Augusto Ferreira Barros, Portuguese artist, was born in Lisbon in 1929 and he passed away in the same city, in 1998. He did his training at Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes and in 1959, as a grantee of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, he went to Germany, where he became a disciple of master Hans Thiemann, at the Staadtliche Hochschule Fur Bildende Kunst, in Hamburg. In 1963, he took residence in Paris and socialized with various personalities, such as Man Ray, Vieira da Silva, Arpad Szenes, Cargaleiro, Poliakoff or Delaunay. He stayed in Paris until the beginning of the 1990’s. He was known as a painter of abstract shapes using soft tonalities, given his preference for predominant colours like white and grey-blues. His main reference was the French painter Serge Poliakoff in the most diverse artistic domains. Barros was present in various group exhibitions, namely his first, titled Augusto Barros and Álvaro Pereira, at the National Art Gallery, Lisbon, in 1964, and his last exhibition, Painting and Sculpture, Plastic Arts, Beja, in 1997. From his solo exhibitions, one should mention his first exhibition at Galerie Commeter, Hamburg, 1962, his second when he was already living in Paris, at Galerie des Jeunes, Paris, 1963 and his last one, in the final period of his life, works from the 60s and 70s, São Bento Gallery, Lisbon, 1997. The work of Augusto Barros is represented in the main European museums, and many of his works are in various private national and international collections.
JFB, April 2022
