Brazilian art of the last century—especially modernism, concretism and neoconcretism—is the prime focus of art dealer and collector Paulo Kuczynski, who has spent the last fifty years contributing to the formation of private and institutional collections in Brazil and abroad.     

 

Kuczynski trained his eye to identify the standout works from each artist’s most fertile period—as we know, the artist’s creative “sacred fire” does not burn all life long. And it was thanks to this keen perception that some of the most relevant art by Volpi, Pancetti, Segall, Frans Krajcberg, Lygia Clark, Cildo Meirelles, Tarsila, Ismael Nery, Di Cavalcanti and Guignard, among others, found its way into important collections.    

 

Square one in Kuczynski’s career, the work of Alfredo Volpi has accompanied him since the 1960s, when he first sold one of Volpi’s canvases. After handling other Volpi paintings for clients, Kuczynski became a fervent admirer of the artist’s oeuvre and set about forming his own private collection. In short, Volpi, with whom Kuczynski maintained a close friendship, making frequent visits to his studio over the course of two decades, lies at the root of his dual activity as collector and marchand.

 

In 1974, Paulo Kuczynski formed a partnership with Gérard Loeb, operating out of an art dealership on Alameda Lorena, São Paulo. Fifty years later, still at the same address, the gallery reopens to public visitation, significantly expanded after the incorporation of an adjacent lot.   

 

Among the most recent of Paulo Kuczynski's innumerable acquisitions and sales, exhibitions and publications over the last fifty years, we would mention the 2019 sale of Tarsila do Amaral’s A Lua (The Moon) to MoMA. The painting, which dates to 1928, was the museum’s first acquisition of one of the artist's works, and it placed her squarely among the leading names in international modernism. In 2023, with “A coleção imaginária” (The Imaginary Collection), an exhibition held at the Tomie Ohtake Institute in São Paulo, Kuczynski presented a panorama of Brazilian art featuring only pieces that had passed through his hands. The following year, he repatriated Segall’s A viúva (The Widow), confiscated by the Nazis in 1937 and considered lost until it reappeared in Paris decades later.

Managed by Paulo Kuczynski, Anita Kuczynski and Alexandre Santos Silva, PK Galeria de Arte, now larger than ever, continues to offer artworks that underscore the marchand’s reputation for seeking out the very best works by some of the leading lights in the history of Brazilian art.