio, where he made the” azulejos” commissioned from Portinari for the great architectural achievements of Modernism.
Painting allowed him to work in close to nature. His ceramics and his first paintings were destroyed in the fire in his workshop in Paraná in 1955. In the years 1956/1958, immersed in the virgin forest of the south of Sao Paulo, he made a series of abstract landscapes, the “Samanbaias” (ferns) reminiscences of Parana. Using blue tones background, he worked on linear networks, enhanced with soil evoking a vegetal density crossed by light. In 1957, thanks to the series, he won the prize for the best Brazilian painter at the São Paulo Biennale. Frans Weissmann was dedicated as best sculptor.
At the end of the 1950s, intoxicated by the turpentine fumes, he preferred to work outside the restrictive framework of canvas. Collages, engravings, prints, assemblages, sculptures... gradually led Frans Krajcberg to discovering other forms, to be more free but also more violent.