The first classical painters
Around 1450, Nuno Gonçalves was appointed by Alfonso V to the title of King's Painter. He remained active until 1490, and probably died around 1492. Little is known about this artist, two of whose works can still be seen today: a Christ à la colonne for a chapel in the Trinity monastery and the famous Panels of Saint-Vincent in Lisbon's Museum of Ancient Art, depicting the court of the time and figures of the ruling aristocracy.
Shortly after his arrival in Portugal, Francisco Henriques oversaw the completion of the altarpiece at Viseu Cathedral (between 1501 and 1506). As early as 1508, the altarpiece for the high altar of the São Francisco church in Evora, of which 15 of the 16 panels remain, was commissioned by the King. A key production and training center, his studio was highly regarded by King Manuel I, who appointed him King's Painter. In 1512, he worked with Flemish artists on the ceiling of the Lisbon courthouse, which was completely destroyed by the earthquake of 1755. He died of the plague some time after this masterpiece in the history of Portuguese painting, the beauty of which can only be imagined.
His brother-in-law, Jorge Afonso (c. 1470 - c. 1540), painted the ceilings of Sintra Palace in the early 16th century. The altarpieces at the Madre de Deus convent in Lisbon and the Convent of Jesus in Setúbal are attributed to him, and he oversaw the decoration of the rotunda at the Convent of Christ in Tomar.
In the 1520s, Cristóvão de Figueiredo worked on the large altarpiece at the Convent of Santa Cruz in Coimbra. His Deposition is preserved in Lisbon's Museum of Ancient Art. In 1531, Cristóvão de Figueiredo became painter to the Cardinal-Infant, and worked on an altarpiece for the Ferreirim monastery with Gregório Lopes and Garcia Fernandes around 1533-1534.
Diogo de Contreiras takes part in decorating the city of Lisbon for the solemn entry of Manuel I and his third wife, Leonor. Around 1540, two altarpieces for the churches of Ourém and Unhos, north of Lisbon, bear witness to his virtuosity. The Preaching of John the Baptist was executed around 1552-1554 for the monastery of São Bento de Castris.
Vasco Fernandes (Grão Vasco) made Viseu (300 km north of Lisbon) his home. He built a successful career here, which was marked by the restructuring of the cathedral. Among the 14 panels of the Viseu altarpiece, which retraces the main episodes in the life of the Virgin Mary, the Infancy of Jesus and the Passion of Christ, the Adoration of the Magi depicts a black magician king inspired by a Tupinamba Indian from Brazil. Around 1530, this painter created a Saint Peter for this cathedral. In 1535, he painted four altarpieces for Santa Cruz de Coimbra, and worked on the church of Tarouca around 1535 and the bishop's palace of Fontelo around 1535-1540. He died at the end of 1542.
Following Portugal's independence from Spain, another milestone was the arrival of Josefa de Óbidos (1630-1684), one of the most famous female painters in the history of Baroque painting in Portugal. She was the daughter of a Portuguese painter and a Spanish mother. She was 4 years old at the time. Her family settled in Óbidos, a small town on the outskirts of the capital from which she took her artist's name. However, some of her works can be seen in various places in Lisbon, including the Santa Maria de Alcobaça monastery. A tutelary figure of the Óbidos school of painting, she painted still lifes as well as religious themes. Her Madeleine réconfortée par les anges (1679) joined the Musée du Louvre in Paris in 2016. A year earlier, a retrospective was dedicated to her by Lisbon's Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga.
The revival of Portuguese painting
The year 1879 marked the return of António da Silva Porto (1850-1893) to Portugal, after several trips to Europe and training at the Beaux-Arts in Paris in the studios of Adolphe Yvon and Alexandre Cabanel. Accompanied by his friend and compatriot João Marques de Oliveira, he imported plein air and nature painting, being affiliated with the Barbizon School, a school that saw the passage of many landscape painters such as Corot, Millet or Daubigny, whose student he was. The naturalism of his paintings had a major influence on the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Porto. A whole generation of Portuguese artists gathered around him, ensuring the renewal of Portuguese painting.
Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso (1887-1918) embodies the slow transition from naturalist art to the modern art that was taking place elsewhere in Europe. He left for Paris in 1906, where he became close to avant-garde painters such as Modigliani, Brancusi, Gris and Delaunay, and experimented with new forms of expression with great perseverance, notably with the "Abstraccionismo" series, which was exhibited in 1916 in Oporto and provoked a scandal among the public, which was unaccustomed to new art. A century later, the Grand Palais in Paris devoted a retrospective exhibition to her.
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1908-1992) is, together with Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, one of the great representatives of the Portuguese avant-garde. Her works are marked by an abstract and geometric style that asserts the presence of cubism. Naturalized French in 1956, she was also the subject of a solo exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1988, becoming the first woman to have such a large-scale event in her lifetime. Her work Incendie I, painted in 1944, sold for nearly $3 million in 2018, a record for an artist born in Portugal.
The year 1947 marked the birth of the Surrealist movement in Portugal. Encouraged by André Breton in Paris, Antonio Pedro (1909-1966) initiated with some friends the "Surrealist Group of Lisbon", whose one and only exhibition would take place in 1949. A second group, "The Surrealists", gathered around Mário Cesariny (1923-2006), was born in 1948, and then gradually dispersed. Above all, Surrealism made it possible to assert a form of resistance to the predominance of the Neorealist painters.
Contemporary art of the 1970s
The Carnation Revolution marked the birth of contemporary art in Portugal. With the fall of the Salazarist dictatorship, an ineffective cultural policy was gradually replaced by new trends. The Calouste-Gulbenkian Foundation was supported by state grants, the Soquil Prize was awarded by the Fundação Mário Soares, and new art actors appeared, notably Ernesto de Sousa, critic, curator and artist, who promoted the experimental and conceptual in art. A new period began.
Although Helena Almeida's (1934-2018) first solo exhibition in Lisbon was held in 1967, it was not until 1975 that she began her "Inhabited Painting" series, staging herself by retouching black and white photography. This sculptor's daughter, married to the architect and photographer Artur Rosa, worked on her body and made self-portraits all her life. A well-known Portuguese photographer, she occupies an important place in the international art scene.
Another Lisbon photographer who still works on the black and white self-portrait, Jorge Molder, born in 1947, dedicated himself to photography from the late 1970s, after studying philosophy. His first solo exhibition in Lisbon took place in 1977. Since then he has developed a work of self-representation with references to Samuel Beckett or Francis Bacon. From 1990 to 2009, he directed the Center for Modern Art of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The artist represented Portugal at the São Paulo (1994) and Venice (1999) biennials.
From the 1980s to the present day
The 1980s were a period of confirmation. Many Portuguese artists achieved exceptional international recognition, while showing a certain diversity in practices and aesthetics. Júlio Pomar, Paula Rego, António Palolo, António Dacosta or Eduardo Batarda developed a rich and eclectic pictorial work, while Julião Sarmento, by participating in the Documenta of Kassel of 1982 and 1987 around a post-conceptual practice, is undoubtedly one of the most known Portuguese artists.
The creation of the Ministry of Culture in 1995 allowed for a better professionalization of art, which contributed to the creation of numerous collections and the opening of dedicated spaces, notably the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto. The current generation of Portuguese artists can thus benefit from a better visibility, because it has been able to rely on a more structured circulation while showing a critical sense towards modernity and previous generations.
The Italian graffiti artist Blu, during a street art festival, painted on an abandoned building a huge mural of a giant king, in a suit and tie, drawn with several eyes, sucking Brazil with a straw. The British newspaper The Guardian ranked him as the best street artist in the world for this painting.
Internationally sought after, Vhils (born in 1987) composed a mural in the city of Nancy in France. More active abroad than in his own country, this artist has left some of his murals in Portugal, in Lisbon in particular, which can be seen through his online guide(www.vhils.com/map/city/lisbon).
