José de Guimarães

JOSÉ DE GUIMARÃES (Portugal, 1939).
“Person with snack,” 1989.
Sculpture in painted cardboard.
Signed and dated.
With a label from the Rene Metrás Gallery on the back.
Measurements: 42 x 28 x 12 cm.

The transformation of the figure into a symbol, the chromatic hallmarks, and the dialogue between painting and sculpture place this work within José de Guimarães’s most recognizable artistic language. Its silhouetted form, with organic shapes and irregular contours, evokes an anthropomorphic presence linked to the repertoire of symbols the artist developed through his engagement with African cultures and the European avant-garde.

José María Fernández Marques, known as José de Guimarães, is one of the most prominent contemporary artists in his native country, Portugal. During his youth, he entered the military academy and began his engineering studies at the Technical University of Lisbon, where he enrolled in 1957. During this training, he acquired knowledge that he later applied to his artistic work. However, a year later he began his artistic education, taking painting classes from the artist Teresa Sousa and Gil Teixeira Lopes, in addition to studying printmaking at the Portuguese Printmakers’ Cooperative. In the 1960s, he decided to change his last names and adopt the name of his hometown as his middle name. Between 1961 and 1966, he traveled throughout Europe, gaining firsthand knowledge of the works of the old masters. Years later, in 1967, she moved to Angola, where she lived for seven years, during which time she forged her own identity as an artist. Throughout her career, she has received numerous awards and participated in various solo and group exhibitions. Currently, many of his works are held in highly prestigious international collections, including the Würth Museum in Germany, the Royal Museum of Modern Art in Brussels, the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo (Brazil), Carleton University in Ottawa, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the Frederick Weissman Museum in Los Angeles, and the Rockefeller Art Center in New York, among many others. José de Guimarães is represented in international museums and collections such as the Serralves Museum in Porto; the Center for Modern Art of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon; and the Würth Collection, associated with its various European museums. Furthermore, his work is part of the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp (M HKA) and the Middelheim Museum, also in Antwerp; the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo; the National Museum of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro; and the Soares dos Reis National Museum in Porto, among other institutions.