Niobe Xandó

Niobe Nogueira Xando Bloch (1915 – 19 February 2010) was a Brazilian artist.

Biography Niobe Xandó was born in Campos Novos Paranapanema, São Paulo, in 1915. Her parents were Antonio da Silveira Xando and Petonilha Nogueira Xando. Niobe lived most of her childhood in the interior of São Paulo by the countryside, but moved to the capital in 1932. At the age of sixteen she married a prominent communist militant, Joao Baptista Ribeiro Rosa. When she moved into the city, Niobe began attending the Communist Party meetings and met many many of the left-wing intellectuals and politicians of that time. Her husband had a vast culture that led to friendships with other intellectuals, one of whom was Vilem Flusser. Flusser wrote about Niobe's artwork in three articles, two of which were published in the arts newspaper. Through 1968–1971, Niobe and Alexander moved throughout Europe passing through Paris, London, and Stockholm. During this period, a music label in London asked Alexander Bloch for permission to use one of Niobe's works to illustrate the Rolling Stones album. The project fell through because Niobe had a quiet approach in her art and life. She abandoned figurativism in the later 1950s and began to embrace mythology that depicted mutating beings. 1963

-Oil on Canvas

-The flowers highly contrasted the old traditional flower paintings. It demonstrated the Pre-Columbian style by her use of the colors and ornamental arrangement. The art gives the impression that Niobe used a magnifying glass to enlarge certain aspects of the leaves and flowers. The amplified details depict unimaginable creatures from other dimensions. Niobe recalled the tropical nature of her childhood and devoted to the creation of strange flowerings.

Máscaras -Masks, 1969

-Oil on Board

-Niobe entered her phase influenced by African, Aboriginal, and Pre-Columbian masks. Some masks appear out of plants as it is within Afro-Brazilian cults that manifest the orixás, higher beings of nature. The masks carry enigmatic images of ancient gods of her country, and are inspired by her ancestors to create graphic sings to represent symbols. They help express a historical development of her country, while accepting different cultures.