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.