The popular culture of Maranhão is the subject of the exhibitions at Casa de Nhozinho, a museum installed in an imposing house built in the XNUMXth century located on Rua Portugal, one of the most beautiful places in the city.
The museum's name is a tribute to the great artisan from Maranhão, Antônio Bruno Nogueira, known as Nhozinho, who stood out for the manufacture of ox wheels made of wood.
The house offers visitors a sample of the region's cultural production techniques, in addition to storing pieces that reveal the customs and way of life of the people of Maranhão, since the beginning.
There is a small shop on site to sell regional products.
The exhibition at Casa de Nhozinho was based on the four elements of nature.
On the ground floor, in the Water Room, there is a collection directly related to rivers and the sea, such as canoes and fishing nets; while the Salão Terra portrays man's relationship with the land, configured in agriculture and in the construction of his house.
In this space, the Pátio Verde was also set up, which highlights the man/nature relationship.
On the first floor, the visitor has access to Pavilhão Fogo, where the entire collection of handicrafts such as popular toys, miniatures, recycled materials, fabrics and the adjunct collections of Nhozinho, Domingos Vieira Filho, José Cupertino, Vítor Gonçalves, João do Farol and Beto Bittencourt, in addition to indigenous material culture and objects made of metals.
The second floor, which gives a second option of entry through Rua de Nazaré, was called Pavilhão Ar. Here, visitors have access to the Galeria do Cofo, which is used for temporary exhibitions.
In the Casa de Nhozinho collection you can find toys made of wood, canarana dolls, loofah and cloth, hammocks made from hand looms very common in the daily lives of people from Maranhão, bobbin lace, embroidery, products made with natural fibers of buriti, tucum, guarimã, carnaúba and babaçu, cofos (an artifact very present in the state's culture, which has many uses, such as transporting food), ceramics and materials from indigenous culture.
about Nhozinho
Antônio Bruno Pinto Nogueira, known as Nhozinho, was the son of Sebastião José Nogueira and Marcolina Pinto Nogueira. Born on May 17, 1904, in Bacuripanã, in the municipality of Cururupu (MA), he was an exceptional artist. As a child, he began his career in popular art by making kites (kites), animals, trees, etc.
At the age of 12, the disease began to manifest itself, which would deform his legs, arms and hands, sacrificing his legs and, partially, his vision.
Thus, he used his art to manufacture a wooden cart, which he started to move around.
Nhozinho lived on Jacinto Maia street, where he made 50 seamstresses (boxes to store sewing material) – ordered by a shop in a sewing machine factory.
Initially he worked with wood, but later he started working with the more malleable buriti, with which he truly built his greatest work – the famous bumba-meu-boi wheels, included in the collections of national and foreign collectors, having appeared in an exhibition of folk art performed at the Domus Center in Milan, Italy, in 1972.
The figures of Nhozinho's bumba-meu-boi had a soul, which he expressed in his facial features, in his gestures, in the most spontaneous and natural attitudes. Nhozinho died in São Luís, on May 23, 1974, in the Germany neighborhood.
Visitation: House of Nhozinho, Rua Portugal, 185, Praia Grande. Open Tuesday to Saturday, 9am to 18pm and Sundays from 9am to 13pm. Closed on Mondays. Free entrance.
São Luís do Maranhão and Northeast Tourism Guide.
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