Born in 1919 in Alegrete, Brazil, Saldanha moved with her family to Rio de Janeiro aged 11. She began studying with the painter Pedro Luiz Correia de Araújo in 1948 and, in the early 1950s, she travelled to Europe, continuing her artistic education in Paris and Florence. Saldanha returned to Brazil following her European studies and participated in the second São Paulo Biennial, where she encountered important developments in international Modernism.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Saldanha painted figurative scenes, portraits and views of Brazilian cities. Over time, her architectural subjects became increasingly geometric and pared back, with vertical and horizontal structures replacing conventional representation. By the 1960s, her experiments with colour and form had taken her beyond the traditional rectangular canvas. The artist began painting on wooden slats, spools and other natural materials, culminating in her celebrated Bambus series of the 1960s and 1970s. In these works, bamboo poles became sculptural paintings, radically blurring the boundaries between painting, object and space. One Bambu work was sold at Christie’s for US$163,800 in 2024. Reflecting on the series, Saldanha once said, 'To feel the earth with your hand and be a little like the earth. To take a tree, be the tree and be together with the tree.'
Her other celebrated bodies of works — including Ripas (Slats), Bobinas (Spools), Empilhados (Stacks) and Tábuas (Planks) — further chart her move towards sculptural abstraction. Across these works, Saldanha explored the tensions and connections between constructivism and craft, and between nature and popular culture, drawing on Brazilian traditions and everyday forms.
Saldanha died in 2001. Though overlooked during her lifetime, her work has received growing international recognition in recent years, including the major exhibition Ione Saldanha: The Invented City at MASP in 2021 and her inclusion in the 2024 Venice Biennale.