Building on a Construct The Adolpho Leirner Collection of Brazilian Constructive Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Hector Olea, Mari Carmen Ramirez

The world-renowned Aldopho Leirner Collection of Brazilian Constructive Art, devoted to modern Latin American art of the 1950s and 1960s, represents forerunners of abstract art in Brazil as well as key works by avant-garde artists: the Grupo Ruptura of Sao Paulo (including Waldemar Cordeiro and Mauricio Nogueira Lima) and Rio de Janeiro's Grupo Frente (including Lygia Pape and the brothers Cesar and Helio Oiticica). The collection, now housed at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, also contains important works from the Neo-Concrete movement with six major pieces by Lygia Clark and major works from artists who embraced Constructive tenets by working independently, including Sergio Camargo, Mira Schendel and Alfredo Volpi. This handsomely illustrated volume brings together thirteen essays on the Leirner Collection by preeminent international scholars and offers an important new framework for interpreting Brazilian Modernism.

Hector Olea is an independent scholar and curator specializing in Latin American modern art. Mari Carmen Ramirez is the Wortham Curator of Latin American Art and Director, International Center for the Arts of the Americas, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.