Campinas, the birthplace of Guilherme de Almeida (1890-1969), now holds almost the entirety of the rich personal collection of the poet, translator, chronicler, playwright, critic, lawyer and journalist who stood out as one of the main promoters of the modernist movement and as activist of the Constitutionalist Revolution of 32. The coat of arms of the State of São Paulo, which he helped create with his pen and ink, the family photos produced by renowned photographers of the time and the articles in the “Cinematograph” column, which highlight his critical facet of cinema, are some relics deposited at the Alexandre Eulalio Cultural Documentation Center (Cedae), of the Institute of Language Studies (IEL) at Unicamp.

Flávia Carneiro Leão, technical director of Cedae, informs that the approximately 15 thousand documents from the Guilherme de Almeida Fund are undergoing a cleaning, sanitization, identification and listing stage, before being made available to researchers. “It is a collection of unique richness, in which it is possible to identify the production contexts of the exemplarily represented documents and recording the writer's activities. We at Unicamp are very pleased to receive this documentation, not only because it belongs to a Campinas resident, but because it speaks directly to collections deposited here by friends, partners and contemporaries such as Oswald de Andrade, Paulo Duarte, Abílio Pereira de Almeida and Flávio de Carvalho.”

In the favorable opinion for the purchase of the fund by Unicamp, the committee of experts formed by professors Alcir Pécora, Maria Eugênia Boaventura and Jefferson Cano notes that Guilherme de Almeida came into the world in the same year as Oswald de Andrade; that both were colleagues at Colégio São Bento and Faculdade de Direito do Largo São Francisco and partners in books such as Mon Coeur Balance (1916); and that his list of friends included other people from Campinas such as the modernist Antonio Carlos Couto de Barros, the patron of the Olivia Penteado movement and the Mesquita (Júlio and Francisco), from the State of S. Paulo.

The IEL commission adds that Guilherme de Almeida's activities are intertwined with the cultural and political history of São Paulo and that, even before the Modern Art Week of 1922, the poet was already successful with his books. Founder of the Democratic Party (1926), he fought in the Revolution of 32 and, due to an editorial in Jornal das Trincheiras, had to go into exile in Portugal. In the opinion, the Campinas native is also highlighted as the author of the cover and contributor to Klaxon magazine; member of the Academia Paulista de Letras (1928) and the Academia Brasileira de Letras (1930); president of the São Paulo IV Centenary Commission; official speaker at the inauguration of Brasília; and founder and member of the editorial team of several newspapers and magazines in São Paulo.

According to Flávia Leão, the collection currently at Unicamp was in the hands of Guilherme de Almeida's biographer, Frederico Ozanam Pessoa de Barros. “When I saw it for the first time, I was surprised by the volume and integrity of the documentation centers, as having worked in the area for many years, I see that personal collections always have gaps in relation to facts or periods. But this is the most complete I've ever seen. Guilherme de Almeida’s entire career is represented in the documentation: his political activities, his poetry, his novels, his translations, his public positions.” 

A curiosity pointed out by the director of Cedae is Guilherme de Almeida's interest in heraldry (art referring to the description of coats of arms or shields), and his pen and ink drawings appear in the collection in a variety of ways. “He created the coats of arms of São Paulo, Brasília and Registro [SP], and his manuscripts, in the final versions, have the titles drawn by hand in art deco style. He also produced ex-libris [icon associating the book with a person or library], including for other authors. The taste for lines can also be compared to that of other writers in the collection, such as Jorge de Lima, Hilda Hilst and Monteiro Lobato, who made watercolors.”

In Flávia Leão's opinion, hitherto inaccessible collections like this, when they reach institutions like Unicamp, gain another status, which is the guarantee of their preservation and access for academic research. “Obviously, there are good works on the work of Guilherme de Almeida, but with his collection open to citizens and researchers, new insights and readings can emerge. This happened to Hilda Hilst, who passed away ten years ago and whose collection has already supported more than 25 publications, including books, theses and dissertations, in addition to a few dozen articles; and the same in relation to Lobato, which has been the subject of a profusion of studies since its documentation came here.”

The director of Cedae highlights the photographic part of Guilherme de Almeida's collection, who had the financial resources to hire professionals who would go down in the history of Brazilian photography. “The high-quality images go back to parents and grandparents and then forward to their children, reproducing in the collection technologies that allowed the development of photography around the world. There is the photo in which he, the day after he was elected 'Prince of Poets' [1959], receives congratulations from Manuel Bandeira and Carlos Drummond de Andrade. He was flattered that they were both his competitors and that he had been chosen not by critics but by the newspaper's readers.”

A poet of action

Professor Maria Eugênia Boaventura, who gave her opinion in favor of the acquisition of the Guilherme de Almeida Fund, is already preparing a project with the provisional title of “A poet of action”, aiming to attribute an editorial profile to the author's texts: the essayist, the chronicler, translator, the Revolution of 32 and correspondence – for publication of unpublished works or those that deserve wider dissemination. “The purpose of this upgrade is to verify the nature of Guilherme de Almeida’s project, the role it really played in São Paulo society. His poetry is almost all published, but he was also a man of action, who carried out numerous other activities and held several public positions, indicating political prestige”.

The IEL teacher sees in Guilherme de Almeida a modernist who, unlike the others, was part of the system, concerned with tradition. “He designed the coat of arms of São Paulo and other cities, was a member of the academies of Letters, president of the IV Centenary committee, speaker at the inauguration of Brasília. And he was a very popular poet, who sold many books, whereas, for example, 'Memórias sentimentalis de João Miramar', by Oswald de Andrade, only had its second edition 40 years after publication in 1924. Interestingly, even so accomplished, Guilherme de Almeida was unable to pass the competition to become a gymnasium teacher (but he was a school secretary for thirty years).”

Maria Eugênia Boaventura does not expect to find new poems in the collection being organized, since much of the poet's production included reissues and he himself took care of organizing complete works. “Biographer Frederico Ozanam has already produced numerous important works about Guilherme de Almeida, such as the book bringing together the chronicles written under the general title of 'For the City', in the Diário Nacional (official organ of the Democratic Party). And he left, with a beginning, middle and end, a fantastic work on the 'Cinematograph' column, in O Estado de S. Paulo, with three thousand texts written by Guilherme de Almeida in the period from 1926 to 43.”