If you had to guess, I am sure you would not say that this painting was made in 1932 because it is so contemporary in its bold colors and design. The artist is not that well known in the US. He is Flavio de Carvalho, a Brazilian polymath disrupter who was also an architect, a writer, an early proponent of performance and conceptual art and transgender culture.

His moment could be right now. Although he represented Brazil at the 1950 Venice Biennale, he did not get many projects built. But walls were not his thing in any event. He pursued the connections between art, architecture, literature and religion and fashion, once parading in downtown Sao Paulo in a puff skirt and blouse, towering over the crowd. Resolute, like Lina Bo Bardi, about the indigenous cultures of Brazil and Latin America, he incorporated their motifs into his designs and made cross culture and well as cross gender an ongoing theme.

The Definitive Ascension of Christ, 1932, Pinacoteca de Sao Paulo