Born Harolto Boechat Alves, Victorino created art the way I breathe.
He always had a sketch pad and a miniature water color palette with him if he wasn’t at his easel.
In 2012 we published his authorized biography, Victorino, A Lifetime of Color and Brushes. Including family photos and anecdotes, the author provides insight into Victorino’s paintings. From childhood recollections on a Brazilian coffee plantation, to a first job in Rio de Janeiro, the bold move to New York and a successful career that did not protect him from heartache and loss. Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, Victorino built a new life based on art and painting. With the wisdom of experience, his work reflects love, poetry, tragedy & soul without self-pity or sentimentality.
Victorino and his wife were friends with my parents. Their oldest son was my age and we were classmates from kindergarten through high school graduation. Victorino was the coolest dad because he was an artist. When my father would show up for a gathering in a suit or dress slacks and a button down shirt, Victorino arrived in jeans and a denim jacket.
The relationship shifted when I was in college and my friend’s youngest sister, Monique, fell ill over the Christmas break. When everyone else returned to campus, I was able to continue visiting because I commuted to college. I started hanging out for a daily visit with Monique and got to know her parents as my friends rather than the friends of my parents.
Victorino retired from his day job on Madison Avenue as an advertising executive to be home with Monique in 1983. He never went back. When Monique died Art sustained him.
His early paintings were often of friends and family. Two historic events inspired many of his later paintings: the first was the 1992 Earth Summit and Global Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the second was 9/11. His work captured the hope and the horror of those two momentous events.
Years later while visiting Victorino’s 2005 exhibition at The Barn in Ridgewood, NJ we started talking about how my marketing degree could be useful in promoting his work and I became his agent, archivist and biographer.
We built a website, produced a video, and catalogued all of his work. A friend hosted the website, another friend made the video and all of his friends came together to celebrate his oeuvre.
But fate stepped in when a 2007 house fire caused smoke damage to much of the collection. While the house was being worked on the surviving paintings were relocated to his summer studio which was in the original carriage house. An electrical fire in 2008 damaged much of what had survived the first fire.
There are several dozen pieces around the world that never were exposed to the smoke damage nor electrical fire. Still more paintings were partially restored by the insurance company. Perhaps the most poignant are the paintings that could not be recovered. Blistered, cracked or torn, yet beautiful in a way that those of us who were privileged to know him can truly appreciate.
Undaunted, Victorino persisted. Art would be his strength. His biography was published on the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit! Victorino lived a long and rich life punctuated with heart wrenching losses.
I built a Facebook page and published photos of Victorino’s paintings when the server housing his website was decommissioned and hope you will visit to view them.
PLEASE share your personal stories about your friendship with Victorino and any paintings you have already added to your collection!
Christine Heinicke 