Orlando Castaño
José Orlando Castaño was born in Mutum, Minas Gerais, in 1945. He moves with his family to Belo Horizonte, in 1954. In 1966, he enters the Escola Guignard, where he remains until the following year. In 1969, he was part of the 10th São Paulo International Biennial. He traveled to Madrid in 1973, where he studied mural painting at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes in San Fernando. He then moved to Paris, and then to Germany, where in 1975 he was awarded a scholarship offered by the German government to foreign students: Deutscher Akademischer Austauch Dienst - DAAD [German Academic Exchange Service]. He attended the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, in Stuttgart, graduating in Fine Arts in 1982. During his stay in Germany (1975 to 1985) he held several individual exhibitions in different cities in that country. He returned to Brazil in December 1985. Between the 1980s and 2000s, he exhibited regularly in Brazil in art salons and collective and individual exhibitions, mainly in Belo Horizonte. In 2005, he created the scenography for the show Verossimilitude - When the Hunt and the Hunter Are the Same and received the Usiminas/Sinparc award for Best Scenographic Conception for this work. He taught at Escola Guignard from 1985 to 2005. He has the book Castaño - Situation of Painting, with text by Prof. Dr. Stéphane Huchet from the School of Fine Arts – Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), financed by Acesita and edited by Editora C/Arte, in 2006. The book deals with the life and work of the painter Orlando Castaño, as well as critical issues and theoretical about painting.
Liliane Dardot
​
Liliane Dardot was born in Belo Horizonte, graduated from EBA – UFMG, where she worked as a drawing teacher from 1968 to 1977. From 1978 to 1989 she lived in Olinda - PE, where she participated in the creation of the Oficina Guaianases de Gravura. In 1990, she returned to Belo Horizonte and taught Lithography at Escola Guignard until 1997, where he partnered in classes with Lotus Lobo in the creation of a Lithography Center at Escola Guignard, which resulted in the publication of a collective album of various prints artists and also in a collective exhibition of students at the UFMG Cultural Center.
Liliane Dardot is recognized and awarded for her work, having participated in collective exhibitions and national and international biennial exhibitions. She held individual shows in several Brazilian states. Currently lives and works in Belo Horizonte. In 2017, she was chosen to participate in the exhibition Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985, at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, traveling in 2018 to the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
Fátima Pena
​
Fátima Pena was born in Teófilo Otoni - Minas Gerais and has lived in Belo Horizonte since 1965. She holds a degree in Social Communication and a postgraduate degree in Philosophy from UFMG. She was a painting teacher at Escola Guignard from 1986 to 2007. Her encounter with the Plastic Arts happened unexpectedly, which she records in her book entitled Primeira Pessoa - Editora Cas'a'scri (2015). She dedicated herself to painting, drawing, watercolor, and eventually to engraving, and recently to ceramics. From 1990 to 1992, she created prints for Griffe Graça Ottoni. In 1995, he elaborated the panel for the Cine Belas Artes de Belo Horizonte. She held several solo and group exhibitions in Uruguay and Portugal, in addition to several Brazilian states. In May 2018, she held the exhibition Fátima Pena - Watercolors Belo Horizonte, at the Museu Mineiro, where she exhibited her watercolors in small formats and also Fine Art digital prints in large formats.
Paulo Amaral
​
Paulo Amaral was born in Belo Horizonte, in 1953. He graduated from the School of Fine Arts – Federal University of Minas Gerais - UFMG, in 1987, with an emphasis on painting and drawing. Graduated in Art Teaching Methodology, Unicesumar, 2015. Professor of Painting at Escola Guignard - UEMG from 1997 to 2020. Substitute Professor of Color at Escola de Belas Artes - UFMG in 1994. Coordinator of the School's Artistic and Museological Collection Guignard - UEMG, from 2010. In 1978, he traveled to Paris, where he studied metal engraving at the École National Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. He was part of Casa Litográfica under the coordination of Lotus Lobo (1943), between 1978 and 1982. He taught lithography, from 1978 to 1983, and painting, from 1997 to 2020, at Escola Guignard. In 2019, he held the exhibition Paintings, at Galeria Manoel Macedo. He has exhibited his artistic production in Brazil and abroad.
Humberto Guimarães
​
Humberto Guimarães was born in Sabará, Minas Gerais, in 1947. He graduated from Escola Guignard , where he was professor of drawing from 1998 to 2016. Draftsman, painter and illustrator since 1974, he earned a master's degree in Drawing at Escola de Belas Artes - Federal University of Minas Gerais. Humberto was an illustrator of several children's books by authors Márcio Sampaio, Ana Maria Machado, Ronaldo Simões Coelho, Luciana Sandroni, Vivina de Assis Viana and two books written by Paulinho Pedra Azul . He held exhibitions in Brazil and abroad. He also has several works in the collection of the Clóvis Salgado Foundation , in Belo Horizonte . He received awards in the areas of Fine Arts, highlighting Scholarship/Donation from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York (1994). And in illustration, in 2000, he received the Highly Recommendable seal from the National Foundation for Children and Youth Books (FNLIJ), Ofélia Fontes Award.
Maria do Carmo de Freitas Veneroso
​
Full professor at the UFMG School of Fine Arts, artist and researcher. Doctor in Literary Studies from the Faculty of Arts at UFMG (2000) and Master (Master of Fine Arts - MFA) from the Pratt Institute, New York, USA (1984). Bachelor of Fine Arts from EBA/UFMG (1978). Postdoctoral Fellow at Indiana University, USA (2009). Coordinates the Calligraphies and Scriptures research group. He works in the area of ​​Interarts, with an emphasis on Plastic Arts (Engraving), Theory, Criticism and History of Art. She is a member of the permanent body of the Graduate Program in Arts at the School of Fine Arts at UFMG, which he helped found, since 2001. He is a CNPq Research Productivity Fellow, member of the Brazilian Committee of Art History, of the Brazilian Association of Art Critics (ABCA) and the International Association of Word and Image Studies (IAWIS). She was a resident professor at the Institute for Advanced Transdisciplinary Studies at UFMG (2015 - 2016). She has exhibited her artistic production in Brasil and abroad. She publishes books and articles about his research in national and international newspapers and academic journals.
Thaïs Helt
Thaïs Helt nasceu em Juiz de Fora (MG), e mudou para Belo Horizonte (MG) aos 12 anos com sua família. Ingressou na Escola Guignard em 1969, e lá iniciou seu interesse pela litografia fazendo aulas com Lotus Lobo. Thaïs formou em 1976, ano em que também participou do Encontro Nacional de Artes Plásticas, no X Festival de Inverni da UFMG (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais). Em 1975 começou a lecionar no Curso Livre da Escola Guignard, convidada pelo artista Amílcar de Castro, que havia sido seu professor. Nos anos de 1976 até 1979 lecionou Educação Artística no Colégio Pitágoras. Em 1978 a artista fundou a Casa Litográfica, juntamente com Lotus Lobo, Marina Nazareth e George Helt. A Casa Litográfica era uma oficina de trabalho coletivo sobre a litografia. A Casa foi encerrada em 1982, então a artista resolveu ter um ateliê próprio. Após ter feito diversas exposições junto com outros artistas, Thaïs faz sua primeira exposição individual em 1987 na Galeria Macunaíma no Rio de Janeiro. 10 anos após a fundação da Casa Litográfica, Thaïs Helt, Marina Nazareth e Thais Guimarães fundaram a Oficina Cinco, em 1988, com o objetivo de atender artistas que tinham interesse na litografia. A artista, mesmo com seu trabalho na Oficina Cinco, seguiu fazendo seus trabalhos individuais. Recebeu, em 1991, uma bolsa de estudos no Tamarind Institute nos EUA. Em 1992 mudou-se para Nova Lima (MG), montou seu atelier individual e continuou trabalhando na Oficina Cinco. Em 1998 ingressou na Escola Guignard como professora de litografia. Cursou em 2003 a disciplina Poesia e Pintura na Faculdade de Letras da UFMG.