Franklin Joaquim Cascaes was born on October 16, 1908, on Itaguaçu beach. Son of Joaquim Serafim Cascaes and Maria Catarina Cascaes, Franklin was of Azorean descent; their paternal grandparents even developed activities typical of this culture, such as working in the fields, fishing, producing flour and sugar on mills and raising cattle.
In the 1930s, Franklin Cascaes started to attend the Liceu Industrial de Florianópolis on the night shift, where he worked as a master's assistant and foreman in the modeling workshop. A few years later, he was invited to teach drawing classes at the same institution, which marked the beginning of his career as a professor. This career, in fact, lasted for almost thirty years.
Around 1946, Franklin began to fulfill an old desire: to travel around Santa Catarina Island in search of traces of Azorean culture. He filled hundreds of notebooks with stories, prayers, habits and traditional customs, always trying to respect the islander's way of speaking. Later, he dedicated himself to the elaboration of art pieces that portrayed fantastic stories and characters, such as the famous witches.
Such an effort, however, was not seen with good eyes by everyone. For much of the academic world, for example, Franklin Cascaes lacked scientific rigor, which seemed to invalidate all of his work. It was also because of the lack of scientific rigor that Franklin was not invited to participate in the First Congress of Santa Catarina History, in 1948, whose theme was the bicentennial of the Azorean colonization.
His work only became recognized around the 1970s, after its guardianship was legalized by the University Museum. Two of the main factors contributing to this recognition were the valorization of anthropological studies within the human sciences and a sudden concern with the local culture, due to the urbanization process of Florianópolis.
Franklin Cascaes died on March 15, 1983, leaving all his production to the University Museum. Today, this collection is named after Franklin's wife, Elizabeth Pavan Cascaes, and has a vast library, audiovisual productions, works of art, handwritten or typed texts, correspondence, copies of newspapers, among others.
Access our page dedicated especially to Franklin Cascaes.
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