Aureliano Lima - Sculptor and Poet

Aureliano Lima was born on 23 September 1916 in the Carregal do Sal, homeland he saw growing up to five years of his childhood, and in 1921, went live for a few years for the Lagares da Beira (Oliveira do Hospital) with his parents.

Sculptor, designer, poet and Portuguese medallist, self made man, comes to the arts in the mid-40s, after having exercised the most different professions (pharmacy assistant, a prison official ...). In 1939, it is in Coimbra. In the city of Mondego, writes, works in literary journals and, for the first time at the Exhibition of Coimbra Artists in 1948.

In the same year, was present in the III General Exhibition of Plastic Arts, organized in Lisbon by the National Society of Fine Arts. At the time, the first sculptural work - busts, as expressive of Teixeira de Pascoaes in adobe - remains bound by the precepts of figurative statuary that, later, abandoned in favour of a search not figurative, interested in exploring the poetic qualities of materials - the stone, wood or plaster and also the iron.

In 1958, goes to Oporto and shortly after to Vila Nova de Gaia, where he arrived to work in the studio of the sculptor Manuel Pereira da Silva. It was the final entry in to the artistic and cultural resources, an open door to new experiences, new creations and activities. "Still remember the first visits to the studio loaned Rua Afonso de Albuquerque, near the Torne School, which with Manuel Pereira da Silva, Aureliano Lima, shared that act almost starting to modern sculpture, outside the channels of official or academic, away from eyes of the critics that are rarely interested in sculpture in Portugal.”

In 1950, Manuel Pereira da Silva made this bust in plaster of Aureliano Lima.

In Serafim Ferreira - The Art in Portugal in the séc.XX: The Third Generation. Lisbon: Livraria Bertrand.

He worked in various newspapers and literary magazines, as Vértice, Seara Nova, Diário de Coimbra, The Commerce of Porto, Jornal de Notícias, Diário de Lisboa and Symposium / Lyrics.

In Lisbon, he participates in the II Exhibition of Plastic Arts of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (1961). His sculptural work is, at the time, a major makeover. In further experiments not figurative perceives to be a dual voltage, reflected in the dialogue between form and form filled hollow between the line (the rods of iron, for example, the two works Untitled collection that belong to the CAMJAP, dated mid - 60) and the volumes relieved of its three-dimensional solid or in works of biomorphic feature or anthropomorphic.
Then left to work the masses compact. Prefers the emergence of expressive form in the vertical space, that the interaction with it, letting it penetrate the area, sometimes sublimated in colour, sometimes reinforced their presence in raw (through textures, contrasts, manufacturing marks ...). Later, the tension seems to hang the sculpture as an understanding of geometric shapes elementary game. And here also, since the 60s and 70s, the work of sculptural Aureliano is reflected in an innovative manner with which the artist works the contemporary language of painted iron and plastic.

The sculpture is then reduced to an abstract signal that interrupts the continuity of physical space (e.g. the number of polychrome sculptures of the 70 and 80). In these works, the contrast between full and empty, the reduction of the sculpture to a strict structure of plans, lines and circles painted in single colour, is close to a question about the value and visual identity of the sculpture, very rare in Portugal.

Between 1965 and 1967 was fellow of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Paris, where he attended as a sculptor of "Ateliers Szabo.
It has works of sculpture and paintings in various museums, public squares and private collections. Among them, focus on three sculptures: "Homage," a piece of bronze with 2.10 meters in height, within the Municipal Library of Vila Nova de Gaia, "The Cry," Monument in Nelas with 4.30 m, and the monument Fernando Pessoa, in Vila da Feira, with 5 meters high. He has made also several busts: Miguel Torga, Afonso Duarte, Paulo Quintela, Antero de Quental, Camilo Castelo Branco, Nietzsche, Beethoven, Edward Lawrence and Mario Braga.

The Cry, Monument in Nelas

In poetry is the author of several books: "Behind Rio" (Galaico Prize for poetry, 1961), Porto 1963, "The Circles and Signs", ed. Author's, Oporto 1974, "Inside-Out Time", ed. Author's, Oporto 1974, "The Gray Man or the Alchemy of Numbers", ed. Author's, Porto 1975, with foreword by Fernando Guimarães, "Song and Eucalyptus", Brasília Editora, Porto 1979, "Parallel Mirrors", Brasília Editora, Oporto 1983, "The bed and house," Brasília Editora, Porto 1986, "The Dr. De Vila Seca, Col. Blue Leopard, Oporto 1990.

As poet, Aureliano Lima was to publish a first collection of poetry in 1963 (Rio Underlying, "Galaico Prize") in the same year that held its first solo exhibition (Oporto, Alvarez Gallery). Over the following decades, participating in some major national exhibition of art (III Salão Nacional de Arte, Lisbon and Oporto, 1968; Exhibition of contemporary artists selected by AICA, 1972, III Vila Nova de Cerveira Biennale of Art de 1984 ...) and also runs some projects of medals.

In 1983, it opened in Vila da Feira a large monument dedicated to the poet Fernando Pessoa. The sculpture, a large (five meters high) in bronze, reflects how Aureliano Lima felt the plastic creation: energy and concentration, as a synthesis of form, reduction of a sequence of fragmented plans, an expressive grammar would take another monumental project, The Cry (Nelas, 1982-1983).

After his death in December 1984, the Municipal Museum has incorporated in its collection by Helena Maria Barata Lima, widow of that eminent sculptor, a set of sixteen pieces sculpture, whose donation in 1990, would be implemented as a gesture of affection and love for the mother land. In this collection we can see artistic productions in iron recovered and polychrome in a geometric and abstract trend language, that he was one of the precursors as well as sculptures in stone, plaster, bronze and wood that can be appreciate.

The iron sculptures in the years 50/60 mark the meeting of Aureliano with the steel construction of Julio Gonzalez and Picasso. The creation of Aureliano launched it in a game of three-dimensional metal rods welded on line, suggesting the presence of volume, lay in its transparency, a symbolic relationship between surface structure and abstract space where they operate. Result anchors plunged in thought of man, the artist, who seeks and finds.
Important for new paths explored, especially in the context of the Portuguese art of the 60s and 70s, his sculptural works remain relatively unknown. The difficulties in the assertion of a personal artistic career, the scarcity of resources, on the discretion of your creative journey, helped to hide the sense of a trial marked by creativity and irreverence plastic models to the traditional aesthetic. Self by circumstances of life was also, by temperament, an anti-academic for whom the sculpture could not confine itself to a program or illustrative apologetic because he was, above all, an independent presence in the world.

Aureliano, even in the 60s and 70s, working a series of sculptures in stone, marble and wood. In these works sit down to read the study, Constantin Brancusi, Henry Moore in which Aureliano explores the properties of natural materials which, assuming a simplified, stripped of roots become germline. Thus, nature appears to be polished coated pure abstraction of a value which is close to unveiling the contemplation of works of art.

Aureliano Lima's work is marked by constructivism abstract. His creative spirit expressed in the sculpture in various materials (plaster, bronze, wood, marble, stone, polychrome iron, iron recovered) as well as in his painting highly abstract and with a clear traces of contemporary minimalism.

Aureliano Lima deserves our attention and admiration for the novelty of his art that tore the apathy of the figurative art of his time.