Along with Ivan Serpa (1923-1973), Aluísio Carvão (1920-2001), César Oiticica (1939), Alberto Pinedo and Henry Dobbin, he participates in the organization of the Instituto de Arte Infantil [Children’s Art Institute], a primary school that emphasizes the teaching of visual arts. Operational until 1959, the school was located in a house at number 39, Rua Lins de Vasconcelos.
Hélio and his brother César attend the Noite de Arte Concreta [Concrete Art Night] at the União Nacional dos Estudantes (UNE), an event that takes place in Rio de Janeiro concurrently with the I Exposição Nacional de Arte Concreta, at the Ministério da Educação facilities. São Paulo Concrete poet Décio Pignatari (1927) presents a lecture that provokes intense controversy in the audience divided between radicals – the brothers Haroldo (1923-2003) and Augusto de Campos (1931), and Ferreira Gullar, among others, and champions of more traditional poetry, such as Olegário Mariano (1889-1958) and Ledo Ivo (1924).
June 30 – José Oiticica dies.
The Secos series evolve into another group of gouaches on cardboard, to which Oiticica would refer to (in a 1972 text) as Metaesquemas.
Shows: February – I Exposição Nacional de Arte Concreta, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro; September – “Arte Moderno en Brasil” [Modern Art in Brazil], Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires; September – IV Bienal do Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo.