Jorge Martins. Desenhos, 1957 – 1987

The Jorge Martins’ anthological exhibition (1940) opened on June 8 of 1988 at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG) Temporary Exhibitions Gallery (Lower Ground Floor) and closed on August 14 of the same year.

The exhibition was planned in 1983, when the «Jorge Martins, Preto e Branco» exhibition was held at the FCG’s Main Building Temporary Exhibition Gallery (Lower Ground Floor), during June. The selection of the artworks was entrusted to Jorge Martins himself, to José Sommer Ribeiro, the Director of the Exhibitions and Museography Department of the FCG, and to the artist Manuel Castro Caldas. This selection was based on the understanding of the evolution of the drawing of Jorge Martins and on its perception by the public, in the course of a 30 years period. From over three thousand drawings, 286 artworks were selected and exhibited.

The catalogue of the exhibition contains texts by Filomena Molder, Manuel Castro Caldas and José Gil. Throughout different approaches, the authors analyse the development of Jorge Martins' work, agreeing on what Sommer Ribeiro calls "its quality and coherence" (Jorge Martins. Desenhos de 1957 a 1987, 1988, p. 7).

The exhibition was praised by the national press, which applauded the quality of the set of artworks on display. On the other hand, the layout was strongly criticized, namely in the article written by Emídio Rosa de Oliveira: "This exhibition is not easy to see. We visit it along a path with not the best conditions of visibility. However, to deny the value of what is exhibit there would be giving evidence of ignorance. " (Oliveira, O Século, June 25, 1988)

José Sousa Machado also criticized the exhibition's layout in the article he wrote for the newspaper Diário Popular, pointing out the difficulty sensed in the individual reading of each artwork but praising the overall coherence: "Although in some areas of the gallery there is an excessive concentration of artworks, making it difficult to view each drawing individually, the retrospective set in itself is very coherent, namely in the links established between the drawings, making it possible to understand the specificity of the artist's work and to form a solid opinion about his graphic research." (Machado, Diário Popular, June 24, 1988)