CHATO'S PRIZES

THE most flamboyant art collector in South America is a bouncing, bantam Brazilian with the resounding name of Francisco de Assis Chateaubriand Bandeira de Mello. What "Chato" collects goes on display in a public museum in Sao Paulo (pop. 3,300,000), and in just eleven years he has made it the hemisphere's finest outside the U.S. Chato pays for much of the art himself, and gets the rest by a grandiose form of flattery. As publisher of 32 newspapers and five magazines, and as owner of 24 radio and three TV stations, he can elaborately praise any rich Brazilian who donates good art to the museum. Quite often he praises them even before they have thought about donating.

Dynamic Publisher Chateaubriand, 66, usually selects the art himself. An initiate of the Manhattan art world recently provided a view of Chato in action: "He stood before David's great portrait of Napoleon. Slowly his hand went up and rested in his vest. Then, quick as a flash, he whirled and said, 'If I had a revolver in my hand, this painting would no longer be yours.' "

Champagne for Cezanne. Chateaubriand, who has twice been a Senator and is now Brazil's Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, is famed for his sudden impulses. In 1946 Chato met a visiting Italian art critic, Pietro Maria Bardi, embraced him joyfully and said: "You must make a museum for me." Almost at once, new Museum Director Bardi moved into the unfinished 34-story headquarters of Chateaubriand's Associated Dailieschain, found the great new Museum of Art in Sao Paulo hailed in headlines while there was still nothing to show in the newspaper building but raw concrete walls.

Chato took off after art like a man possessed, and made the public love it. When the first three paintings, a Rembrandt Self-Portrait, Cezanne's portrait of Mme. Cezanne in Red, and Picasso's blue-period Mademoiselle B. (Suzanne Bloch) arrived in the nearby port of Santos, Chato threw a shipboard champagne party to welcome them. In 1952, when Van Gogh's Schoolboy arrived in the capital city of Bahia, Chato saw to it that school was let out and the new acquisition greeted by thousands of cheering students. Recently Brazil's President Juscelino Kubitschek turned over the presidential palace to greet another shipment of art, and Brazil's Foreign Minister staged a reception at Itamarati Palace to welcome a load of sculpture.

"Everybody likes to give money," says Chato. "Brazilians like big things, and everybody knows I'm doing big things for Brazil." Few of his countrymen dare or care to quibble; one Brazilian industrialist who balked found himself labeled in Chato's press as "a bandit, looter, pachyderm, hippopotamus, Berber filibuster, Barbary pirate." Typical contributors: Coffee King Geremia Lunardelli, Banker (and former Ambassador to Washington) Walther Moreira Salles, Industrialist Francisco ("Baby") Pignatari (occasional playmate of Linda Christian). Chato himself is the most generous giver, but seems almost ashamed to admit that he ever had to reach into his own pocket. Says Director Bardi: "This is the first museum created by publicity."

Chato's wildest spree took place in Manhattan's Wildenstein galleries, where in one hectic morning he bought 32 paintings (including Goya's portrait of the Secretary-General of the Spanish Inquisition, Don Juan Antonio Llorente--see color pages) for a total of $3,500,000 that he did not have. To raise the money, he mortgaged the whole Sao Paulo collection to Manhattan's Guaranty Trust Co. Later, in a tearful scene, he got Brazil's President Juscelino Kubitschek to order the Federal Savings Bank to grant Chato a loan. Chato paid off the dollars, is now repaying the federal bank in rapidly devaluing cruzeiros.

Next: the Prado. The $25 million Sao Paulo collection includes 370 canvases, 200 Italian ceramics, 73 Degas sculptures, and it is about to have a new home. Like most of his collection, Chato got the building for free. Started by Sao Paulo Millionaire Armando Alvares Penteado before his death in 1947, the four-story, marble-floored museum was designed by the late French Architect Auguste Ferret, cost $15 million with its 400-seat theater, 17 classrooms and workshops, 172,160 sq. ft. of gallery space. Chato expects to move in late this month, already has two new acquisitions ready: Gauguin's Joseph and Potiphar's Wife and Jean Antoine Houdon's finely chiseled bust of Voltaire.

But even with a second museum started and three more planned, Chato is unsatisfied. Recently he visited Madrid's Prado museum, stared in awe at the centuries of accumulated art, said thoughtfully: "I wonder how much we'd need to buy the Prado for Sao Paulo."

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