Euclides Francisco Amâncio, plastic artist, cartoonist, signwriter, poster artist, painter, universally recognized as Bajado, was born on December 9, 1912, in the municipality of Maraial, in the state of Pernambuco.
The nickname Bajado appeared in childhood because of a joke, during a jogo do bicho (an illegal gambling, lottery-type game), his favorite pastime.
Bajado moved to Catende, another municipality in Pernambuco, as a teenager, working as a helper and painter of posters for western movies, where he stayed until 1930.
Four years later, he moved to Recife, where he got a job as a signer of posters and machine operator at Cine Olinda, a position he held until 1950.
In his spare time, he painted signs, facades and interiors of commercial stores, restaurants and taverns, ornamenting them with figures or composing panels and pictures.
The artist paid great tribute to the Carnival group Donzelinhos dos Milagres, which was terminating its carnival celebrations, painting on the wall of its headquarters the verses: “The sea that took the beach, also took Donzelinhos.”
The taste for art manifested when Bajado portrayed the carnival clubs of Olinda, Pernambuco, Pitombeira dos Quatro Cantos, Elefante, O Homem da Meia-Noite, Cariri, Vassourinhas, as well as frevo rasgado in Ribeira, Largo do Amparo, Varadouro, Praça do Carmo.
In 1964, along with some professional friends, he started the Ribeira Art Movement, in Olinda, where he began to exhibit his works.
Among a mixture of colors and paints, Bajado was able to reproduce countless canvases about the daily life, suffering, emotions and culture of the people of Pernambuco.
The artist had a calm and playful temperament. It flowed in art, with the simplicity of a humble man. He was considered a primitive artist, inserted in the style of contemporary art. His artistic tendency was the freedom of aesthetics, common in modern art, and his works portrayed carnival revelries, as well as reverenced politicians and illustrious personalities of Pernambuco society: Agamenon Magalhães, President Jânio Quadros, General Teixeira Lott, among others.
In the 1970s, an Italian tourist, Giuseppe Baccaro, when seeing his oil paintings displayed in homes and commercial establishments in Olinda, was impressed by the artistic primitivism of the painter who signed his works as follows: “Bajado an artist from Olinda”. Contacting him, he launched himself as a promoter and administrator of his works.
As a result, a few months later, his first exhibitions and shows began to appear in Recife, Casa da Cultura, Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Caixa Econômica Federal, Lions Club, Cabanga Iate Clube.
New opportunities continued to arise, this time for the artist to exhibit in other Brazilian capitals such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasília, Curitiba, Florianópolis, Porto Alegre and Vitória. From abroad, Bajado received several invitations to show his works. In this sense, he started an artistic marathon in France, passing through Italy, Spain, Holland and Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic.
In 1994, on the threshold of his 80th birthday, Bajado was honored with an international show at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, with the participation of several international artists.
Restrained, despite his fame and artistic talent, he always lived humbly. His greatest pleasure in life was the expression of his primitive art, the joy of his people.
Bajado spent his last days watching old movies on television and remembering the adventures of his youth. The plastic artist died in 1996, at the age of 84, in his residence located at Rua do Amparo, No. 186, Olinda, a property that was donated to him by Baccaro, his Italian dealer.
Recife, November 17, 2003.
sources consulted
BAJADO. Foto nesse texto. Disponível em: <http://www.onordeste.com/portal/bajado/>. Acesso em 9 ago. 2016.
HOMEM, Selênio. Pureza na arte e na vida. Diario de Pernambuco, Recife, 10 jul. 1994. Caderno Viver, p. D-1.
MOURA, Ivana. Bajado: há 77 anos amando o futebol, o carnaval e o povo. Diario de Pernambuco, Recife, 3 abr. 1990. Caderno Viver, p. D-1.
how to quote this text
MACHADO, Regina Coeli Vieira. Bajado. In: PESQUISA Escolar. Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, 2003. Available from: https://pesquisaescolar.fundaj.gov.br/pt-br/artigo/bajado/. Accessed: day month year. (Ex.: Aug 6. 2020.)