Tendencies in the Contemporary Portuguese Art

Collective exhibition of contemporary Portuguese painting and sculpture included in the Portuguese Cultural Week in Denmark, organised by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's (FCG) Modern Art Centre (CAM), with cooperation from Portugal's Ministry of Education, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Secretary of State for Culture.
The programme included several exhibitions (bibliographic, ethnographic, tiles, architecture, contemporary art), films, chamber music, madrigal and folk music concerts, as well as activities for children.
Portugal's Ministry of Education, which appointed Maria Cristina Teixeira de Sousa to organise the Cultural Week, suggested that the FCG organise a small exhibition of contemporary Portuguese art. In the proposal, the general coordinator underlined these aims:
(...) this initiative to publicise Portugal's image in Denmark at a time when the European ideal of cooperation and understanding should be a reality, will have extensive cultural impact and strengthen the connections between the two countries (Memo from Portugal's Ministry of Education, 5 Jan. 1989, Gulbenkian Archives, CAM 00175).
The FCG promptly agreed to the request, justifying its cooperation with the better relations it had with Denmark, specifically with the Louisiana Modern Art Centre (now the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art) in Humlebæk (Denmark), which was one of the models that inspired the building of an equivalent centre at the FCG in Lisbon (Note by the Modern Art Centre, 18 Jan. 1989, Gulbenkian Archives, CAM 00175). These relations were also reflected in the Danish art exhibitions previously held at the FCG galleries (see Design Dinamarquês, 1981; Onze Artistas Dinamarqueses, 1984).
Shown at the Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Charlottenborg, Denmark), the exhibition comprised 27 paintings and sculptures by seven contemporary Portuguese artists António Dacosta, João Cutileiro, Jorge Martins, José de Guimarães, José Pedro Croft, Júlio Pomar, Paula Rego made during the 1980s, some of which belonged to the CAM collection, now the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum's Modern Collection, and others from private collectors.
As mentioned by José Sommer Ribeiro (1924-2006), exhibition curator and CAM director, this exhibition did not aim to be anything other than a sample of some of the trends in 1980s Portuguese art, and the focus was placed on work by renowned artists, with a track record proven over several decades, rather than a new generation of artists that was emerging, since this was a small sample of current Portuguese art, something that restricted the choices (Tendencies in the Contemporary Portuguese Art, 1989).
The criteria for selecting the works were mostly related to established Portuguese artistic values. Many of the artists were former FCG grantholders, and the originality of their careers had an impact on the Portuguese art scene: the figurative, anthropomorphic world of Paula Rego (Lisbon, Portugal, 1935); the literary references of portraits by Júlio Pomar (Lisbon, Portugal, 1926); the symbolic, highly personal expression of António Dacosta (Angra do Heroísmo, Portugal, 1914 - Paris, France, 1990), who would return to painting after a pause of almost thirty years; the experiments with light and colour in the abstract painting of Jorge Martins (Lisbon, Portugal, 1940); the exuberant colours of figures included in the paintings and sculptures of José de Guimarães (Guimarães, Portugal, 1939); the sensuality of female figures and plant elements in the pink marbles of João Cutileiro (Lisbon, Portugal, 1937); or the simplicity of metal sculptures by José Pedro Croft (Porto, Portugal, 1957).
The exhibition ran for roughly a month, and there is no information on the number of visitors it received in Denmark.
While the exhibition was being prepared, the CAM also temporarily loaned a set of albums, catalogues and publications produced by the FCG to feature in bibliographic exhibitions organised as part of the Cultural Week at the municipal libraries of Lyngby, Hillerød and the Louisiana Modern Art Centre.