24 May 2022
Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso. Beyond dichotomies
Paris, France
The École des modernités
At the Institut Giacometti
The life of the Portuguese painter Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso (1887-1918) was short and intense. His career makes him a prime example for the study of transnational art history. It was built between modern Paris, where the artist rubbed shoulders with Modigliani, Brancusi, Archipenko, Gris and Delaunay, and a small village in the north of his country, on his final return to Portugal. At that time, having lost his cosmopolitan references, de Souza-Cardoso developed the most important part of his work, which is among the most important contributions to pictorial modernity. Before his sudden death, the artist exhibited in Paris, Lisbon and also in New York (at the Armory Show). Because of his early death, oblivion, and the leaden blanket of the fascist dictatorship in Portugal, his recognition was initially international. This conference will look back at the dazzling career of a contributor to Cubism whose work is too little known and nevertheless marked the modernity of painting.
Helena de Freitas is an art historian and art critic. Her work focuses on Portuguese art. Since 1987 she has been a curator at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation where she has curated several exhibitions on contemporary artists. Since 2001 she has been coordinating the research for the Catalogue Raisonné of Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso. Curator at the Delegation Gulbenkian in Paris between 2015 and 2021, she has curated several exhibitions including the retrospective "Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso" (Paris, Grand Palais, 2016), "Rui Chafes-Alberto Giacometti - gris, vide, cris" (Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris, 2018), and the exhibition on Portuguese women artists "Tout ce que je veux" (Lisbon, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2021; Tours, Centre de Création Contemporaine Olivier Debré, 2022).
24 May 2022 at 6:30pm
Lecture in French
Online or on site at the Giacometti Lab, 9 rue Victor Schœlcher
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