Painter, caricaturist, writer, journalist and poet, born and deceased in Rio de Janeiro, considered as one of the leading figures of the Brasilean contemporary art. Born Emiliano Augusto de Albuquerque Melo, known as Di Cavalcanti, began his artist career in 1914, publishing illustrations in magazine Fon-Fon. In 1916 he participated in the exhibition “Salão dos Humoristas”, and between 1916-1920 he lived in São Paulo where he attended the Law School, which he abandoned very soon. In São Paulo he has attended the studio of Georg Elpons, german impressionist painter and by then he has made his first solo exhibition. In 1922, he became the pioneer organizer of the Modern Art Week. He has illustrated the cover of the program and of the catalogue of the exhibition which took place at Teatro Municipal and in which he has shown a series of panels and paintings of expressionist tendency. Between 1923 and 1925 di Cavalcanti lives in Paris, and attends the Ranson Academy. He meets European avantgarde artists and writers ike Picasso, Cocteau, Blaise Cendrars, Léger, Unamuno, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse and others. He travels to Italy with the intention of knowing the works of the Italian masters such as Tiziano, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Back to Brasil, Di Cavalcanti painted images of the life of the various social classes and racial groups. He painted in 1929 for the João Caetano Theater "Samba e Carnaval", considered the first modernist panel in Latin America. He exhibited in Paris, Belgium, Amsterdam, Rome, New York, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Mexico. His works are spread thoughout museums and private collections in Latin America, United States and Europe.
