António Costa Pinheiro
António Costa Pinheiro (Moura, 1932 - Munich, 2015) attended the António Arroio Artistic School and the Academy of Fine Arts in Lisbon, where he developed his training in Illustration and Painting. Later he worked as a graphic artist and in architecture studios and, in 1956, he held his first individual exhibition at Pórtico Gallery. In 1957 he obtained a scholarship to study Printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he lived and exhibited with René Bértholo, Lourdes Castro and Gonçalo Duarte. In 1960, with a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, he traveled to Paris and coexisted with Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes. In the French capital, with his three companions from Munich and four others - Jan Voss, Christo, José Escada and João Vieira - he created the group and magazine KWY (1958-1963). He returned to Lisbon in 1961, where he spent two years in political prison. In 1965, back in Munich, he began working on the cycle Os Reis. In this work he criticizes, with ironic humor, the old kings of Portugal, through works where the graphics and the heraldic treatment of the figures dominates. In 1966 he exhibits at the Leonhart Gallery (Munich), receiving, in the same year, the Burda Prize for Painting at Haus der hart. A certain distance from the Portuguese nucleus can be explained by the pioneering nature of his painting, in the sense of an association with German expressionism, almost nonexistent in Portugal. This is very visible in the work Homenagem a Malevitch (1967). In 1967 he would also receive the Munich City Painting Prize. In the meantime, he would focus on the Citymobil project and in the publication of texts, returning to painting only in 1976, initiating series such as the Fernando Pessoa series and La fenêtre de ma tête. In the 80s and 90s, marked by numerous exhibitions in Lisbon, Porto, Algarve, Munich and Paris, the artist presents not only painting, but also tiles and tapestries. Noteworthy are exhibitions at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (1981), House Serralves (1990) and Jerónimos Monastery (1995), winning, in 2001, the “Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Grand Prize”. He is represented in numerous collections.
FMV, october 2020
