Eleonore Koch: The Essential Painter

Mendes Wood DM New York
Nov 24, 2020 - Jan 16, 2021

Mendes Wood DM, New York and Modern Art, London are proud to present two concurrent exhibitions devoted to German-Brazilian painter Eleonore Koch (1926-2018). The exhibitions bring together a group of works produced from the start of Koch’s London period in the late 1960s to paintings executed after her return to São Paulo, in the 1990s.

Eleonore Koch is one of the most singular figures to have emerged in Brazilian art in the second half of the 20th century. She stands out as someone whose work doesn’t easily fit into any of the dominant artistic currents of her time and place, having stubbornly pursued her own pictorial language with remarkable discipline and coherence over more than four decades. During her lifetime - and beyond - her name has been persistently associated with Alfredo Volpi (1896-1988), a painter celebrated as one of the greatest modern masters in Brazil with whom she studied for a period of three years in the early 1950s. According to her1 own accounts, the ‘lessons’ consisted more in observing the way he worked and experiencing his studio routine rather than receiving any type of structured academic training. Most importantly, with Volpi she learned the artisanal and quite traditional technique of egg tempera that she would hitherto embrace.

The fact that Koch continued developing and refining her practice way beyond the early 1950s, having spent great part of this period away from the Brazilian context, did not preclude critics to insist on quoting the possibly well-intended but regrettably limiting epithet ‘Volpi’s only disciple’ whenever commenting on her work. Apart from the differences in background and trajectory, it must be noted that Koch also studied under many other artists, including Yolanda Mohalyi (1909-1978) and Elisabeth Nobiling (1902-1975). It is only roughly over the past ten years that Koch’s work has started to gain the overdue recognition it deserves. This is not to say that she has been completely under the radar of the art world. In fact, she had the support of a few but important allies - such as collectors Theon Spanudis (1915-1986) and Ladi Biezus, as well as curator and critic Lourival Gomes Machado (1917-1967) - and although not as celebrated as some of her contemporaries, she seemed to have always been highly aware of the value and importance of her work.