The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has received a donation from the heiress of René Bertholo, the documental archive of the artist, who was one of the most important names in the Portuguese art scene during the second half of the 20th century.

Having realized part of his work abroad, integrated in the context of modern and contemporary art of the 1960s and 1970s, Bertholo was a scholarship holder of the Fine Arts Service and is represented in the Centro de Arte Moderna collection.

This archive, now part of the Art Library’s collection, consists of a diverse set of documents including correspondence with entities, institutions, and contemporary artists, such as his friends and colleagues from the KWY group, or the Argentine Alberto Greco, photographs, press clippings, various ephemera, posters, and a set of publications, including catalogues of exhibitions he held abroad, mainly in Paris, in the 1960s and 1970s, magazines and posters.

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This archive will not only provide a better understanding of René Bertholo’s artistic practice but will also help to contextualize in a more comprehensive way the links between the artists of his generation and the international artistic circuit.

Its integration into the Art Library’s collection, joining the Alberto Carneiro Archive and the collections of Fernando Calhau, Jorge Vieira, Helena Almeida, and David de Almeida, contributes significantly to the consolidation of this service as the reference library for the study and understanding of national artistic production between the second half of the 20th century and the first decades of the present century.

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As it is inventoried, this archive will be made available, supporting the research of the artist’s works in the Centro de Arte Moderna collection and the study of researchers, curators, critics, national and foreign.