'Acervo 9, abstratos cósmicos' represents an important but overlooked moment in Judith Lauand’s progression as an artist. Born in Pontal, São Paulo, Lauand graduated from the Escola de Belas Artes de Araraquara in 1950, a school known for the relative freedom it allowed its students at the time, compared to the more orthodox academicism of other Brazilian art schools. Following her graduation, she produced increasingly stylised figurative paintings as well as needlepoint tapestries depicting landscape and still life scenes.

Working as a gallery monitor at the 2nd São Paulo Biennial (1953-54) she became familiar with the art of European Concretists on display, and in 1955 she returned to the 3rd Biennial as an exhibiting artist, now working as a member of Grupo Ruptura, the group of pioneering Concrete painters whose geometric abstraction came to define Brazilian modernism.

This abstracted tapestry from 1953 marks the transformative moment from Lauand’s early work to her celebrated career as Brazil’s ‘First Lady of Concretism.’ She has described the natural evolution of her work: ‘I painted a still life. Then I stood up and stepped back from the canvas to see what I had done. I saw an abstract painting.’ In contrast to this organic painting process, the deliberate and methodical act of weaving perhaps better encouraged the mathematical and logical thought involved in the geometric compositions for which is Lauand is celebrated.

In the publication 'Purity is a Myth' published by the Getty Research Institute and Getty Conservation Institution in Los Angeles in 2021, which featured another of Lauand’s tapestries on its cover, Aliza Edelman reflects on her embrace of this medium within the development of Concrete art in Brazil, employing women’s craftmanship to add a unique dimension to the movement’s ‘mechanical and depersonalized tendencies.’ The tapestry foreshadows an extended series of assemblages produced a decade later, in which Lauand incorporated domestic and traditionally feminine materials to her work. Lauand’s presence at the forefront of São Paulo’s Concrete movement combined with her attentiveness to the legacy of women’s art and craft traditions constitutes her significant contribution to the development of modernism in Brazil.

'Acervo 9, abstratos cósmicos' has been included in important retrospectives, including the major exhibition 'Judith Lauand: Concrete Detour' curated by Adriano Pedrosa at Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP), São Paulo, which marked Lauand’s 100th birthday in 2022.