Operários (Workers), 1933
* ‘Operários’ (Workers) has a significant place in Brazilian modern art, as it is considered to be the first painting with a social theme. It is also the largest painting Tarsila ever made and presents a pyramid of human heads all exhausted and fatigued. She created this work inspired by Sao Paolo itself, from industrial society. Its she says: She did everything based on photographs and on the visual memory of certain people she knew. The racial diversity shown in this painting truly stands as a representation of the modern and racially mixed society of Brazil. Behind these workers, smokestacks and buildings represent Sao Paolo’s increasingly industrialized landscape.
