Biography A man linked to art "I am an adventurer" Second of four children, Pietro Maria Bardi was born on February 21, 1900 in La Spezia, a small Italian town in the Gulf of Genova. People say he was a shy boy and had a very irregular school life. Bardi himself has declared, in many interviews, having flunked the third grade of elementary school four times. Upset about having failed, he abandoned school and attributes his intelligence to a domestic accident: after having fallen and hurt his head, Bardi became hooked on books. He used to read absolutely everything he could, a habit that he kept during his entire life. Still an adolescent, Bardi worked as an assistant in Arsenale Maritimo and, after that, as a trainee in a lawyer's office. In 1917 he was summoned to the Italian army and left La Spezia forever. It is in this period that he actually began his career as a journalist, already primed before with some articles written to journals such as Gazetta di Genova and Indipendente and with the publication of his first book when he was 16 years old - an essay about colonialism. Living in Bergamo since having quit military service, Bardi starts working for Giornali di Bergamo. Later on, he establishes the staff of Popolo di Bergamo, Secolo, Corrieri della Sera, the magazines Quadrante, Stile and many others. Writing was his main professional activity up to his death, the way he found to express a polemic style and the exercise of a kind of critic based on his deep knowledge about arts, politics and specially architecture. In 1924, Bardi moved to Milan and married Gemma Tartarolo, with whom he had two daughters, Elisa and Fiorella. It is in Milan that he started his adventure as an art dealer and arts critic, with the acquisition of Galleria dell'Esame. In 1929 he became the director of Galleria d'Arte di Roma and moved to the capital. Bringing an exposition to Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bardi passes by Brazil for the first time in 1933. It is in this occasion that he sees Paulista Avenue, future address of the Museum of Art of São Paulo, MASP, which he would later conceive and direct. After World War II, Bardi meets the architect Lina Bo at Studio d'Arte Palma, in Rome, where both work. They married in 1946 and, in the same year, travelled to Brazil, a country with the perspective of prosperity and the scenery of a talented and modern architecture. This situation was opposed to the one lived in Europe, whose countries were trying to rebuild in the post-war years. The couple rents the basement of a ship, the Almirante Jaceguay. They depart from Genova, taking a meaningful collection of pieces of art and handcraft which would be later organized into a series of expositions. They also bring the huge library of the art dealer. Their arrival in Rio de Janeiro happens on October 17, 1946. In a reception of the "Exposition of Italian modern painting", composed by the pieces brought, Bardi meets Assis Chateaubriand from whom he receives an invitation to create a museum, a long held dream of the businessman. From 1947 trough 1996, Bardi creates and directs the Museum of Art of São Paulo, MASP, the most important in Latin America. In parallel, he keeps his activities as a writer, critic, researcher, art dealer and curator. He publishes, in 1992, his 50th and last book, History of MASP. In 1996, already ill, he leaves the museum directorship. Having his health become weaker each day after Lina's death, in 1992, he passes away on October 10th, 1999, having lived almost a century of life, proving his own definition about himself, once given to his partner, Chateaubriand: "yes, I am an adventurer".

P. M. Bardi and Sleeping Diana, 1986 Juvenal Pereira