Cosmic Landscape is one of Danilo di Prete’s first attempts at controlled gestural abstraction. The Italian native began painting in Brazil in 1946 and struggled professionally until winning a national painting prize at the inaugural São Paulo Biennial in 1951.

Along with many fellow Japanese in the 1930s, Manabu Mabe immigrated to southern Brazil as a young boy. During the day, Mabe and his family worked on the coffee plantations, and in the evenings he continued his Japanese education. His academic and literary training were critical to his formation as an artist, as demonstrated by his use of calligraphic brushstrokes in later works.

Apocalypsis marks a transition between Raquel Forner’s artistic exploration of human suffering and her optimistic and influential Space Series, begun in 1957. Here she shows disparate groups of people separated by rigid, abstract landforms.