Manoel dos Bonecos

Born in Cologne, Germany, in 1920. Photographer, painter and visual arts theorist, Alice came to Brazil with her father in 1934, to meet her mother who was already working in the city of São Paulo. In 1946 she won a scholarship to study photography in the United States. Returning to Brazil in 1948, performed her first major photographic work, accompanying the inspection expedition to works of Fundação Brasil Central and documenting the indigenous people of Bananal Island. She established herself as a photographer, mainly making portraits of children, with no posing or retouching, an innovative attitude. In parallel she built a significant work of documenting the city of São Paulo, especially its central area, a job originally commissioned by Pietro Maria Bardi. Alice also registered urban views of Salvador, Ouro Preto and Rio de Janeiro and portrayed the artists of the Santa Helena Group and others, like Volpi and Rebolo, in addition to patients of Juquery Psychiatric Hospital during their painting activities. Her photographic production goes on until about 1968, when she started dedicating herself entirely to painting. In 1994 she earned a PhD in Arts from the School of Communication and Arts, University of São Paulo. She died on her farm in the city of Itu, in 2013.