Exhibition of drawings and book illustrations by Bernardo Marques held at the Centre Culturel Portugais [Portuguese Cultural Centre], 25th February – 20th March 1982.

The opening was attended by the Portuguese Ambassador, Siqueira Freire, the Ambassador to UNESCO Grainha do Vale, the Ambassador to the OCDE Pedro Roseta, “and teachers and students from the Paris universities, as well as French and Portuguese painters resident in Paris, among whom were Manuel Cargaleiro and Bertino” (Telegrama, [s/d], Gulbenkian Archives, PRS 05183).

All the works on show belonged to the collection of Maria Elisa Marques, covering the period between 1934 and 1962. Thus although not the same as the show in the Temporary Exhibition Gallery in the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian [Calouste Gulbenkian Museum], during the month of June the same year there were some works in common, namely those belonging chronologically to the 1930s.

The drawings on show caricatured Portuguese and Parisian society, but also included some landscapes, in materials such as Indian ink, gouache, watercolour, coloured pencil, and mixed techniques on paper and card.

The works of Bernardo Marques that were selected illustrated the development of his career as an artist.  While in the 1930s his work tended to caricature and satirise Portuguese, Parisian, and Berlin society, inspired by German expressionism, in the 1940s it mainly consisted of book and magazine illustrations, graphics, and advertising, which drew on Portuguese folklore. In the 1950s Bernardo Marques substituted his painstaking analysis of people and personalities for an analysis of the objects and landscapes of Beira Alta, Lisbon and the Algarve, his birthplace. He did so with impressionist sensibility.

The exhibition catalogue included two texts signed by José-Augusto França and Paulo Ferreira, a biography of Bernardo Marques and several reproductions of the works on display.

A note signed by José V. de Pina Martins, Director of the CCP, 10th February 1982, and addressed to José Blanco, contains information about the budget for the opening of the exhibition, estimated at 5000 francs.