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In Pursuit of Line, Form, and Memory: “Dialogues: Memories of Alfredo Volpi” at LAMB

In Pursuit of Line, Form, and Memory: “Dialogues: Memories of Alfredo Volpi” at LAMB

“Later I started painting from memory,” says Alfredo Volpi. “The subject had begun to lose its interest. All that remained was the matter of line, form, and color itself.”

The surrender to the geometry floating in the mind, setting aside the concrete object in front of the canvas by Volpi (1896–1988)—one of the pioneering figures of Brazilian modernism—is today not merely a personal stylistic choice, but a stirring source of inspiration for generations that came after him. Presented to viewers by LAMB gallery between June 5 and September 12, 2026, the exhibition “Dialogues: Memories of Alfredo Volpi” brings together this quiet legacy of the master painter with the fresh echoes on the canvases of later generations.

Growing up in São Paulo’s Cambuci neighborhood as the child of an Italian immigrant working-class family, entering painting through a self-taught tradition with a craft background extending from carpentry to wall decoration, Volpi stopped working with sketches in the 1940s and turned to egg tempera. This attitude, reducing building facades (fachadas) and street flags (bandeirinhas) to their simplest forms, made visible the selective power of memory. Mature period works featured in the exhibition, such as Bandeirinhas e mastros (1950) and Untitled (Fachada com Bandeira Branca), transform the architectural atmosphere of mid-century Brazil into an entirely abstract and serene visual rhythm.

This open door left by Volpi evolves into brand-new dialogues through the brushes of artists in different lanes. Judith Lauand, the sole female pioneer of the 1950s Concrete Art (Concretismo) movement based on mathematical discipline, demonstrates with her late work Untitled (1993) how rigid geometric rules stretch toward mountainous topographies; while Fabio Miguez, who saw Volpi as a shortcut when abandoning architectural education to transition into painting, carries simplified architectural masses onto canvas with the hospitality of pink and green tones.

On the other hand, multidisciplinary artist Diambe, in their work SPIII (2024), re-updates Volpi’s egg tempera as a resilient material against nature’s destruction. André Ricardo, in canvases like China Town (2019), takes Volpi’s sensitivity toward local textures one step further, sealing the architectural memory and forgotten urban history of Afro-diasporic communities in São Paulo and Pernambuco onto canvas.

Preparing to close its doors in mid-September, this subtle selection offers a highly valuable viewing experience for those who wish to experience Volpi’s shadow not as a restriction, but as a broad space where colors, lines, and personal memory can breathe freely together in the same room.