Contemporary Artists

Jean-Pierre Blanchon, a Frenchman in love with painting, wrote a book with the quotations of 1500 Portuguese artists, the Quotation Portuguese Artists in Auction - Guide 2006/2010 (Author's edition). The author has an antique shop in the Chiado area and an auction house.

Once arrived in Portugal in 1991, lived up to his addiction to not lose any auction. Economist by training, the lack of data for cataloging artists bothered him. He went to work: analyzing auction catalogs, able to evaluate the evolution of 50 Portuguese Painters between 1974 and 1994. He concluded that only the investment in stock market had gotten over the average return of Portuguese paintings in this period - whose values ranged between 6.6% and -2.8% - relative to inflation.

In this guide we can see that the sculptor Manuel Pereira da Silva scored 10 of his contemporary paintings at auction, during the referred period (2006-2010), was sold 7 paintings in Watercoulor.

Art Auction

Palácio do Correio Velho Art Auction House, sold four compositions with Mixed Media, a Gouache composition and a Charcoal composition of the Sculptor Manuel Pereira da Silva in the Contemporary Painting Auction.

Contemporary Painting Auction

The Sculptor Manuel Pereira da Silva was represented on the Auction of Modern and Contemporary Art, held at Palácio do Correio Velho, with an oil painting on canvas, two Mixed Media compositions and a Watercolour composition.

Three sculptors with value

The publication of this literary work is biographical and critical and is related to three sculptors from Avintes, Portugal, named António de Sá Fernandes, Henrique Moreira and Manuel Pereira da Silva - three glories of our land.

Julio Pomar - Abstract Expressionism

Born in 1926 in Lisbon, and set up in Paris in 1963. Currently lives and works in Paris and Lisbon. Attended the School of Decorative Arts Antonio Arroio and the Schools of Fine Arts of Lisbon and Porto, in 1942 and participated in a first group in Lisbon, and made the first solo exhibition in 1947, in Porto. Devoted himself particularly to painting, but his work also includes works of drawing, engraving, sculpture and "assemblage, illustration, ceramics, tapestries and scenery for theatre.

Has, also, works of decorative tile mural for the station in the Windmill High Lisbon Metropolitan, (1983-84), the Circus of Brasilia (Gran'Circolar, 1987), the Station of the Metro Jardin Botanique in Brussels (1992) the Court of Moita (“Justice of Solomon ', 1993) and the train station of Corroios (1998). Participated in the Biennale de São Paulo, 1953, and also in the editions of 1975 and 1985. The Gulbenkian Foundation in 1978 organized the first retrospective of his work, which was exhibited in Lisbon, Porto and Brussels. In 1986, a new retrospective exhibition was presented by the museums of the Gulbenkian Foundation in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia and also at its headquarters in Lisbon.

Camões, 1988

Other exhibitions anthology of thematic scope took place in 1990, works with themes of Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Lisbon, in 1991, with paintings and drawings on literary subjects and portraits of writers (Pomar et la Literature), in Charleroi, Belgium

Edgar Poe, Fernando Pessoa e o Corvo, 1985

in 1997 with work on the theme of D. Quixote, in Cascais, and paintings on the Indians of Brazil, in Biarritz, France. Other anthologies of paintings were presented in 1999 and 2000 in Macau and Beijing, in 2001, in Aveiro (Recent Paintings), and in 2003 in Istanbul. Published in 2002, the volume of tests "and then painting?" And in 2003 the poem "TRATAdoDITOeFeito. Exhibited new paintings (Méridiennes - Meres indienne), in 2004, Patrice Trigano Gallery, Paris, and the Sintra Museum of Modern Art - Berardo Collection presented a retrospective of his work organized by Marcelin Pleynet under the title "Autobiography", where out the first part of a series of sculptures in bronze. Also in 2004, the CCB has set out an anthology of recent works entitled 'Human Comedy'. The first two volumes of the catalogue "raisonné 'of works of painting, sculpture and assemblages of iron were published in 2001 and 2004, the Éditions de la Difference, Paris.

Gadanheiro, 1945

Orchard has become a strong opponent to the fascist regime. Joined the Movement of Democratic Unity (MUD) and participated in student fights, which cost him the expulsion of ESBAP. The political activism is also reflected in his work. In painting, in works such as The Gadanheiro, exposed in 1945 the National Society of Fine Arts, the texts published in newspapers, which advocated a neo-realist aesthetic, and the promotion of the 1st Exhibition of the spring Ateneu Comercial do Porto in 1946.

Almoço do trolha, 1946

In 1947 organized the 1st solo exhibition of drawings, in Porto. However, the mural that runs the Cinema Batalha was ruined by the PIDE.

Cegos de Madrid, 1957

Soon after leaving the port, returning to the capital. There was jailed for four months and saw your picture in the Resistance be confiscated II General Exhibition of Plastic Arts of the National Society of Fine Arts in 1947.

Maria da Fonte, 1957

Fernando Lanhas changed the art scene at the end of the 2nd War

Fernando Lanhas, (born Oporto, 16 September 1923) is a Portuguese painter and architect. He studied architecture but became known as the leading name in Portuguese abstract painting. He started painting in 1944, influenced by music, astronomy, and the international abstract movement. Since then, he's been one of the most innovative and original Portuguese painters.




In the years spent in Oporto School of Fine Arts was a student attentive and engaged. In this institution addressed the Group of Students of Fine Arts. Had Colleagues such as Nadir Afonso, Manuel Pereira da Silva and Julio Pomar, with whom talked about art. He began painting figurative paintings, which quickly turned into abstract works. Involved in the organization of the Independents Exhibition, in 1944, and collaborated on the page "Art" of the daily newspaper of Oporto, "The Afternoon" in 1945. Shortly travelled to Paris, where he visited and enjoyed the Art of major events such as Sallon des Réalité Nouvelles, in 1947.

In the field of the drawing, he is in the large family of modern design, combining the ability to express the virtuosity of form.
Pure Design, in search of an asceticism which always renders, the drawing as a mean and end in itself.
Stripped of any accessory, its design leads us through a firm registration, but with a ductility open to higher sensitivities. The fascination leads us to believe that the design is where does not exist!




His called abstract painting, reduced to a few colours and minimal shapes, carries the same fascination and meditation on the same scales of time and space that Fernando Lanhas. research in the scientific field. Some canvas came from graphic compositions, other, denser and unexplained, more metaphysical then geometric, pursuing the movement of natural forces and forms, the dimensions of the cosmos. Sometimes symbolic representations cease guess: sun, tree, bird.


His involvement with the Independents Exhibition, who changed the art scene at the end of the 2nd War, promoting the debate on the abstraction along with the first neo-realistic statements. At 45, working with J. Lanham Pomar and V. Palla in the organization of the page 'Art' of the daily 'The Afternoon', of Oporto (which is itself listed in the catalogues of 49-50), where the future Surrealists Cesariny, Oom and Vespeira also defended the 'useful arts'. Lanhas then publishes studies for Drums (Old with Handkerchief) and Old White, which forms the set of paintings, is now exposed. Later works are abstractions and provide the first evidence of the ambitions of the painter and the debate about the social implications of art, which is represented by The Artist Abstract (only shown in photo) and Catherine (The Magnificent ugliness) of 46; Lanhas visit Paris on 47 and returns to abstractionism.

Honorary member of the National Academy of Fine Arts, a man of rare culture, has acknowledged taking a journey of original demand of rationality in art. In a time of tension in encysted cultural crisis of the subject, has been able to understand it as a learning experience for the integration of man in the world, the inevitable game of ephemeral passions and affections.

Arlindo Rocha, a pioneer of the abstract sculpture in Portugal

Arlindo Rocha and Manuel Pereira da Silva.

Arlindo Rocha, 1921 - 1999
Graduated in sculpture at the School of Fine Arts of Porto, in 1945.
In 1953 he obtained a scholarship from the Institute of High Culture, for Italy, and in 1959, a fellowship of BCG to Egypt and Greece and visits the major museums of Europe.
Was a member of the Oporto Group "Independents" (years 40).
Was awarded a silver medal at the Universal Exhibition in Brussels (1958).
Has works in public places - schools, palaces of justice, gardens, etc. Egg in Setúbal, Oporto and Viseu.

Oporto Bishop.

Arlindo Rocha is considered a pioneer of abstract sculpture in Portugal, among with Manuel Pereira da Silva, Jorge Vieira, and Fernando Fernandes in the emancipation movement of the sculpture from his vocation statuary. The pieces "Woman and Tree" in 1948 and "Science" of 1961, this one was radical abstract, are milestones in Portuguese sculpture of the last century.
His work tended to be geometric inevitably absolute. However, in recent years returned to a hard Figurative, with orders to local authorities.

Setúbal: The Poetry, The Sea and The Earth.

The abstraction, true the School of Paris, in two parts, sometimes more geometric and in other moments more lyrical. The most relevant national figures were: Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, exponent of the "Ecole de Paris", and here, in Portugal, Fernando Lanhas, Nadir Afonso, Manuel Pereira da Silva and Arlindo Rocha.

Bust of Fernando Fernandes made by Manuel Pereira da Silva

1946 Bust of Fernando Fernandes made by Manuel Pereira da Silva.

Born on 11 April 1924, in Braga. In 1949, concluded the Course of Sculpture in the Oporto Academy of Fine Arts.


In 1952, participated in the exhibition at Modern Art of the National Intelligence with the work Piet. The logic and syllogism, in 1953, the first abstract sculptures presented in a school, getting the classification of 19 values.

The logic and syllogism.

After finished the course, Fernando Fernandes attends the School of Fine Arts in Paris and the Slade School of Art in London. It had a fellowship of the Institute of High Culture and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Represented Portugal in the II and V Biennial of Modern Art of São Paulo in 1953 and 1959

Fernando Fernandes was colleague and fiend of Manuel Pereira da Silva in adventurous stay in Paris in 1946 and 1947, along with the Painter Júlio Resende and the Sculptor Eduardo Tavares who came to be user of the Manuel Pereira da Silva studio, which also occurred later, with the Sculptor Aureliano Lima and the Painter Reis Teixeira.

Henrique Moreira - Sculptor

In 1991 the sculptor Henrique Moreira was honoured by the land that he was borne, Avintes.
On the centenary of his birth, the Board Council of Avintes decided to erect this monument, the work was made by the sculptor Manuel Pereira da Silva.

Monument to the Sculptor Henrique Moreira in Avintes.

Henrique Araújo Moreira (Avintes, Vila Nova de Gaia, 1890 - 1979) was an important Portuguese sculptor.
He had study in the Oporto Academy of Fine Arts, where he was student of Master António Teixeira Lopes; Henrique Moreira left us a remarkable work, recognized in numerous awards, including those of gold medals that were awarded in exhibitions in Lisbon and Seville.
In his vast work, which perpetuates the legacy of naturalist Eight hundred, there is already an updated recipe for the emergence of Art Deco aesthetics, such as denouncing the decorative buttonhole, “The Boys” in the Allies Avenue, Oporto, it is obvious the convergence of a natural harmony of lines and volumes, this naturalist expression gives to the artworks an immense serenity.

The Boys, Allies Avenue in Oporto.

“The Lady Nude” Work of Henrique Moreira, was held in 1929 and is on Allies Avenue, Oporto. Represents a naked woman, seated, with arms supported on a plinth which four faces with masks throw water into a small tank.

The Lady Nude, Allies Avenue in Oporto.

“Tenderness” in the S. Lázaro Garden, Oporto.

In Carlos Alberto Square, a monument to the Portuguese killed in The Great War of 1914-18, Oporto.

The Unknown Soldier, Carlos Alberto Square in Oporto.

Priest Américo (1959/61 - Bronze) in the Republic Square, Oporto.

The Garden Antero de Figueiredo is a small garden located in front of the Foz Market, predominantly consisting of beds of flowers. At the centre there is the bust of the writer who gives name to the Garden.

Antero Figueiredo, Foz Market in Oporto.

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.