The Escola Paulista in color

216 The Escola Paulista in color

On June 8, 1946, at the FCCB headquarters, a color slide projection was shown by three members of the association, Thomaz Farkas, Guilherme Malfatti, and Frederico Sommer Jr. This fact was evidence of FCCB’s interest in color photography during the second half of the decade of 1940, epitomized in the 1° Concurso Interno de Diapositivos em Cores in April 1949. Finally, since 1951, color photography was included as a section in the international salons organized by the institution.

At the X Salão Internacional de Arte Fotográfica de São Paulo, in September, 1951, 22 members of the FCCB participated in the “Color” Section. The event catalog did not add information regarding the different supports used for the specific images, which included in general “transparency, print on, dye transfer, etc.”. In the catalog of the XI Salão Internacional, in 1952 and later salons’ works presented as transparencies (35 mm, 6 × 6, 9 × 12 or 12 × 18 cm) or printed copies were identified. These prints were always very few and preferably on Agfa color paper.

José V. E. Yalenti (1895–1967) was a diligent participant in the “Color” Section of the salons of the club during the 1950s, and he regularly presented 6 × 6 cm transparencies. The selection of pictures reproduced here includes contemporary copies of his transparencies, where can be seen, as in the rest of his work, the author’s interest in geometric forms and his taste for registers of nature.