The
metamorphosis of the house at Açougue Street into a
museum of historical grandness
By Daisi Vogel
The
creation of the Victor Meirelles (1),
Museum, which now gets to its 50th year, cannot be detached
from its time with a circumstantial and lonely movement. On
the contrary, the cultural, political and social exciting
atmosphere that was being drafted in Brazil at the Modern
Art Week in 1922, continued even more dynamically in the 30s.
In this scenario, a group of intellectuals joined around a
new proposal of protecting and preserving the patrimonial
goods of the country. Great monuments like fortresses and
archeological sites started being protected, and the initiative
of creating a series of museums all over the nation emerged
within a wider policy of preservation. A core figure of this
movement was Rodrigo Melo Franco de Andrade, founder of the
national cultural patrimony preservation organ, and its general
manager for 30 years, the National Artistic and Historic Patrimony
Service (SPHAN). Many museum projects were
organized around it and since the late 30s, several documents
asking for budgetary endowments can be found at the institution
files in order to purchase, in Florianópolis, the house
in which the most outstanding Brazilian artist of the XIX
century, Victor Meirelles (2), was born.
The museum project was thought in a solid and constant manner.
It tried to accomplish the purchase of the painter's birth
home and also to set up a collection core. There was a clear
idea on how this collection could be formed:
[...]
Victor Meirelles' production was so abundant that there will
always be a considerable number of his paintings in hands
of private owners, which a gradual purchase is recommended
by all means, and that would constitute the collection of
the proposed museum - And even any painting by the great artist
that would not be purchased at the market, could be ceded
by the Fine Arts National Museum, without harm to it, because
it has them in profusion, to establish the new one [...] (3)
These
decades were, undoubtedly, fertile for the museum projects maturation.
In São Paulo are created the Art Museum of São
Paulo (MASP), 1947, and the Modern Art Museum (MAM), 1948, was
founded. In Florianópolis, a modern art museum, now Santa
Catarina Art Museum (MASC), was founded. Rodrigo Melo Franco
tirelessly sought for years, for the implementation of his idealized
set of local museums. Still in 1945, he insisted with the education
and health minister, Gustavo Capanema for the ultimate authorization
for projects like the Disloyalty Museum, the Imperial Museum,
the Flags Museum, the Gold Museum and, among them, "the
small Victor Meirelles Museum" to be installed in Florianópolis,
in the house where this honorable master of Brazilian painting
was born." (4).
It
was a typical Portuguese-Brazilian house, which was constructed
between the end of the XVIII century and the beginning of the
XIX century. On the ground floor it was a general store where
the merchant Antonio Meirelles de Lima, Victor's father, ran
his business. The family lived on the first floor and there
Victor Meirelles was born in 1832. The plan to transform the
house into a museum was approved and started to happen still
in the Vargas era, but it took some time to gain speed. A demolition
threaten made the project be retaken more vehemently: being
built before the automobiles took the streets, the hose was
narrowing the street and should give way to the traffic. Rodrigo
Melo Franco sent one of his collaborators from SPHAN to Florianópolis,
Alfredo Teodoro Rusins, a conservative secretary of the Imperial
Museum of Petrópolis (State of Rio de Janeiro), to get
the demolition proposal halted. Rusins should also find the
owner of the house and negotiate its price. At the end, he would
also become responsible for the direct and practical transformation
of the house into a museum.
Rusins talked to Ivo de Aquino, the state secretary
for Safety and Education, who promised not to demolish the house
and then entered in contact with its owner, Nicolau Camariére,
"an ancient Italian born who spent most his life in Florianópolis
(5). The tragic history of this immigrant
can be read at the travel report written by Rusins, adding human
richness to the old house's history (6).
Camariére inherited the house from his grandfather, Victor
Sanseverino, and had been its owner for 50 years. He had not
made any physical change at the house and used to rent it for
a monthly Cr$ 200.00. It was located on the Açougue and
Pedreira streets crossing, currently Victor Meirelles and Saldanha
Marinho streets, 50 meters away from the square that has always
been the heart of the city, at that time Cathedral Square of
Desterro, current XV of November Square. Its architecture presents
the basic features of the houses from that time: stone masonry,
brick and clay; doors, windows, floor and stairs made of canela
wood.
Inside the house, rooms and an alcove interconnected by corridors
call the attention, on the outside, its placement is over the
road alignment with no space between the house and the road,
the roof on 'cover and channel' shaped clay tiles with its edge
of the 'beira-seveira' type and small wooden windows. Only a
few constructions of this clearly 1800's style like this one
were kept preserved in Florianópolis.
Through a very personal calculation, Camariére established
the selling value of the house at Cr$ 35,000.00. Rusins searched
the city and considered it a fair price, that would be to SPHAN
"a worthy transaction on both points of view, the commercial
and historical". In fact, the initiative and the procedures
for the purchase of Victor Meirelles' birthplace happened vertically,
developed at the levels of SPHAN and the Ministry of Health
and Education. At that time, however, there was some cultural
effervescence in Florianópolis and some movements to
transform the house into an art museum. By the sculptor Moacir
Fernandes de Figueiredo's initiative, the members of the Geographic
and Historic Institute drafted a proposal to make the purchase
viable. While the press and the group of intellectuals, around
the South Group, studied the importance of the project, its
deadlines, characteristics and collection.
On July 20, 1945, Rodrigo Melo Franco informed Gustavo Capanema
the results of Rusins' trip and once more asked for the National
Government to purchase the house for Cr$ 35,000.00. The formalities
lasted for another half-year, and the purchase was approved
on January 24, 1946, but the Finance Ministry had to open a
special credit to accomplish it. In the end, on February 22,
1946 (exactly 43 years after the artist's death), President
Eurico Gaspar Dutra signs the Decree n. 9.014, that "[a]uthorizes
the purchase of the house where Victor Meirelles was born and
other arrangements". And, on July 2nd, 1946, were signed
at the 1st Notorious Office in Florianópolis, the documents
of buying and selling of the respective house and the land it
lies in, with an area of 132 square meters. The deed was registered
in the same Office, on the page 145, book 3E under the number
5.555, on July 30, 1946. The birthplace of Victor Meirelles
was from then on a National Government's property. Four years
later, it was then historically protected as National Patrimony.
The old house claimed for reforms. "The
floor on the upper story is sagging in some places. Its does
not represent any danger of collapse, but the owner's carelessness
and the tenant's negligence, all modest people, kept it abandoned
for all its existence" (7) However,
the main concern on maintaining its style and the construction
plan from SPHAN were strict: "[e]very and any new part
shall be the same quality and aspect of the existing part"
(8). The architect and decorator Georges
Simoni was hired in Rio de Janeiro to define the furniture,
its disposition and the final design of the exposition rooms.
He created a counter and a hat hanger at the entrance hall;
designed the benches with wooden feet and leather upholstered,
which accommodated the first visitors. In the meanwhile, Rodrigo
Melo Franco was gently, but vehemently seeking to create the
collection. All this spirit is shown, for example, when he writes
to the director of the Fine Arts National Museum (MNBA), Oswaldo
Teixeira:
[...]
I only wish to obtain the work of the Santa Catarina born
master belonging to the MNBA if you agree with our request,
without constrain. I would not even accept an eventual impairment
to the patrimony of this Museum in advantage of an undertaking
of ours, neither would I cause you any kind of annoyance.
(9)
Within
two weeks, Oswaldo Teixeira was presenting a list containing
21 contributions (10) , privileging the
material that had equivalent remaining works at the MNBA and
were also representatives to the artist's trajectory. He gathered
13 studies in paper, one watercolor, and seven oil on canvas
paintings. These oils were part of the list: "Dead Woman",
Old Man's Head, Study for Guararapes Battle: Felipe Camarão,
Study for Guararapes Battle: Dutch Soldier, Helmet Studies,
Garment and Bank Study (landscape). There were also the watercolor
Garment Study and the pencil drawings Drappery Study, Studies
for Ships (for Riachuelo Naval Combat), Landscape Study, Roncigliony
View, Study for Guararapes Battle (draft), eight ship studies
for Riachuelo Naval Combat, Legs Study for First Mass in Brazil,
Hands Study, Fallen Man Seen from Behind Study, Boots Study,
Running Away Man Study, Hand Holding a Book Study and Women
Group Watching a Ceremony.
In April 1952, these artworks departed by plane to Florianópolis,
while the ship Itaberá from the National Coastal Company
was bringing seven boxes containing the lighting material. Rodrigo
Melo Franco wanted more. When Rusins was sent to get the artworks
from the MNBA, he took an official letter thanking and asking
for any other artwork to be temporarily lent for the opening
exposition. Oswaldo Teixeira sent him one more watercolor, Garment
Study.
Rusins himself stayed for a few months at the Lux Hotel in Florianópolis
to watch the final part of the reconstruction, the equipment
installation, the collection arrival and exposition. His report-letters
to SPHAN are testimonies of the 'nostalgic' Florianópolis
everyday life of the 50's, "slow" and "boring"
as he would define it. He also got involved in another journey
going after more of Victor Meirelles' artworks. He localized
many, and Rodrigo Melo Franco strove to bring them. The landscape
Desterro (Exile), belonging to the Catarinense Center, but in
possession of Alexandre Konder in Rio de Janeiro, and a portrait
of a man made in crayon on paper that was in Imaruí (Santa
Catarina State), belonging to Pedro Bittencourt, both were lent
and arrived at the museum in time for the grand opening. The
Victor Meirelles School, in Itajaí, SC, ceded a portrait
of him, signed by A. Pelliciari.
The ambassador Edmundo da Luz Pinto contributed with two works,
Portrait of José Maria do Vale Jr. at 13 years of age
and Partial View of Desterro City in 1849, as well as the donation
of a book in which Victor Meirelles had studied art (Notions
pratiques sur l'art de la peinture, enrichies d'exemples d'après
les grands maîtres des ècoles italienne, flamande
et hollandaise, by John Burnet, French edition, 1833). It has
curious pencil written notes made on its margins by the painter.
In the meanwhile, Rodrigo Melo Franco was writing to Pietro
Maria Bardi, MASP director, to "request a valuable contribution
from the dear friend, to plan the adequate installation of the
small museum". As a consequence, two oils on canvas from
the MASP collection Portrait of D. Pedro II and Portrait of
D. Tereza Cristina were lent to the Victor Meirelles House in
September 1952. The devolution of these paintings would be a
long negotiation that would be defined only 10 years later.
They were the two greatest artworks exposed at the great opening
day of the Victor Meirelles Birth Home, placed on the ground
floor, at the visitors' entrance. The so expected opening happened
at 4 p.m. on November 15, 1952 and it was widely divulged by
the national press. Rusins made a brief speech and Governor
Irineu Bornhausen officially inaugurated it.
Ten years passed until the house received a new maintenance.
In 1961, the walls were painted, some wood timbers from the
ceiling and floor, damaged by termites, were replaced; and the
water pipes and electrical wires checked. New lent artworks
arrived from MNBA: Humaitá Passage, Girl's Head, Invocation
to Our Lady of Carmo and Guararapes Battle (draft). But, two
cracks remained on the walls and, five years later, would occur
one more letter exchange among public sectors about the needs
of another reform. According to its janitor, Irineu dos Santos
Lessa, "the house has several wood beams that are rotten,
the painting is also falling apart, the roof needs to be rebuilt
because of leakage; about the wiring, it must be redone because
I had to repair three short circuits". Victor Meirelle's
House was already entrusted to the 4th District of SPHAN in
São Paulo, whose director was Luis Saia and by the architect
Cyro Illídio Corrêa de Oliveira Lyra. They start
working on the house in 1969, when the museum is closed to be
reopened on November 22, 1974.
An important donation enriched its collection during this period.
In 1970, the family of Admiral Lucas Boiteaux, which fulfilled
an agreement between him and Rodrigo Melo Franco, gives a set
of material from and about Victor Meirelles. Because of this
gesture, a watercolor is incorporated to the museum's collection,
Desterro View, and six other drawings: Guararapes Battle Draft,
Group of Soldiers in Action, Study for Fallen Soldier's Arm,
Study for Arms and Study for Hands. There are also two other
portraits of Victor Meirelles: one watercolor by painter Pedro
Peres, who had been his student at the Fine Arts Imperial Academy
and a lithography by Valle. The collection included also a monograph
on the painter written by José Leão in 1879, a
collection of magazine and newspaper clipping and also six photographs
with images of the paintings, of his birthplace, of the tree
used as model in First Mass in Brazil and of old Victor Meirelles
himself with his signature.
Due to the reform the museum's collection was
taken to MASC on July 24, 1970, a total of 27 pieces should
be kept stored there "for two or three months" (11).
However, they stayed there for almost three years, being shown
there to the public for three times. They returned on March
5, 1973 and were sent to the restoration laboratory of SPHAN
in Rio de Janeiro, having professor Edson Motta in charge, from
where they returned in March 1974. In this same period, the
critic Aracy Amaral came to Florianópolis invited by
the Santa Catarina Federal University (UFSC) in 1972 when Saia
asked her for suggestions to reinstall the Victor Meirelles
House. She suggests the restoration of all artworks - what was
made next - and the installation of a documentation center.
She is also concerned about the museum's form and operation,
and emphasizes the necessity to increase the museum acting scope
, thus getting closer to the community:
[...]
Victor Meirelles's house should not be a static museum, on
the contrary, it should be transformed in a culture house,
to provide not only knowledge about the artist whose work
lies within, but also an eventual enlargement of its own objectives,
based on the documentation center, it should be transformed
in a research center for all XIX century art in the Santa
Catarina State. (12)
Some
of these suggestions, which were in fact the core of the museum
projects launched in the 30's, will only be fulfilled in the
90's. In the meantime, the cultural activities of the Victor
Meirelles House develop at slow pace; both the collection and
the house were exposed to the ruthless action of time year after
year. Since its opening, the museum was being directly watched
by its janitors, people with great enthusiasm but with little
experience in museology. They were people like Irineu dos Santos
Lessa, that lived in and took care of the house between 1962
until 1971, doing small repairs; Ecy de Alvarenga Boechat Pereira,
employee from 1971 to 1982 assisted the visitors among all her
family; and Arnaldo Heitor Muller, employee between 1982 and
1991. The best Ecy Pereira could do was to
state by letter that "possibly due to moisture, the paintings
from this house's collection [...] have been demonstrating alterations
that we consider quite severe" (13),
although she would personally removed them from the walls every
night.
In 1982, the year of the 150th birthday of Victor Meirelles,
the house was closed for a few months for small repairs, and
temporary cork banners were put at the walls for the paintings
not to touch the humidity. At the same time, a great celebratory
exposition, with a new selection coming from the MNBA, was held
at MASC. After this exposition, these artworks remained at Victor
Meirelles's House: Christ on the Waves, "The Sinking of
the Medusa", "Suli Women", Portrait of a Lady
with a 1870 Garment, Man's Head, "Princess Isabel Wedding",
Woman's Head, Female Garment Study, Male Garment Study and Throat
Cutting of St John Baptist.
Still in 1982, the National Museum Program launched the basis
of a new museological proposal for the country, which prioritizes
the aspects related to safety, exposition ways, and collection
preservation planting a seed for a great turnover on Victor
Meirelles Museum that would occur on the next decade. In 1986,
a great exposition, having new pieces from the MNBA (eight watercolors,
eight drawings and thirteen paintings) came to Florianópolis,
but were installed for three weeks at MASC. From 1983 until
1989, the upstairs of the house where the janitors used to live
was transformed into the first state headquarters to SPHAN/Pró-Memória,
which since then is responsible for the museum and is run by
its director, the architect Dalmo Vieira Filho, the current
foreman at the 11th Regional Superintendence of the Institute
for the Historic and Artistic Patrimony, Santa Catarina (11th
SR/IPHAN/SC).
In 1991, the numerous degradation problems,
both in the building and in the museum's collection, made the
team of the 11th Superintendence, among representatives of several
groups of the society and Friends of the Victor Meirelles Museum
Association (AVM), elaborate a revitalization program, launching
then the Victor Meirelles Project. The creation of AVM was critical,
since it became the sponsor of the museum in a pioneering action
in Santa Catarina (14). In the same period,
Lourdes Rossetto, a technician for cultural issues of the 11th
SR/IPHAN/SC, took the lead and the direction of the house and
its project, starting a wide conceptual and structural changing
process that involved architecture preservation, collection
preservation, area expansion and a dynamic transformation of
the museum.
In order to get the project on going, it was closed for public
visiting in December 1991 and all its collection was transferred
to the Technical Reserve of the Historical Museum of Santa Catarina,
where it stayed and was eventually exposed until its re-opening
on August 18, 1994. The architectural reconstruction was made
in several stages, over the new design by architect Cyro Lyra,
in a partnership with professor Alcídio Mafra de Souza,
director for ten years to the MNBA. The window and door frames
as well as the roof were restored, the painting was redone,
the electrical and telephone wiring were remade, as well as
the plumbing; and a new drainage system was made to eliminate
the humidity problem on the walls. In order to make it more
visible and to divulge the museum, a mural was painted at the
back external wall of the house by the artist Marco Bento in
August 1993, showing a new reading for the most popular painting
from Victor Meirelles, "First Mass in Brazil".
In the meantime, a preventive maintenance and restoration program
was elaborated for both the building and the collection. For
this, an ambience variable control and monitoring project was
settled, which kept the relative humidity, the temperature and
ventilation within international recommended standards, and
filters were installed to reduce the atmospheric contamination
inside the museum. A safety system against robbers as well as
fire was also installed, and a technical illumination project
was made to control natural and artificial light radiation,
elaborated by the electrician-engineer Leonardo Barreto de Oliveira,
from the 13th SR/IPHAN/MG.
The museum was also all restructured in the operational area.
The upper floor rooms, former housing for the family, were designated
to the collection artworks, taking turns representing the phases
of the painter's artistic production. The ground floor was transformed
into a place for temporary expositions, promoting emerging and
acclaimed artists. Among the several expositions held, there
were names like Martinho de Haro, Rodolfo Amoedo, Lasar Segall,
Sérgio Ferro, Amílcar de Castro, Osvaldo Goeldi,
Paulo Gaiad, Di Cavalcanti, Elke Hering, Lívio Abramo,
Max Moura, Hassis, Helô Espada, Tarcísio Mattos,
Marília Rodrigues, Lú Pires, Djanira, Fernando
Lindote, and others from the national and international scenarios.
Aiming to increase the acting scope of the museum, Victor Meirelles
Street was closed to any vehicle and transformed in a cultural
space - city law n. 5.253/93, where many artistic activities
have been held, like the interventions "Full and Empty",
by the artists Flávia Fernandes and Clara Fernandes.
Finally, even the name of the place has changed: instead of
Birth-home of Victor Meirelles - that would make anybody think
on his personal belongings exposed, it became Victor Meirelles
Museum (MVM), assuring its art museum nature.
Besides the ambience control program, over the collection preservation,
that softens the harm on the artworks, a treating proposal of
short, medium and long term was established. The conservation
work, which was being done oriented by Aldo Nunes from the Conservation
Studio - ATECOR/FCC, and by conservationist Angela Paiva, from
IPHAN, is now being preventively and continuously done by the
restorer Susana Aparecida Cardoso Fernandes. Part of the artworks
developed on paper, that needed urgent treatment, were forwarded
to the Restoration Paper Laboratory of MNBA and have been restored.
Since the museum reopening in 1994, its activities have not
been restricted to art expositions, and the institution started
to act as a permanent cultural center for education, developing
an educational and cultural action program with a series of
projects. In partnership with the Secretary of Education of
Florianópolis, the project "Museum goes to the School/School
goes to the Museum" has been settled, which is coordinated
by the art educator Roselene Maria Peixer, and has assisted
students and teacher from public and private schools. Another
project called "Living Victor Meirelles", is directed
to the public elementary schools and is also thought as a way
of spreading the knowledge about the life and the work of the
artist. It includes a moving exposition of reproductions of
the museum's collection, which visits the schools, and a pedagogic
kit. At the same time, the museum acts as a professional educational
center, interchanging information, studying and researching
the current technical and scientific principles of museology,
and of preventive conservation, fomentation and dissemination
of life and work of Victor Meirelles. There is still the patrimonial
educational program, which assists all the community and tourists,
with guided visits to expositions.
The cultural schedule of MVM also includes video presentations,
lectures, courses, seminars, artistic activities in the fields
of music, drama, dance, literature and movie theater, and also
meetings with the artists. The entire schedule is arranged the
actual participation of society, through the AVM with sponsored
by enterprises. Step by step, the museum and the projects that
used to be around it became part of it, becoming themes for
thesis on doctor and dissertation on master degrees. It is necessary
to say that, throughout all its history, the museum was operated
by personnel ceded by the City Hall of Florianópolis,
which has tunefully worked with IPHAN's team. A partnership,
renewed in 1997 between the City Hall and the 11th SR/IPHAN/SC,
foresees the cession of employees to work at the museum, as
well as volunteers from the Volunteers in Action Project.
Besides the birth place house, the museum nowadays has one floor
of approximately 178 square meters in a neighbor building. The
estate, with typical architecture from the 50's, was lent by
the State government of Santa Catarina, through the State Law,
n. 10.421, signed in May 1997. The room was integrated to the
museum to shelter its Technical Reserve, and also for the storage,
protection and safety of the collection; and the Conservation
and Exposition Setting Room, to be used in specific functions
on the artwork and to store simple analytic instrumentation
for historic and architectonic material analysis. The museum
administrative sector and Multipurpose Room, with an auditorium,
educational activity space and a small library were also installed
there. The Program for Museums Support from Vitae Foundation
financed in 1998 the furniture acquisition for the Technical
Reserve and the Conservation Room. The design of this area by
Lourdes Rossetto and by the architect Maria Isabel Kanan, prioritizes
all the technical aspects of functionality, safety and ambience
control required for a technical reserve, as it had already
been done at the exposition rooms in the artist's birth place.
The museologist Mônica Xexéo, from MNBA, promoted
a document inventory and the collection catalogue, therefore
a review of the artwork titles from Victor Meirelles.
In the meantime, the search for the expansion of the collection
has never stopped and, in September 2000, the painting View
of Desterro, Current Florianópolis (1847) was acquired.
It was found in 1984, by the director to the MNBA, Alcídio
Mafra de Souza, at the Our Lady of Rosary and St Benedict Church,
in Florianópolis. Without the signature, the painting
was very damaged when it was taken to MNBA in 1985, where it
was definitely recognized. In accordance to Gilberto Ferrez,
from the Consulting Board of the Historic and Artistic National
Patrimony, it was restored and historically protected. It has
been exposed since then at the Victor Meirelles Museum, to be
finally incorporated to the museum's collection in exchange
for the church retables restoration.
Even the old house continued to surprise. In July 2001, during
the wooden floor timber of the ground story restoration, evidences
of archeological material were found, and excavations were made
to get information about ancient uses of that place. Several
dust floor levels were found, until the original one with bovine
osseous material - the street was once called Açougue
(Butchery) Street - and many clay, glass and metal artifacts,
plus one masonry structure of clay and stones. The material
was catalogued and stored at the office of the 11th SR/IPHAN/SC,
in Laguna.
Recently, the museum has won the Rehabilitation, Enlargement
and Revitalization Project of the Victor Meirelles Square, developed
by the Swiss architect Peter Widmer, with great experience on
museums. The project proposes a larger access to the house,
adding new areas to its neighbor building and focusing on the
integration of the historical patrimony with the urban contemporary
settings. The 11th SR/IPHAN/SC formally requested to the State
government, in July 2002, the cession of the two stories left
in the building, where the technical reserve was already working,
what would enlarge the museum total area to some 350 square
meters.
So that the original house could be reserved to Victor Meirelles'
collection, while the new space would hold temporary expositions,
artistic workshops, an auditorium, a library and a video library.
An elevator for the disabled and the integration of both buildings
are also in the project, as well as a cafe and a museum shop.
It is a project aimed at the idea of widening the scope and
the roll of Victor Meirelles Museum in the artistic and cultural
scenario.
Notas:
1
. A spelling duplicity on the name of Victor Meirelles appeared
since the Orthographic Agreement of 1943. By the agreement rules,
the correct spelling way should be "Vítor Meireles"
and it is extensively used this way in documents and letters
from that time. The 11th SR/IPHAN, whose Florianópolis
office is responsible for the Victor Meirelles Museum since
1983, opted to standardize the spelling as "Victor Meirelles"
as it is in his birth certificate and the way he used to sign
his artwork. <<
2. See the official letter n. 117, March 24, 1939; from Rodrigo
Melo Franco, from SPHAN to the Health and Education Minister,
Gustavo Capanema. All the cited documents are part of the 11th
SR/IPHAN/SC. <<
3. Part of the addendum from April 11, 1939 to the aforesaid
official letter n.117 <<
4. Official letter from Rodrigo Melo Franco to minister Gustavo
Capanema on July 20, 1945. <<
5. Report from Alfredo Teodoro Rusins to Rodrigo Melo Franco
on July 11, 1945. <<
6. Rusins says, "He is a man defeated by adverse luck.
His watchmaker's shop disappeared in a fire having him suffered
total loss. He tried later to commit suicide, but the bullet
has not hit him mortally, still located in his skull, reason
why he shows a facial contraction defect and has speaking difficulties".
<<
7. Report from Alfredo T. Rusins on July 11, 1945. The engineer
Raul Bastos did the initial expert report for the reconstruction
on November 29, 1947 and observed: "The mentioned building
is found in terrible conditions, with only the external walls
and some of the internal ones being possible to be put to use".
<<
8. Conservation and Adaptation Construction for Museums Plan,
signed by Paulo P. Barreto of the Construction sector from SPHAN,
on August 5, 1948. <<
9. Letter from Rodrigo Melo Franco to Oswaldo Teixeira, Rio
de Janeiro, April 4, 1951. <<
10. Official letter from Oswaldo Teixeira, director to MNBA,
to the Education and Health Ministry, Rio de Janeiro, April
17, 1951. The ministry's authorization was given on April 28,
1951. <<
11. Letter from Aldo João Nunes, director to MASC, to
Luis Saia on September 19, 1972. Aldo Nunes wrote several times
to Saia asking for the pieces to be relocated: "[i]t is
not possible for us to postpone even more the devolution of
the works from the cited artist", says Nunes. "the
storeroom of our Museum, besides not being able to store more
works because of last years acquisitions, is not the adequate
ambience." <<
12. From Aracy Amaral at the "Report for the setting and
operation of House", June 23, 1972 <<
13. In a letter to Luis Saia, September, 1978. <<
14. The Victor Meirelles Association, created in 1991, where
Armando Luiz Gonzaga was the president for 10 years and currently
run by Ruth Corrêa, is a non-profitable culturally driven
civil partnership, formed by civil society representatives and
by public and private entities. Its main objectives, which are
on articles 1 and 2 of its statute, are: 1) To watch over the
Victor Meirelles Museum building preservation; 2) To promote
and support artistic and cultural activities; 3) To promote
the artistic and cultural exchange into national and international
levels; 4) To raise funds or money donations to the Victor Meirelles
Museum. The entity does not technically intervene in the museological
activities, but takes part in the decision processes, mediates
the museum relations with other public and private sectors,
and personifies the society roll on preserving and stimulating
culture.<<
