Wright Auction

Born and raised in Belmonte, Brazil, José Zanine Caldas was an artist, designer, and architect who became a major figure of the Brazilian modern design movement. At twenty years old, Zanine Caldas established his Rio de Janeiro workshop specializing in the production of architectural scale models for top architects, including Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa.

In the late 1940s, Zanine Caldas and two business partners established the furniture company Móveis Artísticos Z, which offered plywood furniture at prices accessible to the broader public. He would later depart this venture and return to his native Bahia, where he began to create furniture dubbed Móveis Denúncia, or “protest furniture." This body of work responded to the destruction of the region's forests, at once making use of discarded wood when possible and drawing attention to the issue. For these pieces, Zanine Caldas took inspiration from the local craft tradition of carving boats and furniture from trees, and would make sculptural works from native woods—sometimes hewn from a single log. An environmentalist at heart who wrote extensively on sustainability, Zanine Caldas tried to use trees that were already felled or plant a new tree to replace each one he used.

Zanine Caldas’s works have been shown at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and throughout Brazil. In 2015, he was featured in the Americas Society’s traveling exhibition Moderno: Design for Living, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela 1940-1978.