Abaporu

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Portuguese. (January 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Portuguese Wikipedia article at [[:pt:Abaporu]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|pt|Abaporu}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Abaporu
Artist	Tarsila do Amaral
Year	1928
Medium	Oil on canvas
Movement	Anthropophagism, Surrealism
Dimensions	85 cm × 73 cm (33 in × 29 in)
Location	Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires

Abaporu (from Tupi language "abapor’u", abá (man) + poro (people) + ’u (to eat), lit. 'the man that eats people') is an oil painting on canvas by Brazilian painter Tarsila do Amaral. It was painted as a birthday gift to writer Oswald de Andrade, who was her husband at the time.

It is considered the most valuable painting by a Brazilian artist, having reached the value of $1.4 million, paid by Argentine collector Eduardo Costantini in an auction in 1995.^[1] It is currently displayed at the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires (Spanish: Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, MALBA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina.^[2]

The subject matter – one man, the sun and a cactus – inspired Oswald de Andrade to write the Manifesto Antropófago and consequently create the Anthropophagic Movement, intended to "swallow" foreign culture and turn it into something culturally Brazilian.

Tarsila described the subject of the painting as "a monstrous solitary figure, enormous feet, sitting on a green plain, the hand supporting the featherweight minuscule head. In front a cactus exploding in an absurd flower."^[3] This "monstrous" figure is, in fact, human. An unadorned, undressed, sexless, and ageless human whose anatomy has been distorted. Beginning with a huge foot and hand at the bottom of the picture, the figure slowly shrinks to a tiny head at the top.

The background of the painting suggests a natural setting. Here, earth is depicted as a simple small green mound upon which the subject sits. The vegetation is represented by a cactus at the right of the figure and a golden sun or flower which crowns the composition. The sky is a plain pale blue background.

The style of Abaporu can be traced back to the French modernists, specially Fernand Léger, who taught Tarsila in Paris in 1924. However, the closest resemblance of Abaporu can be found in the Spanish Surrealists, Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró, who also painted a figure with an oversized foot in 1924.

After Tarsila's death in 1973, the painting passed to Pietro Maria Bardi's art gallery, who sold it to the art collector Érico Stickel. In 1984 the painting was purchased by the amount of $250,000 by Raul de Souza Dantas Forbes, who then auctioned the painting at Christie's in New York City in 1995.^[4]