Manuel Baptista
AVAILABLE:
Technique: silkscreen
Dimensions: 100 x 71 cm
Year: 2006
Edition: 35 signed and numbered copies
Reference: MB0001
PVP: 350€
About Manuel Baptista
Source: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Baptista
Influenced by various references, by Miró e Klee a Matisse, his early works deal with themes such as "the washerwoman, the fishmongers in a market, active workers [...], the pair of still lifes of Matissean echo, with a summary but expressive trait".
In the 1960s abstraction becomes dominant. Manuel Baptista makes an "enhancement of the support, with agglomerations of glued cloths, modulation of reliefs in positive/negative, geometric cut of the supports, base grids and collage of layers". These options were confirmed in the following decade, which corresponds to a time of "vigorous affirmation of this work of deconstruction and recomposition of surfaces, of cut and glued canvas"; the "landscape suggestion intersects with the ornamental one" in "meticulous and very perfect" works where an "aesthetics of the fragment both suggest the poetics of stained glass and an essay in textile manufacture".
Another facet of his artistic production was presented in 2011, in a major exhibition at the Electricity Museum, which included three-dimensional works designed since the mid-1960s and never materialized: "More or less timeless everyday objects (envelopes, shirts with ties, tables…) , loose elements of natural and/or landscape scenography (bushes, cliffs, bouquets of flowers), some objects with symbolic values (skeins) […] Due to their themes, materials and scale, Manuel Baptista's works are close to Western discourse [...] We must think that his approach starts from a look touched by the critical poetics of Arte Povera and Nouveau réalisme; and also by the way he received and understood the particular Portuguese political, social and technological situation from which departed and where he returned".
1936: Born in Faro, is a Portuguese artist and painter.
1957 – 1962: Attends the painting course at ESBAL, leaving the following year for Paris with a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
1964 - 1972 teaches at ESBAL.
1956 – 1959: He participated for the first time in group shows in 1956 and exhibited at the 1st and 2nd Salons of Modern Art of the National Society of Fine Arts (1958 and 1959).
1961: Holds his first solo exhibition, at the Diário de Notícias Gallery, Lisbon, and participates in the 2nd Exhibition of Plastic Arts of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon.
1971: He was one of the artists invited by the Portuguese section of AICA to participate in the renovation of the decoration of the A Brasileira café.
1977 and 1980: Regularly travels to Lippstadt and Schmallenberg, Federal Republic of Germany, making tapestries for the Falke Factory (Imago).
1990 – 2003: Assumes the direction of the municipal galleries Trem and Arco, Faro.
Main individual exhibitions:
1961: Diário de Notícias Gallery, Lisbon.
1964: Divulgation Gallery, Lisbon.
1965: Gallery 111, Lisbon.
1966: Quadrante Gallery, Lisbon.
1981: Museum of Art of São Paulo, Brazil.
1983: Kasseler Kunstverein, Kassel, Germany.
1992: Quadrado Azul Gallery, Porto.
1993: Luís Serpa Gallery, Lisbon.
1996: Casa da Cerca – Contemporary Art Center, Almada.
2006: Falke Werk, Lipupstadt, Germany.
2007: Fernando Santos Gallery, Porto.
2011: Out of Scale - Drawing and Sculpture 1960-1970, Electricity Museum, EDP Foundation, Lisbon.
Writing Landscape - Drawing 1960-1970, Fundação Carmona e Costa, Lisbon
Awards:
1968: 1st Prize for Painting / Guerin Prize for Visual Arts;
1970: Soquil Prize;
1984: IV Bienal de Cerveira Painting Prize;
1993: BANIF Painting Prize.