Soares dos
Reis School Of Decorative Arts
Artistic
Technical Education in Oporto
During the New
State (1948-1973)
Francisco
Perfeito Caetano
Ed
University of Oporto
(2012)
ISBN
978-989-8265-87-6
The current Soares dos Reis Artistic School was officially
created in January 1884 and was designated at that time as the Guimarães do
Bonfim Industrial Design School of Faria. Its activity began a year later in
precarious installations of a residential building in Campo 24 de Agosto.
In 1917, the school is ordered to be evicted and occupies the
former premises of the Lyceum Alexandre Herculano, on Rua de Santo Ildefonso.
In 1927 the purchase of an old hat factory at 49 Firmeza
Street is authorized. In 1931 a qualification course for the School of Fine
Arts is created. The School gives courses in chisel, steel engraver,
woodworker, goldsmith, fashion designer, debux weaver, carver among others.
From 1948, the School, now called the Soares dos Reis School
of Decorative Arts, began to offer specialized courses of artistic nature -
Decorative Painting, Decorative Sculpture, Decorative Ceramics, Artistic
Furniture, Chisel and, among others, the Graphic Arts. With the reform of
secondary education in 1972/73, General and Complementary Visual Arts Courses
are introduced, including Fabric Arts, Equipment and Decoration, Fire Arts,
Graphic Arts and Imaging.
In 2008, 124 years after its foundation, the so-called Soares
dos Reis Artistic School finally moves to a new building on Major David Magno
Street, where the Oliveira Martins Secondary School used to be. Worked by the
public company Parque Escolar, the building is designed by architect Carlos Prata
and is part of the pilot phase of the project for the rehabilitation of the
national public secondary school. Keeping the facade of the old school, the
entire interior is renovated or redeveloped to receive the Specialized Artistic
Courses created in 2004.
Maintaining its educational project that consists of an
excellent artistic teaching that combines the requirement in general education
with the professionalism and passion placed in technical and artistic training,
Soares dos Reis is today a reference educational institution in the city of Oporto and in the country. The team of highly trained teachers combines youth
and experience in a rare mix that is a recipe for success, today complemented
by the best arts facilities in the country.
Bearing in mind the importance of being an internship
(internship center) for an institution such as the Soares dos Reis School, and
having internship teachers within it, we consider relevant to mention here the
names and classifications of the 5th group interns, contained in the book of
minutes for “classification of trainee teachers” corresponding to the 1st and
2nd year of internship. They are Mario Truta, 14 and 15 values (1952-1953);
Manuel Pereira da Silva, 15 and 17 values (1966-1967); among many other
trainee teachers.
Some of the teachers at the Soares dos Reis School had a
profound impact on the national art scene, among them Sousa Caldas, Mário Truta
and Manuel Pereira da Silva.
After an I Exhibition, in the premises of the School of Fine
Arts of Oporto, with sculptures (refer to our choice, only the sculptors) by
Altino Maia, Mario Truta, Arlindo Rocha, Serafim Teixeira, Augusto Tavares and
Manuel Pereira da Silva , the independent exhibitions take place outside the
school and several times outside Oporto. It is a first example of
decentralization and willingness to diffuse that, despite everything, will not
prevent some marginalization of the artists of Porto in relation to events and
initiatives of greater visibility and impact on the capital.
Much more important was the First Exhibition of Independents
in April 1943. Portuguese abstract art is historically linked to independent
exhibitions whose main organizer and animator, Fernando Lanhas, is
coincidentally the central figure of this abstractionism.
The II Independent Exhibition is presented, in February 1944,
at Oporto Commercial Athenaeum, with sculptures by Altino Maia, Arlindo Rocha,
Eduardo Tavares, Joaquim Meireles Manuel da Cunha Monteiro, Maria Graciosa de
Carvalho, Mário Truta, M. Félix de Brito, Manuel Pereira da Silva and Serafim
Teixeira. It will be from there that the action of Fernando Lanhas will be
felt, in the consistent quality of catalogs and exhibitions, as well as the
persistence in keeping the initiatives alive.
The III Independent Exhibition takes place, in the same year,
in the hall of the Oporto Coliseum, with sculptures by Abel Salazar, Altino
Maia, Antonio Azevedo, Arlindo Rocha, Eduardo Tavares, Henrique Moreira, Manuel
Pereira da Silva, Mario Truta and Sousa Caldas.
In the catalog of the exhibition, traveling through Coimbra,
Leiria and Lisbon, in 1945, it is clear that the name of “independent” is not a
random name, but implies the awareness that art is a heritage of humanity and
hence “ our varied presence ”, given that the present must be activated to
reach the future, and the past cannot be denied the right to remember.
For Fernando Lanhas the “Independent Exhibitions” of Oporto
mark a significant historical moment in our painting and sculpture. Firstly,
they bring together painters and sculptors of different backgrounds (the raison
d'être of the independent word comes from non-affiliation with a particular
“ism”), engaged in the same collective action and immersed in the same
enthusiasm. Second, because in them there appears, without prejudice or
complex, this original and fruitful abstraction. And third, because they escape
the centralizing voracity of the capital.
