Mira Schendel

Mira Schendel (1919–1988) was a Brazilian painter and sculptor. She was born in Zurich into a Jewish family, but she was christened and raised in the Catholic faith. She spent her youth in Italy, together with her mother and stepfather. She pursued a degree in philosophy in Milan, but she had to abandon her studies because of her Jewish heritage. Her Italian residency was revoked and she was forced to run from the fascists, crossing into Switzerland through the Alps by foot. She traveled to Sarajevo and spent the war there. She didn’t emigrate to Brazil until 1949. Her artistic style was marked by the influence of Czech philosopher Vilém Flusser, physicist Mário Schenberg and psychoanalyst Theon Spandius, with whom she read the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein and debated on art, phenomenology and religion. Her early works are both figurative and abstract, made using talc mixed with ceramic dust. At the start of the 1960s, she began making drawings on rice paper, as well as such sculptures as Little Nothings. She never had a studio, all of her art was made on the kitchen table. She was prodigious as an artist, producing over 4,000 works in her lifetime. She struggled with depression for much of her life. She died at the age of 69 from lung cancer. (Source)