The two untitled works by André Goezu which belong to the collection of the Modern Art Centre are part of a set of 585 engravings acquired in 1988 from the Cooperative Society of Portuguese Engravers, commonly called ‘Gravura’. The society was founded in 1956, being supported by the Gulbenkian Foundation after 1959. For several decades, it was one of the main promoters of the renovation and recovery of the art of engraving in Portugal. Seeking to promote Portuguese engraving internationally, it established connections and exchanges with international artists and printmaking organizations, bringing a large number of foreign artists to attend the society’s courses and workshops. The Gulbenkian Foundation funded many of these artists’ residences through grants.

 

André Goezu was most likely one of these artists, creating the engravings which belong to the collection of the CAM in November 1977. This was a particularly favourable moment for Portuguese printmaking, as the society’s twenty years of existence were celebrated with a large number of exhibitions realized all over the country in 1976 and 1977.

 

The artist himself mentions that he came into contact with the Gulbenkian Foundation through his friend José de Guimarães, at the time an active member of the ‘Gravura’ society, whom he knew already since the 1960s, first in Antwerp and later on in Paris, where Goezu went to live at the end of the decade.

 

Regarding this work, executed in aqua-tint on leather, the artist informed it has the title Floraison [Flowering], describing it as follows:

Nature flowered again; the tree comes back to life, the caterpillar becomes a butterfly and the girl becomes a woman.

 

 

Note: this text is based on correspondence between the artist and the Modern Art Centre in September 2009; regarding the activities of the Cooperative Society of Portuguese Engravers, see Inês Vieira Gomes, ‘One look at the Modern Art Centre’s engraving collection’, in 1/150. Engraving and multiplying, exhibition catalogue, Almada: Casa da Cerca, 2009, p. 33-36.

 

 

 

 

GV

 

October 2012