Fayga Ostrower

• Name — Fayga Ostrower • Birth Name — Fayga Perla Krakowski • Born — 14 September 1920 • Birthplace — Łódź, Poland • Died — 13 September 2001 • Place of death — Rio de Janeiro, Brazil • Known for — Engraving, printing, painting, illustration • Movement — Abstract expressionism • Training — Getúlio Vargas Foundation

Fayga Ostrower was born Fayga Perla Krakowski to a Jewish family at Łódź. In 1921, the family moved to Elberfeld and Barmen in Germany, where Ostrower attended primary and secondary schools. In the early 1930s, following difficulties with the German authorities, the family sought refuge in Belgium, and emigrated to Brazil in 1934, where they took up residence in Nilópolis. Ostrower began work as a secretary while studying art at the Fine Arts Association, and in 1946 attended design classes at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation’s Brazilian Society of Fine and Graphic Arts, where she studied metal and wood engraving, and art history, with tutors Axel Leskoschek, Tomás Santa Rosa, Carlos Oswald, and Anna Levy. In 1955, she spent a year in New York through a Fulbright Scholarship, engraving under the tutelage of Stanley Hayter. Ostrower exhibited and won prizes in the international Art Biennials of São Paulo (1951 to 1967), Venice (1958 and 1962) and Mexico (1960). In 2002, the Fayga Ostrower Institute was founded in Rio de Janeiro in memory of Ostrower, to house her works and documents, and to provide for creative, fine art and interdisciplinary study.

In 1941, Fayga married Marxist activist Heinz Ostrower, both becoming naturalized in 1951. They had a son Carl Robert (b. 1949), and daughter Anna Leonor (b. 1952).

• 1951 to 1967 – São Paulo Biennial • 1957 – Modern Art in Brazil (Buenos Aires, Rosário, Santiago, Lima) • 1958 and 1962 – Venice Biennial • 1960 – Mexico Biennial • 1960 – Certame Latin American Engraving Exhibition, Buenos Aires • 1965 – Contemporary Brazilian Art (London, Vienna, Bonn) • 1965 – Contemporary Brazilian Engravers (Cornell University) • 2012 – Centro Cultural Rio de Janeiro: Diálogos

• 1955 – Pan-American Union, Washington • 1957 – San Francisco Fine Arts Museum • 1959 – Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam • 1960 – Art Institute of Chicago • 2011–12 – Museu Lasar Segall, São Paulo

• 1963 to 1966 – President of the Associação Brasileira de Artes Plásticas (Brazilian Association of Arts) • 1978 to 1988 – Director of the Brazilian committee of Unesco's International Society of Education Through Art (INSEA) • Honorary Member of the Academy of Art and Design, Florence • 1982 to 1988 – member of the Conselho Estadual de Cultura (Cultural Board of Rio de Janeiro State)

Fayga Ostrower is recorded with the occupation painter. Recorded as painter, printmaker and graphic artist. Recognition and collections. Ostrower received Fulbright Scholarship and Order of Cultural Merit (Brazil).

• Museum of Contemporary Art, University of São Paulo • Institute of Contemporary Arts, London • Victoria and Albert Museum, London • Albertina Museum, Vienna • Museum of Modern Art, New York • Fine Arts Museum, Philadelphia • Library of Congress, Washington • Art Institute of Chicago • Fayga Ostrower Institute, Rio de Janeiro • Museu de Arte Moderna, Lodz