Ciccillo Matarazzo

Brazilian industrialist

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Portuguese. (July 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Portuguese Wikipedia article at [[:pt:Ciccillo Matarazzo]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|pt|Ciccillo Matarazzo}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Francisco Antonio Paulo Matarazzo Sobrinho (February 20, 1898 – April 16, 1977), known as Ciccillo Matarazzo, was a Brazilian industrialist, founder of São Paulo Museum of Modern Art and São Paulo Art Biennial.

Early life and family

Matarazzo was born in São Paulo. He was the son of millionaire Andrea Matarazzo, one of the brothers of Count Francesco Matarazzo. Matarazzo was cousin of Earl Francisco Matarazzo II, Ciccillo.

He interrupted his engineering course in Europe at the outbreak of the First World War.

Career

The creator of the São Paulo Art Biennial and entrepreneur, Matarazzo became the main engine of modern art in Brazil. His name was present in all the events that streamlined the state capital in the 1950s, as the Brazilian Comedy Theater and Film Company Vera Cruz. In 1948, he founded São Paulo Museum of Modern Art and, in 1951, created the Biennial, in a style similar to that of Venice Biennale, which he visited several times. With the help of his first wife, Yolanda Penteado, Matarazzo could house a makeshift shed, hundreds of works from different countries she visited and convinced them to participate. In 1954, with the celebration of the fourth centenary of the city, which was also part of its organizing committee, the Biennale was able to gather important works such as Guernica, Picasso's huge mural. Powerful, authoritarian and possessive, until 1975, Ciccillo was solely responsible for the exposure, imposing its determinations and creating numerous areas of friction. However, at his own expense, was admittedly irreplaceable.