ANTONIO DIAS WORKS

Antonio Manuel Lima Dias, commonly known as Antonio Dias, was a Brazilian artist and graphic designer. The artist was among the main exponents of New Figuration. He was born in Campina Grande, in the state of Paraiba in Brazil, in 1944. In 1957, he moved with his family to Rio de Janeiro where he enrolled in the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts and began attending the studio of the artist Oswaldo Goeldi.
In the mid-1960s, in open opposition to the military dictatorship established in his country, Antonio Dias went to Paris thanks to a scholarship and stayed there for about two years. Subsequently, starting in 1968, he decided to move for a short time to Milan, a city he would often return to visit. In Milan, he formed strong friendships with artists such as Mario Schifano, Luciano Fabro, Alighiero Boetti, and Giulio Paolini and began experimenting with other languages, for example, making super 8 films like The Illustration of Art I from 1971, in which two bandages crossed the skin of a model, combining geometry, abstraction, and body art."
He will undertake new journeys that will take him to Germany, where he will reside in Cologne and Berlin, to the United States of America, and to Nepal, where he will have the opportunity to create a special handmade paper that will allow him to conduct various experiments with colors.
In recent years, some art historians have placed the early works of Antonio Dias within the realm of pop art, an association to which the artist strongly objects, stating the following: "My art had nothing to do with Pop. Art is a field of action that divides thoughts and forces you to take a stand. In my case, it has always been an attempt at self-affirmation. Art in the '60s for me was like participating in guerrilla warfare."
In these years, his fame increases significantly and many important museums acquire his works: among them the MOMA in New York, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, the Tate Gallery in London, the Daros Collection in Zurich and many foundations in Latin America. Antonio Dias dies in 2018 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.