Guilherme de Almeida House Museum, São Paulo, Brazil

The Casa Guilherme de Almeida is a museum biographical and literary in the city of São Paulo, in Brazil. Founded in 1979, it is a state public museum, subordinated to the State Secretary of Culture of São Paulo, managed in partnership with a private organization, with funds from the treasury. The museum is installed in the residence where Guilherme de Almeida lived from 1946 until the year of his death (1969), known as Casa da Colina, located in the Pacaembu neighborhood.

The museum aims to conserve, organize and exhibit the bibliographic, historical, artistic and documentary collection that belonged to the poet and translator Guilherme de Almeida, as well as to stimulate and carry out research and critical studies on his work and to disseminate the literature and national authors in general. It also maintains the Center for Literary Translation Studies, responsible for organizing and teaching courses and other activities related to the theory and practice of translation.

Casa Guilherme de Almeida has a collection of approximately 15,300 pieces, in which its large and diverse library stands out, as well as a significant collection of works of art by great exponents of Brazilian modernism (such as Tarsila do Amaral, Anita Malfatti, Di Cavalcanti, Lasar Segall and Victor Brecheret), many of which were offered to the poet by the authors themselves. The collection also includes decorative objects, clothing, textiles, commendations, numismatics, jewelry, records and other objects that belonged to Guilherme and his wife, Belkiss Barrozo de Almeida (Baby de Almeida).

Overview
The Casa Guilherme de Almeida biographical-literary museum is run by the State of São Paulo’s Department of Culture and Poiesis – Civil Society Organization for Culture. Inaugurated in March 1979, the museum that was also the home of Guilherme de Almeida from 1946 until his death in 1969 houses nowadays objects from the private collection of this poet, linguist, journalist and lawyer who is recognized as one of the intellectual founders of the Brazilian modernist movement.

The collection on exhibition at the Casa Guilherme de Almeida contains many works of art (engravings, sketches, sculptures and paintings) bestowed on the poet by artists such as Anita Malfatti, Tarsila do Amaral, Emiliano di Cavalcanti, Lasar Segall and Victor Brecheret; all of whom contributed greatly to the Brazilian modernist movement.

The museum also includes the writer’s extensive and diversified library, a collection of newspaper and magazines and photographic archives as well as the set of rare furniture and ornaments carefully selected and acquired by Guilherme and his wife, Baby de Almeida, throughout their life. Visitors can also browse artifacts related to one of São Paulo’s most important historical movements and one in which the poet was a key figure, the Revolução Constitucionalista (Constitutionalist Revolution, 1932).

The Casa Guilherme de Almeida was established not only to preserve historical artifacts related to the poet’s life, it also strives to disseminate his works through the intensive cultural program designed to encompass all Guilherme’s diverse interests and activities; courses, workshops, lectures, round tables and recitals provide the opportunity for visitors to learn more about his life and works. Guilherme de Almeida was productive in many areas, but it was the renown he gained for the excellence of his poetry translations that motivated the museum to create a Center for Literary Translation Studies, which offers a range of activities related to translation theory and practice. After extensive renovation and refurbishment, the museum was reopened to the public.

History
Inaugurated in March 1979, the museum-house – installed in the residence where he lived from 1946 until the year of his death – houses the collection composed of objects that belonged to the poet, translator, journalist and lawyer from São Paulo Guilherme de Almeida (1890-1969), one of the mentors of the Brazilian modernist movement.

Guilherme de Almeida
Guilherme de Almeida (1890-1969), poet, linguist, journalist, translator, film critic and lawyer was a main figure on the cultural life of Brazil during his life and is recognized as one of the intellectual founders of the Brazilian modernist movement. Guilherme’s literary debut came in 1916 with Mon Coeur Balance and Leur Âme, two theater plays written in collaboration with Oswald de Andrade. His first poetry book, Nós, was published in 1917. In 1922 he played a major role in the Modern Art Week in Sao Paulo, and helped founding the Klaxon magazine (the movement’s main publication) as part of the editorial team.

Guilherme de Almeida followed, at first, the profession of his father, Estevam de Almeida, graduating in law from the Faculty of Law of Largo de São Francisco in 1912. Parallel to his performance as a journalist (he was editor of the newspapers O Estado de S. Paulo and Diário de São Paulo, director of Folha da Manhã and Folha da Noite and founder of Jornal de São Paulo), began his literary career in 1917, with the publication of the poetry book Nós. Shortly thereafter, he participated in the 1922 Modern Art Week, created the cover and helped maintain Klaxon magazine.

Guilherme de Almeida was committed to spreading ideas for the renewal of national art and literature, as shown by the books Meu and Raça (1925), faithful to the Brazilian theme and to national sentiment. However, his political performance (he was an active participant and combatant in the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932, earning the epithet “the Poet of 32″), his close collaboration with the public authorities (author of the Anthem of Bandeirantes and heraldist) and a progressive return to classical matrices of poetry and the concern with formal perfection (Camoniana, 1956; Pequeno Cancioneiro, 1957) would lead the later critic to relegate his artistic production to a second level, labeling him as ” conservative “.

Nevertheless, Guilherme de Almeida was a poet with a broad command of the science of verse and language, as well as an expert translator (Paul Géraldy, Rabindranath Tagore, Charles Baudelaire, Sophocles, Jean-Paul Sartre, etc.). He was a member of the Paulista Academy of Letters, of the Historical and Geographical Institute of São Paulo, of the Galician Studies Seminar of Santiago de Compostela, of the Institute of Coimbra and of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Casa da Colina and the museum
Casa Guilherme de Almeida, considered the first biographical and literary museum in the city of São Paulo, operates in the old residence where the poet and his wife, Baby de Almeida, lived for almost three decades. The townhouse of approximately 240 m 2, located on Macapá Street, in the Perdizes neighborhood, was designed by architect Silvio Jaguaribe Eckmanin 1944 and its construction was completed in 1946, the same year that the couple started to inhabit it. The poet’s choice to live in a neighborhood that had been sparsely inhabited and relatively far from the center, intrigued his friends, but it was precisely isolation that pleased Guilherme de Almeida, as can be inferred from a composition inspired by the property, which he nicknamed Casa da Colina: ” The place was so high and so alone that I didn’t even have to look up to look at the sky, nor lower my thoughts to think about me”.

During the period in which it was inhabited by Guilherme and Baby, Casa da Colina became a kind of intellectual refuge, a meeting point for important members of the São Paulo artistic-literary community, such as the writers Oswald de Andrade and António Botto, the sculptor Victor Brecheret and painters Tarsila do Amaral, Anita Malfatti and Di Cavalcanti. Not infrequently, these regulars offered the couple works of their own to decorate the residence, transforming it into a kind of microcosm of the São Paulo avant-garde.

After the poet’s death in 1969, the state government, then represented by Abreu Sodré, acquired from Baby de Almeida the entire bibliographic, artistic, documentary and historical collection that belonged to the couple, as well as the residence and its furniture, already with the intention to transform the property into a museum, preserving the original decoration and layout of the pieces. The museum, however, has only been opened a decade later, on 13 of March of 1979, during the government of Paulo Egydio Martins, and legally established on 1 June of 1983, the management André Franco Montoro, under the name “Museum of Literature – Casa Guilherme de Almeida” (ML-CGA).

The museum’s objectives are: the constitution, maintenance and dissemination of a collection of Brazilian literature and its authors; the preservation of Guilherme de Almeida’s memory, through the conservation, organization and exposure of his belongings and the encouragement to carry out critical studies on his work; the promotion of educational and cultural dissemination activities related to Brazilian literature.

In September 2006, due to a series of structural problems, the museum was closed to public visitation, having only reopened on December 11, 2010, after a renovation paid for by the Secretariat of Culture. The museum was equipped with an elevator and suitable for the reception of people with physical disabilities and reduced mobility. During the period in which it was closed, the museum held cultural activities in other spaces, such as Casa das Rosas, on Avenida Paulista. Following the new orientation of its cultural policy, the state government transferred the management of the museum to a social organization of culture (private associations subsidized by the public power) called “Poiesis”, also in charge of managing the Casa das Rosas, the Library of São Paulo and the Portuguese Language Museum.

On August 24, 2010, Municipal Law No. 15,258, authored by Chico Macena, named as Praça Casa da Colina a street in the Pacaembu neighborhood, located between Tefé, Olavo Freire and Tácito de Almeida streets.

Since March 2014, Casa Guilherme de Almeida has a complementary space at Rua Cardoso de Almeida, 1943, in the vicinity of the museum. The Annex houses part of the administration, technical reserve, archival collection, book restoration laboratory and classrooms for courses and other events. An important achievement of the museum, which can carry out its activities with better infrastructure and follow its path of consolidation and growth of its actions.

Collection
Casa Guilherme de Almeida houses a collection of approximately 15,300 items, including works of art, furniture, decorative objects, clothing, textiles, commendations, numismatics, books, documents, newspaper shops, photographs, records, etc.

Particularly relevant is the collection of visual arts (150 pieces), composed of paintings, sculptures, and drawings by great exponents of Brazilian modernism, such as Anita Malfatti, Tarsila do Amaral, Di Cavalcanti, Lasar Segall, Antonio Gomide and Samson Flexor. A bronze by Victor Brecheret called Sóror Dolorosa (the same name as a poem by Guilherme) stands out, exposed during the Modern Art Week of 1922, a Baby’s head, sculpted by William Zadig, and a bust of Guilherme, by Joaquim Figueiras. There is also a group of Brasilians, highlighting some lithographs by Johann Moritz Rugendas.

The collections of furniture (68 objects) and decorative arts (490 objects) have several relevant pieces, highlighting the silverware, originally from Brazil, Portugal, Holland and England, especially a 17th century teapot, inlaid of cut and cut rock crystal, which would have belonged to Maurício de Nassau, as well as porcelain, tapestries, jewelry, etc.

The library has about 5,500 books, including almost all of Guilherme de Almeida’s work, Brazilian, Portuguese and other literature, publications on cinema and arts in general, legal books, publications of historical and architectural interest. Among the rare books, there is a 17th century parchment volume, a copy of the fifth reprint of Ulisses by James Joyce and first editions with dedications by writers such as Oswald de Andrade, Mário de Andrade and Guimarães Rosa.

The archive contains the hemeroteca, correspondence, albums, honors, old maps, photographs, diaries, manuscripts and other belongings by Guilherme de Almeida, as well as testimonies of his participation in the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932.

Iconographic collection
The collection on exhibition at the Casa Guilherme de Almeida contains many works of art (engravings, sketches, sculptures and paintings) bestowed on the poet by artists such as Anita Malfatti, Tarsila do Amaral, Emiliano di Cavalcanti, Lasar Segall and Victor Brecheret; all of whom contributed greatly to the Brazilian modernist movement.

The library
The museum includes the writer’s extensive and diversified library, a collection of newspaper and magazines, photographic archives as well as the set of rare furniture and ornaments carefully selected and acquired by Guilherme and his wife, Baby de Almeida, throughout their lives.

The rooms of the House
The townhouse of approximately 240 m², situated at Macapá street, in Perdizes neighborhood, was designed by architect Silvio Jaguaribe Ekman in 1944 and its construction was completed in 1946, the same year that the couple Guilherme and Baby went to inhabit it.

Fragment from the chronic “Staircase from my Mansarda”
“Steep, narrow, dark and curved is the staircase that goes up to my mansard. Capable of taking the breath away of old folks, never, though, has it threatened my battered heart. On the contrary, it leads me lightly, as if I’m winged, like the angels on Jacob’s ladder”. Guilherme de Almeida

Museum programming
Guilherme de Almeida’s many fields of work define the activities which are conducted here at the museum.

Center for Literary Translation Studies
Due to this poet’s importance as a translator, the Casa Guilherme de Almeida museum associates to its educational and museological activities the role of a Study Center for Literary Translation. This allows a broader public to acknowledge the specificity of literary and poetic translation. The Study Center promotes literary translation through teaching, research, editorial publishing and special events.

Activities

Transfusão
Annual Meeting of Literary Translators, promoting knowledge exchange between authors and translators from Brazil and other countries. Internship Program. A partnership with Birmingham University, which offers undergraduate students the chance to spend some time in São Paulo working at the museum, translating Guilherme de Almeida to English. Partnerships – Our Study Center collaborates with academic and non-academic institutions on the fields of education and training, research and development of translation activity. Among these institutions are: National Library Foundation (FBN), Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Federal Fluminense University (UFF). Formative program for Literary Translators that allows students to familiarize themselves with theoretical and historical aspects of translation, and with translation practice.

Cinematographos
“Cinematographos” is the original name for the column Guilherme de Almeida wrote, daily, on O Estado de S. Paulo, one of Brazil’s biggest newspapers. This column went on from the 20’s to the 40’s and establishes Guilherme as a pioneer on film critic in our country. During 16 years he wrote over a thousand movie critics about many themes. With an intense and diverse program the Cinematographos Screening Room is here to revisit this activity from Guilherme, proposing debates, diffusion and reflections about movies and their many aspects.

Other activities
Casa Guilherme de Almeida and its Annex promote an intense program in the areas of education and dissemination of culture, some of our highlights are: – Peripatéticos meetings: inspired by the Aristotelian concept of “learning while strolling” – Bloomsday: traditional literary festival in honor of the work of Irish writer James Joyce. – Guilherme de Almeida Week: In July, the month of birth and death of the poet, the museum hosts a week of events focused on his literary work. – Research and Analysis Group of Guilherme’s works. – Book Restoration Workshop.

Visitation
Visits to Guilherme de Almeida House – always led by educators – can be scheduled or spontaneous, and are always free. The Guilherme de Almeida House is prepared to receive people with physical, hearing or visual disabilities, offering artistic and literary workshops as complementary activities to visitors.