(...)
Out of the 53 representations on the glaze tiled walls of the metro station of the Airport only three correspond to living artists - the painters Paula Rego and Julio Pomar and the pianist Maria João Pires.
One could say they all seem to have (at least) one thing in common - none of them lives in Portugal, Paula Rego and Julio Pomar, who have both been living in England and France (respectively) since the 60's and Maria João Pires, who has moved to Brazil a few years ago.
The reasons that have led them to leave their home country behind may have been singularly different, but one thing is certain - they are praise worthy and rightly acclaimed, wherever they have decided to pursue their artistic lives.
Having studied painting at the Lisbon and Porto Academy of Fine Arts Julio Pomar joined the pictorial Neo Realism movement and painted some of the most memorable images around 1945-1957. Having perceived his Art to be a social and political intervening tool led him to be imprisoned during the totalitarian regime of Salazar. Pomar's career would later swerve into a completely different direction, though equally representative of his artistic talent.
"The monumentality and psychological drama of Paula Rego's paintings have established her as one of the most important figurative painters of her generation".
Some of her well known and acclaimed nursery rhyme paintings are disturbing taking their approach to cruelty, delusion, folly and sex, but so are many other of her paintings. One either loves or loathes what she paints, though very rarely will one feel indifferent towards them.
It was in London she gradually emerged as a significant voice of Contemporary European Art ... and I sometimes wonder if she would have achieved such notoriety, had she stayed in Portugal.
"I can't think of a pianist with a more ideal command of Chopin's style. Pires trips through the roulades with filigree dexterity, but her tone is so thoughtful, serious and weighty that they arrive with immense emotional profundity". - The Times, London, June 2007
Having been awarded numerous piano playing prizes, the first of which at the age of 9, for her unique approach to piano playing, Maria João Pires renounced to the Portugues nationality following a dispute with the Portuguese Government regarding the Artisitc Educational Project she had developed in Belgais, for which she was awarded a UNESCO prize.
"Without Art the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable" - George Bernard Shaw.
