When Projeto Portinari started, we did not have any record of most works done by the painter. Very little was available for students, researchers and the general public, concerning his work, his life and his time. The few existing books focusing his art were out of print. A retrospective exhibition of his works was something never thought of. There was no catalogue of his vast production; no museum or public institution had a representative sample of his paintings. More than 95% of his legacy was kept hidden from public view.
At that time, professor João Cândido, visiting New York's Modern Art Museum, could see that it possessed more information on Portinari that all Brazilian institutions together! As Projeto Portinari found and documented the scattered works, it was able to produce audiovisual material that became its first "visible face" by 1981. This material displayed about 200 pieces of work, covering the main themes of his plastic art's legacy. It was the first time we could show the public something that even Portinari himself had never the opportunity to enjoy: a "whole view" of his work! From then on, we have taken this "view" to every corner of the country, as well as to the public abroad. Many audiences were moved by the painter's testimony, shown with a Brazilian music soundtrack.
Today, also for the first time, we can finally give our public an even greater emotion: that of admiring Portinari's COMPLETE WORKS. This "Portinari in Thumbnails" is a vast mosaic we made through a survey of his work since 1979, putting his production in chronological order (it is enough to say that Portinari left undated more than half of his production, just to give an idea of the difficulties involved. Each one of his more than two thousand pieces of work was compared to more than twenty-five thousand documents, in order to see whether in one of his letters, press cuttings, photographs of the period, testimonies, catalogues, posters, books and different publications, we could find information allowing us to determine the position of that piece of work in time). "Portinari in Thumbnails" is, therefore, the result of a great and devoted effort, and we are very proud to make it available for our visitors.
