Jardim Botânico 1 (Botanic-Garden 1)

“Iberês encounter with Guignard was of substantial importance in his life. Iberê has said that Guignard was his private tutor. [...]
Also in 1942, Iberê participated actively in his classes and, based on them, his work began to show transformations. Light, color and transparency irradiate from his drawings, washes and oils. At Guignard's encouragement, the artist began graphic experiments which would become instrumental to his craft. Many of these were in drypoint and burin, resources which favor the apprenticeship of firmer incisions onto the copper plate. Various possibilities of drawing intersect with it, at times short and constant, as in Botanic Garden 1 [...]. All these works provide early indication of a quality that would become constant in Iberê's work - the idea of synthesis: ‘I always paid attention to synthesis in classical painting [...]. For me, an image must achieve the fullness of its possibilities for growth (or expansion), for if I imprison it within a regular outline, the remaining figure becomes, in my opinion, niggardly and descriptive'.
Various matrixes of this period were worked on both front and verso. The artist's decision bears witness to his insistence on multiple experiments, which he then considered, even if they were signed, as experimental proofs [...].
Many matrixes from this period were stored by lberê in paper wrappers, on the outer part of which he wrote: ‘Apprenticeship phase’, attesting to his own awareness of this stage of his work.”
Mônica Zielinsky, Iberê Camargo: catálogo raisonné (São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2006), 39-41.