In the late 1920s, he emigrated to Rio de Janeiro and began working for the firm of Laubisch Hirth.In the early 1940s, Tenreiro was among the first designers in the Brazilian furniture industry to adopt a European modernist vernacular.His initial efforts, including the 1942 "Poltrona Leve," met with considerable success, and in 1943 he established his own firm with factories in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.One of his main clients was Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, for whose houses a number of pieces were originally commissioned.[1] Tenreiro gave up the furniture business in the late 1960s to concentrate on his painting and sculpture, in which he had been engaged privately for many decades.
