Franz Weissmann

Franz Joseph Weissmann (Knittelfeld, Austria, 1911 – Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 2005) was a sculptor, draftsman, painter and teacher.

He came to Brazil in 1921. In Rio de Janeiro, between 1939 and 1941, he took courses in architecture, sculpture, painting and drawing at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes (Enba). From 1942 to 1944, he studied drawing, sculpture, modeling and casting with August Zamoyski (1893–1970). In 1945, he moved to Belo Horizonte, where he gave private lessons in drawing and sculpture. Three years later, Guignard (1896–1962) invited him to teach sculpture at the Escola do Parque, later renamed Escola Guignard. His early work was figurative. From the 1950s onward, he gradually developed a constructivist practice centered on geometric forms, which he cut and folded, using iron plates, steel wire, and aluminum in rods or sheets. He joined Grupo Frente in 1955.

The following year, he moved back to Rio de Janeiro, and in 1957 he took part in the Exposição Nacional de Arte Concreta. He was one of the founders of the Grupo Neoconcreto in 1959. That same year, he traveled to Europe and the Far East, returning to Brazil in 1965. In the 1960s, he exhibited the Amassados (Crumpled) series, made in Europe from zinc or aluminum sheets worked with hammers, clubs and cutting tools. With this series he briefly aligned himself with Informalism. He later returned to constructive tendencies. In the 1970s, he received the award for best sculptor from the Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte (APCA) and took part in the International Open-Air Sculpture Biennial in Antwerp, Belgium, and in the Venice Biennale.

He created monumental sculptures for public spaces in several Brazilian cities, such as Praça da Sé in São Paulo, Parque da Catacumba in Rio de Janeiro, and the Palácio das Artes in Belo Horizonte.