Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973) is one of the major figures of the Latin American vanguard and the symbol of Brazilian Modernism. Exotic, sophisticated and cosmopolitan, she spent two intensive periods in Paris, where she completed what she called the "military service" of Cubism and fed on European avant-garde currents, like a civilized anthropophagite. Upon returning to her country, the digestion of that banquet and her rediscovery of the colors and shapes of her childhood spent in the Brazilian interior would, around 1920, give rise to the most dazzling epoch of her painting.

This catalogue approaches the artist from the remote past of her country, supplemented by the works and writings of her contempories as well as essays by some of the most learned experts on her painting.