Niobe Xandó (1915–2010) developed one of the most singular and independent artistic languages in Brazilian modernism. Moving freely between figuration, abstraction, letterism, and her celebrated Máscaras (Masks), her work drew on pre-modern, Indigenous, and archaic visual traditions while remaining distinctly her own.
Developed over several decades, Xandó’s Máscaras explore archetypal imagery associated with ancestry, ritual, and collective memory. Reduced to a striking black-and-white vocabulary, Máscara, 2000 transforms the face into an emblematic presence—at once human, symbolic, and mysterious.
