Page 475 - The Secret Museum

through the eyes of Ozias, whose ancestors came to Brazil on slave ships.

They were created as a commission by Finkelstein, who planned to show them at

‘just the right time’, perhaps to coincide with an anniversary of the abolition of
slavery. That date never came within his lifetime and so the paintings have never
been publicly displayed. Other than the curators of the museum and Ozias and his
family, I am one of very few people ever to have seen them.

The pictures are currently living in Finkelstein’s former office. His desk is still
there, among a collection of paintings, books, photographs and sculpted figures,
including a self-portrait in clay by Ozias. One photograph shows Finkelstein with the
Queen and Prince Philip. When the royal couple visited Brazil, the Queen was

presented with a selection of Brazilian jewels and asked to choose one. She chose a
dolphin created by Finkelstein, so he kept a photograph of the moment in his office.

We took the six Ozias paintings from the room and laid them out on the upstairs
floor of the museum to get a good look. Many elements of the story are familiar. Forty
per cent of Africans brought to the Americas as slaves ended up in Brazil. They were
transported on ships and sold in ports along the coastline.

The scenes depicted in the paintings are shocking and tragic: men being rounded
up with guns, transported in ships, herded into pens, sold by traders and led in
chains. The depiction of such terrible scenes in this naïf style – childlike and almost
cartoony – makes them all the more disturbing.

One curious aspect of these paintings is how Ozias paints the African people’s

lifestyle as if they were extremely primitive, when we know that there were a number
of relatively complex and sophisticated west African societies at the time.
He also paints invading white warriors capturing tribal people and enslaving them

by force. The less palatable reality is that the white traders mostly dealt with tribal
kings and warriors, exchanging prisoners for guns and gunpowder. As Tatiana Levy,
Finkelstein’s granddaughter, explained: ‘In his vision, he couldn’t imagine his
African ancestors enslaving their own people.’

But it was the life story of the painter Ozias that really got me interested. Born one
of ten children, his family couldn’t afford for him to go to school so, by the age of
four, he was working in the fields pulling carts. On his way home, he passed a school
where he could hear children reciting the alphabet, so he’d sit outside and listen until

he’d learnt it himself. Later, an older brother explained to him how the letters created
words, and he taught himself to read. Soon afterwards his family moved to Rio de
Janeiro, and Ricardo worked outdoors as a bricklayer and on the railways. Then, at
the age of 46, he was offered an office job at the railway company.

To begin with, he kept falling asleep. To keep awake, he began to paint, using
anything he could find around the office. He used stored paint that had been used for
maintenance on the railways, a chewed toothpick as a brush, or his fingers, and he
painted on paper, wood, fabric, rubber – anything he could find. He still uses a