Brazilian Mid-Century Lucite Elephant Sculpture by Abraham Palatnik for Silon

Small sculpture of an indigenous face carved in Brazilian rosewood of unknown authorship.

Large hourglass-shaped planters model "Spindel", part of a line of garden pieces designed by Swiss Willy Guhl and produced by Eternit Brasil in the 1970s. These series of fiber cemen...

Brazilian upholstered stool with structure in solid rosewood by unknown author.

Side table with solid rosewood structure and laminated rosewood top by unknown author.

Stunning mid-century candlestick made in solid Brazilian rosewood of unknown authorship. It is the shortest in the group.

Beautiful upholstered armchair with structure in Brazilian rosewood Bahia. designed by Tora Arquitetura. Preserves seal. We turn our gaze to the modern production in an integral way...

A large black lucite elephant by Abraham Palatnik. Made in Brazil in the early1970’s with its label and signed in the item. In exceptional condition i...

A very good lucite black elephant made by Abraham Palatnik in Brazil in about 1970. This one is mid sized, being 23.5cm in height. It retains its ori...

Doves bird sculpture in Lucite and acrylic by Abraham Palatnik, circa 1970.

These two young elephants have there own colored covers; one in red the other in green. They seem to search for there parents. Both youngsters are signed with "Pal". The Brazili...

Mid-century lucite toucan sculpture by Brazilian artist Abraham Palatnik, circa 1960s. Palatnik was a Pioneer in the Kinetic and Op Art movement. This p...

Abraham Palatnik (1928-2020) Sculpture "Elephant", c. 1960 Vintage label (made in Brazil). Polyester resin and pigment in black. Kinetic art - Beautiful and rare polyester resin sculpture from the HOME AND FARM collection representing an elephant signed in the base. This sculpture is part of the series of animal sculptures that Abraham Palatnik made from the 1960s, in small format, they are small jewels of kinetic art, a movement of which he was one of the pioneers. "Born in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, in 1928 to a family of Russian Jews, Palatnik moved with his family to Tel Aviv (then Palestine) when he was four years old. He attended Montefiori Technical School, where he specialized in internal combustion engines, and studied art under the tutelage of the painter Haaron Avni and the sculptor Sternshus at the Municipal Institute of Art. When he returned to Brazil in 1948, his output consisted mainly of figurative and landscape paintings and charcoal drawings. However, his encounters with the complex works made by schizophrenic patients at the Pedro II Psychiatric Hospital, where he taught painting workshops alongside Almir Mavignier and Ivan Serpa, caused him to abandon his early approach to traditional image-making: “I decided to start all over from scratch,” Palatnik said. “The discipline from the school, the studio, was no longer of any use.” Freed from the perceived restrictions of his training, Palatnik became closely associated with Grupo Frente, a movement started by Serpa and rooted in geometric abstraction. He used his knowledge of engineering and mechanics as well as his interest in natural forces to build his first Kinechromatic work. Titled Azul e roxo em seu primeiro movimento (Blue and Purple in First Movement), 1949, the piece debuted at the inaugural São Paulo Bienal in 1951. “In reality, it was luck that got me into the biennial,” Palatnik said in a 1986 interview. “At first, my machine was rejected, because it wasn’t a painting, a sculpture, a drawing, or a print.” The piece, which eventually gained entry, shocked the biennial’s grand prize jury, who gave Palatnik an honorable mention, calling his work an “important manifestation of modern art.” By 1969, he had participated in seven more editions of the international exhibition. Palatnik would also present work in the 1964 Venice Biennale, the 1966 Biennial of Córdoba, and the 1997 and 2005 editions of the Mercosul Biennial. His art was featured in significant exhibitions on kinetic art, including “Mouvement 2” (1964) at Denise René gallery in Paris; “Lumière, Mouvement et Optique” (1965) at the Brussels Palace of Fine Arts; “Kinetic Art” (1966) at the Museum of San Francisco; and, more recently, “Delirious: Art at the Limits of Reason, 1950–1980” (2017) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and “The Other Trans-Atlantic: Kinetic & Op Art in Central & Eastern Europe and Latin America 1950s–1970s” (2018) at Sesc Pinheiros in São Paulo. A major retrospective, “Abraham Palatnik—The Reinvention of Painting,” was staged at several venues across Brazil, including the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Rio de Janeiro (2017); the Fundação Iberê...