Vera Chaves Barcellos

Vera Chaves Barcellos (born 1938) is a Brazilian artist and educator.

Barcellos was born in Porto Alegre. She studied music at the Instituto de Belas-Artes de Porto Alegre and went on to study fine arts for two years. Between 1961 and 1962, Barcellos studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and Saint Martin's School of Art in London, at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. On her return to Brazil in 1965, she concentrated on engraving. During the 1970s, she began to incorporate photography in her work. After receiving a scholarship in 1975, she undertook further studies on photography at the Croydon College of Art and Technology. Her series Testarte was presented at the 1976 Venice Biennale and at the 1977 São Paulo Art Biennial. In 1986, she moved to Barcelona.^[1] She now lives and works in Barcelona and Viamão.^[2]

From 1970 to 1977, Barcellos taught engraving and painting at the Federação de Ensino Superior de Novo Hamburgo.^[1]

Her work has been included in group exhibitions in Latin America, Germany, Belgium, Korea, France, Holland, England, Japan, the United States and Australia. She has also had solo exhibitions in Brazil and abroad. In 2007, Barcellos received the Prêmio Joaquim Felizardo.^[2]

With the artists Carlos Pasquetti and Patricio Farias, she launched the Obra Aberta Gallery, which operated from 1999 to 2002. In 2003, she established the Vera Chaves Barcellos Foundation in Porto Alegre, dedicated to the preservation and promotion of contemporary art. In 2007, the Centro Cultural Santander in Porto Alege presented a retrospective of her work.^[1]

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