Carlos Prado earned his degree in architecture from the Escola Politécnica de São Paulo in the late 1920s, and then traveled to Europe to specialize in urban planning. He took an interest in painting and, after returning to São Paulo, in the early 1930s, he set up a studio on Rua Pedro Lessa, next to the Santa Ifigênia viaduct, with Flávio de Carvalho (1899–1973), Antônio Gomide (1895–1967), and Di Cavalcanti (1897–1976). Along with these artists, he founded the Clube dos Artistas Modernos (CAM) in 1932. The group’s objective was to associate modern artistic experimentation with political practices. Prado remained loyal to figuration his entire life, rejecting other trends like abstract art, which he considered driven by the art market. He depicted urban scenes with social themes, as in the painting Street Sweepers (1935), which refers to the context of labor movements in Brazil in the 1930s. In this nocturnal scene, a group of street sweepers gathers in a circle on a street corner, still holding their brooms. The painting’s somber colors seem to add a tone of seriousness and secrecy to the conversation.

— MASP Curatorial Team, 2017

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