Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso at Casa-Museu Teixeira Lopes
From 24 April, the Diogo Macedo Galleries at Casa-Museu Teixeira Lopes, in Vila Nova de Gaia, are showing the exhibition Desenhos e Caricaturas de Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso [Drawings and Caricatures by Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso]. Focusing on the artist’s work on paper, the exhibition is the result of a partnership between Gaia City Council, the Museu Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso in Amarante, Amadeo’s home town, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Modern Art Centre.
Over the course of his short but prolific career, Amadeo explored different styles, aesthetics, supports and techniques, leaving a legacy of more than five hundred works, produced between 1904 and 1918, the year of his premature death. Including standalone drawings and studies for paintings, this exhibition seeks to reveal the importance of drawing and caricature in the artist’s career, particularly as means of experimentation and social observation.
Indeed, it was through drawing that Amadeo established his personal style and achieved artistic recognition, stimulated by the publication of the album XX Dessins, whose original drawings – six of which are part of the Modern Art Centre’s collection – are shown in this exhibition. The 24 loaned works include two studies for the painting Os Galgos [The Greyhounds], a portrait of the painter Eduardo Viana and a self portrait, to name but a few.
As well as a selection of drawings and caricatures, the exhibition also shows the documentary Amadeo de Souza Cardoso – Le Dernier secret de l’art moderne [Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso – The last secret of modern art] by Cristophe Fonseca, made as part of the exhibition devoted to the artist, held in the Grand Palais in 2016, a partnership between RMN and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Curated by art historian Catarina Alfaro, an expert on Amadeo’s work, the exhibition runs until 17 July and is accompanied by a catalogue, to which researcher Leonor de Oliveira contributed.
