Almada Negreiros temporary exhibition at Calouste Gulbenkian Museum - The 19th of March 2017

 

 

To be modern is just like being elegant

It is not a way of dressing, but a way of being

To be modern is not to use the modern caligraphy

But to be the genuine discoverer of the new. 

 

José Almada Negreiros - 1927 Madrid Conference on Drawing

 

 

 

 

 

Almada Negreiros has always had a special place in my artistic preferences since an early age and if I question myself as to what really attracted me in those pencil drawing copies I first came across at my grandmother's I feel I would say it was the movement they conveyed ... I could almost see them coming out of the paper and that undoubtedly impacted my imagination. It wasn't but much later that I started reading some of his essays and a few years later came across his oil paintings and ceramic wall compositions. 

 

 

 

The very well organised temporary exhibition I've been to at Calouste Gulbenkian's Museum over the weekend brings together most of his works and is undeniably a must.

Nude (Painting for the Bristol Club) - 1926 oil on canvas.

Untitled (paintings for Alfaiataria Cunha tailor's, Lisboa) - 1913 oil on canvas.

 

 

Bathers (painting for Brasileira Café ) - 1925 Oil on canvas

 

 

 

 

 

 

1923 untitled watercolour on paper (left). 1931 untitled Indian Ink on paper (right).

1921 untitled Italian ink on paper.

Undated graphite on paper drawings.

Untitled (Harlequin, ballerina and horse) - 1953 oil on canvas (left). Untitled (Theme for a tapestry) - c.1954 gouache on cardboard (right).

 

 

 

 

 

Untitled (theme for tapestry for the Ritz Hotel) - 1959 oil on canvas.

 

 

 

 

 

Study for stained glass wall for the mortuary chapel in Our Lady of Fátima Church - 1938 gouache on paper glued on wood.

Study for stained glass wall for the Chorus of Our Lady of Fátima Church (rejected version) - c.1938

Study for panel mural (destroyed) for the Restauradores Post Office - 1940

(Commissioned painting to represent the revue Orpheu) Portrait of Fernando Pessoa - 1964 oil on canvas.

Reading Orpheu - 1954 Gouache, watercolour and ballpoint on paper

Study for a fresco mural for Diário de Notícias newspaper premises - 1939 gouache on cardboard.

 

 

 

Gouache on platex Tapestry exhibited at the Comptoir Suisse at the 1957  Lausanne Fair.

Oil on plywood study for the Auditing Court - 1974

Untitled graphite and aniline dye on paper

Portrait of Júlia Novais - 1927 gouache on paper (left). Portrait of Maria Madalena Moraes da Silva Amado with an inscription "Doux comme le violet, fou comme le vert"- 1921 watercolour on paper (right) 

1924 untitled gouache on paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1922 green ink on paper (left). Undated watercolour on paper (right).

 

 

Fish seller - 1924 watercolour on paper (left). 1922 untitled watercolour on paper (right). 

 

 

 

 

 

Untitled gouache on paper study (left). Weedpicker - 1936 oil on canvas (right)

 

 

 

(To be continued)