Claudio Tozzi

Born in São Paulo in 1944^[1], the son of Italian immigrants, Tozzi studied architecture at FAU/USP between 1963 and 1968 but never practised. At university he encountered the critic Mario Schenberg, who placed him within the Brazilian^[1] New Figuration movement, a Latin American response to abstract dominance that returned to the figure without surrendering political edge. Where American Pop Art celebrated consumer culture, Tozzi's crowded canvases documented crowds: marching, protesting, colliding. His 1967 silk-screen "Guevara vivo ou morto" sold in city squares and football stadiums.

The 1968 acrylic "Multitude" reduced a crowd to black-and-white repeated forms, fists raised, individual identities dissolved into collective gesture. That compression of bodies into pattern became his signature. During a 1969 study period in Europe he expanded into space-age imagery, producing the "Astronautas" and "Parafusos" (Bolts) series. From the mid-1970s his focus shifted toward Conceptual work exploring pigment, light and colour.

Tozzi participated in the 1965 and 1967 São Paulo Bienal, and the Tate Modern included him in its 2015–16 "The World Goes Pop" survey. His tile and mosaic panels are permanently installed at several São Paulo Metro stations, including Sé and Barra Funda, and at Rio's Maracanã station, making him one of the few artists from his generation to achieve genuine public ubiquity in Brazil.