Maria Martins

Hailed as the “sculptor of the tropics,” Maria Martins was a pioneering sculptor whose hybrid, metamorphic works bridged Surrealism, myth, and the cultural plurality of the Americas. Born in 1894 in Campanha, Brazil, she drew on Amazonian cosmologies, Afro-Brazilian traditions and Indigenous folklore to forge a powerful personal symbolism that she translated into sinuous, creaturelike bronzes that blur the boundaries between human, vegetal and animal forms.

In the years surrounding the Second World War, Maria Martins forged a sculptural language unlike any other in modern art. Living between Rio de Janeiro and Washington, D.C., where her husband Carlos Martins served as Brazilian Ambassador to the United States, Martins became an extraordinary conduit between hemispheres—grounding the mythic vitality of Brazil’s Amazonian landscape within the formal experiments of European modernism. Under the tutelage of Jacques Lipchitz, she began to transform Surrealist principles into a distinctly Brazilian mythology of metamorphosis, sensuality, and struggle. Working in the company of exiled avant-garde figures such as André Breton, Max Ernst, and Yves Tanguy, she embraced the idea that sculpture could channel dislocation, erotic tension, and desire into powerful acts of creative resistance.

Martins’s ascent in the Surrealist movement crystallized in New York in 1943, when the Valentine Gallery’s joint exhibition Maria: New Sculptures and Mondrian: New Paintings proved a commercial success for her—even financing her discreet purchase and anonymous donation of Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie to MoMA. The show marked a decisive shift in her practice, as recognizable figures gave way to hybrid vegetal-human forms rooted in Amazonian mythology, translating Surrealism’s themes of desire, fear, and transformation into a distinctly Latin American idiom. At the same time, Martins helped lay the groundwork for Brazil’s modern art infrastructure; in 1951 she played a key role in conceiving what would become the Bienal de São Paulo, positioning her as both a trailblazing sculptor and a champion of art across the Americas.

Once met with skepticism in Brazil, Martins’s sculptures now represent the moment when Brazilian modernism embraced its most daring and poetic voice. She played a critical role in internationalizing modern Brazilian sculpture and remains a pivotal figure in the re-evaluation of women Surrealists.

Today, Martins’ work is housed in many prominent institutional collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the São Paulo Museum of Art.