Sem título [Untitled] The emergence of the Concrete art movements in Brazil in the early 1950s encouraged artists like Willys de Castro, a graphic and theater designer active in São Paulo, to experiment with geometric abstraction. Here Castro avoids the mathematical rigor favored by concrete artists in order to play freely with form and color, which resulted in the creation of a more fluid sense of space. The lighter, neutral tones in the center of this painting suggest depth, while the darker, interlocking shapes anchored in each corner emphasize the flatness of the plane. This preoccupation with the ambiguity of perception became a key aspect in Castro’s later production. Willys de Castro Uberlândia, Brazil, 1926 - 1988, São Paulo, Brazil painting PG2014.26