Sérgio Pombo (1947-2022)
Having studied Painting at the Escola Superior de Belas-Artes de Lisboa, Sérgio Pombo also attended Printmaking courses at GRAVURA – Cooperative Society of Portuguese Engravers, between 1965 and 1967. He received three scholarships from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, between 1967 and 1969; from 1984 to 1985, to carry out visual research on the subject of the ‘portrait’; and he was granted a specialised Painting scholarship, in 1992 and 1993, to study in Cologne, Germany. The Foundation also awarded the artist four grants in 1970 and 1980.
In 1976, he joined the ‘5+1’ Group, along with João Hogan, Júlio Pereira, Guilherme Parente, Teresa Magalhães and Virgílio Domingues. This group was formed of five painters and one sculptor (Virgílio Domingues), and also five men and one woman. They participated in the exhibition Depois do Modernismo (After Modernism), in 1983, which was fundamental in the development of a series of transformations in Portuguese art, joining artists such as Julião Sarmento.
The 13 pieces belonging to the CAM collection include works from the 1970s, linked to a language of Pop and New Figuration, through objects that have the female body as their main axis; works from the 1980s, in line with the ‘return to painting’ that was taking place at that time, through large-scale canvases showing painting with more expressionist roots, associated with Italian Transavanguardia and the emerging Bad Painting movement. Also belonging to the collection is a notable sculpture entitled Homem Vermelho (Red Man), acquired in 2013, the original of which was made in 1973.
In 2020, the Fundação Carmona e Costa organised a major survey exhibition on the artist, which looked at his work during the period 1973-2017, organised by João Pinharanda. Following this exhibition, the CAM acquired for its collection a collage by the artist (inv. 20DP4695), which completed its section of Sérgio Pombo’s works.