The exhibition of the artist Álvaro Lapa (1939-2006) opened on the 20thof January of 1989, at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s (FCG) Main Building Temporary Exhibitions Gallery (Lower Ground Floor), as an initiative of the FCG itself.

José Sommer Ribeiro, Director of the Exhibitions and Museography Department, addressed the invitation to Álvaro Lapa on the 28th of June of 1988. The FCG saw this event as a highly relevant moment for its own exhibition programme right from the start, as stablished in the FCG’s catalogue: “given the importance of this exhibition, we would like to organise it with all due care” (Álvaro Lapa. Obras sobre Papel, 1988).

The agenda, the organization and the selection of the artworks were entrusted to Álvaro Lapa himself and to Manuel Castro Caldas. For this purpose, they gathered 125 works on paper, dated between the years of 1963 and 1988.

The catalogue of the exhibition presents an introductory note by José Sommer Ribeiro, in which the Director describes Lapa’s work as a “steady but simultaneously difficult pathway”, in which a “careful analysis” is required from the spectator (ibid.). This publication also includes one essay that approach the painter’s work: Voz dos signos, by José Gil, and a text by Rui Mário Gonçalves, first published on 1969 in the newspaper A Capital.

The biographical chronology of Álvaro Lapa was compiled by Manuel Castro Caldas, supported by information provided by the painter himself. The exhibition catalogue was highly praised by the media, which recorded the following “The visual appearance is unexcelled in precision and good taste” (“Dois catálogos da Gulbenkian. Álvaro Lapa e Mário Botas”, JL. Jornal de Letras, Artes e Ideias, February 3, 1989).

In addition, an article from the newspaper O Dia applauded the publication, mentioning the “two magnificent texts of José Gil and Rui Mário Gonçalves” and the “full of interesting biographic elements regarding the Portuguese painter” chronology (“Foi igualmente distribuído o catálogo da exposição…”, O Dia, February 2, 1989).