1919-1977 · Bahia, Brazil
A Brazilian cook who swapped brushes for wool and kept over a hundred threaded needles going at once, building what she called her second sight, stitch by stitch.
The life
Born in Bahia, Santos Reinbolt worked as a domestic cook, eventually for the family whose surname she adopted, in the hills near Petrópolis. She began painting in her forties, and when her employer discouraged it she moved to wool, working at night on burlap stretched like canvas. Recognition came slowly in her lifetime and massively after it: the 2021 São Paulo Bienal and a landmark MASP exhibition in 2022, A Head Full of Planets, placed her at the centre of Brazilian art history.
The work
Quadros de lã, wool pictures: landscapes, kitchens, plantations and crowds built from tens of thousands of short stitches that shimmer like brushwork. The needles stayed threaded in their hundreds so no colour would ever interrupt a thought.
Why we love them
Denied the brush, she invented a better one. Institutional obstacles have rarely been embroidered over so beautifully.
Go deeper
- Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
- The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.
Kindred spirits
Marguerite Sirvins1890-1957, Saint-Alban, France
Consuelo González Amézcua1903-1975, Del Rio, Texas, USA
← All 46 artists in the field guide
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