Writings of History in Museums: the portraits by Adrien Van Emelen in the collection of the Museu Paulista

• Grant number: 24/03949-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2024
• End date: July 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Theory and Philosophy of History
• Principal Investigator: Aline Montenegro Magalhães
• Grantee: Letícia Fernanda Simão
• Host Institution: Museu Paulista (MP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Museu Paulista (MPUSP) preserves a collection of 33 oil portraits by the Belgian artist Adrien Henri Vital van Emelen (1868-1943). The collection is part of the exhibition "Curatorial Cycles: Collecting Images and Objects," dedicated to sharing with visitors the curatorial work done behind the scenes of the Museum. The paintings stand out for their high artistic quality and for featuring characters rarely seen in other exhibitions on the history of Brazil and São Paulo. They depict images of black people, indigenous peoples, rural inhabitants, and common folk from big cities, especially São Paulo. Dating from the 1920s to 1940s, they were produced from photographs.Following Ulpiano T. Bezerra de Meneses (2003), Manoel L. S. Guimarães (2007), Ana Mauad (2018), Paulo Knauss (2006), Stuart Hall (2013 and 2016), Igor Kopytoff (2008), and Nicholas Mirzoeff (2000), among others, the project is dedicated to the analysis of the processes of musealization of this type of work produced by Van Emelen. We will focus the research on different institutions that preserve paintings like those of MPUSP, such as the Afro-Brazilian Museum and the São Paulo Museum of Art, as well as on identifying the presence of these paintings in art auctions held in the 21st century. Our hypothesis is that this is a recent trend and that auctions are an important stage in the processes of musealization. Works, once restricted to the domestic environment, are now being valued and appropriated in museums. This research will help us understand the cultural practices involving the production, circulation, consumption, and musealization of this type of representation.