Judith da Silva Bacci was a self-taught Afro-Brazilian sculptor. She held the post of caretaker at the Escola de Belas Artes de Pelotas (EBA) from its creation in 1949, living within the institution along with her family and even owning a small restaurant there. Such physical proximity to an artistic milieu ignited in J. Bacci a keen interest in sculpture. In the 1960s, she began to create small decorative plates in plaster which she sold to supplement her income, on which her family depended. Little by little she honed her technique. She started making sculptures, mainly in plaster, and produced her first busts of important local and national figures, such as Marina de Moraes Pires (undated), the founder and first director of the Pelotas EBA.

In the 1970s, her responsibilities at the school began to expand beyond her caretaking role, as she started to assist the students in their modelling. Eventually she joined the ceramics studio as assistant professor of sculpture. In March 1985, Tancredo Neves, the newly elected President of Brazil, fell ill. J. Bacci paid homage to him by sculpting his bust, working from photographs: the work was published in the local press and her name began to circulate beyond the school walls.

A practitioner of the Afro-descendant religions Umbanda and Candomblé, J. Bacci created a number of sculptures that deal with religious themes. Notably, she depicted Iemanjá (undated), the mother of all Orishas, queen of the aquatic world and protector of fishermen. The work is used by the community of worshippers during festivals dedicated to the divinity at the Balneário dos Prazeres, on the Pelotas seafront.

In 1988, J. Bacci’s thirty-year career was the subject of a retrospective at the Galeria Municipal de Arte in Pelotas. The exhibition brought together thirty-two of the artist’s works, including Mãe Preta Amamentando Menino Branco [Black Mother Nursing White Child, 1988], created to mark the centenary of the abolition of slavery in Brazil.

As a poor, self-taught black woman, J. Bacci defied the odds, prevailing in spite of the habitual anonymisation of her works when presented at art events, and certain EBA professors excluding her from their classes for fear that she might be a little too attentive to their demonstrations. A figure of resilience, the artist carried the weight of her era, of society and its prejudices, while creating sculptures that have since become identity markers for the city of Pelotas. In the 2010s her busts and religious images began to garner popularity in Brazil, and academia is now turning its attention to her remarkable career.