Scarves with Licensed Works by Tarsila do Amaral
Tarsila do Amaral Scarves: Brazilian art you can wear
Tarsila do Amaral is not just a name in art history books. She is the woman who looked at Brazil and said "I want to be the painter of my country", at a time when painting was something for Europeans. Born in Capivari, in the countryside of São Paulo state, in 1886, she crossed the ocean to study in Paris, absorbed Cubism in the studios of Fernand Léger, and came back with an idea in mind: to blend what she had learned there with what she felt here. The result changed Brazilian art forever.
The Tarsila by Scarf Me collection
The Tarsila by Scarf Me collection takes this story and turns it into something you can touch, wear, and carry. It includes 64 pieces across silk scarves, kaftans, pareos, phone cases, and twillys, all licensed from the artist's original works. No generic reproductions: each print comes straight from Tarsila's canvas, with the vibrant colors and unmistakable shapes that established her as one of the greatest names of Brazilian modernism.
Works that became scarves
The name that appears most in the collection is Abaporu, and not by chance. Painted in 1928 as a birthday gift for her husband, the writer Oswald de Andrade, the painting shows a figure with enormous legs and a small head, seated before a cactus and a sun. The name comes from Tupi-Guarani and means "man who eats people." Tarsila played with the idea of cannibalism, not literal but cultural: devouring foreign influence, digesting it, and spitting it back out in a way only Brazil could. This painting inspired the Anthropophagic Movement, one of the most important currents in Brazilian art.
But the collection goes far beyond Abaporu. There is A Cuca, from 1924, born from a Brazilian folklore legend, with colors that seem taken from a dream. There is A Negra, from 1923, a portrait Tarsila painted inspired by the daughter of an enslaved woman who worked on her family's farm, considered one of the first dignified and humanized depictions of a Black woman in modern Brazilian painting. There is Morro da Favela, with its colorful houses running down the hillside, and Pão de Açúcar, with Rio de Janeiro painted in tones you won't find on any postcard.
Scarves, Pareos, Kaftans, and much more
Each piece in the collection carries one of these stories. The Abaporu double-sided scarf in silk, for example, features the full painting on one side and a detail of the statuette on the other, giving you two ways to wear a single piece. The Morro da Favela long silk kaftan turns the painting into a garment that flows with the body. The shock-resistant cases bring the art to your phone, with real protection and a print that won't peel.
Why wear a scarf featuring Tarsila do Amaral's art
Scarf Me works with silk, wool, polyester, and viscose in this collection, all with finishing checked piece by piece. Sizes range from 40x40cm to 130x200cm, so there's everything from a small neck scarf to a beach pareo. Prices start at R$ 168 (cases and twillys) and go up to R$ 3,998 for the pieces with a statuette in an exclusive box.
Wearing a Tarsila scarf isn't just a fashion statement. It's carrying a piece of Brazilian culture with you, in a piece designed to last and to be seen. It's the kind of accessory that starts conversations, because the colors catch the eye and the story behind them holds the interest.