Jorge Vieira (Lisboa, 1922 – Estremoz, 1998) graduated in Sculpture at the Lisbon Fine Arts School, in 1953, complementing his education at the studios of sculptors António Duarte, Francisco Franco and António da Rocha, and architect Frederico Jorge, with whom he collaborated for a longer period. Like various other artists, Vieira travelled to London and Paris, in 1948, and to Italy, in 1950, and he contacted with the work of Picasso, Ernst, Brauner, among others. These trips were key for the development of his work and for the consolidation of his own language, which, in this period, was close to the surrealist universe. In 1949, he had his first solo exhibition at Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes. Four years later, he was one of the competitors in the international sculpture contest of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, in London, in which he presented a project for the monument The Unknown Political Prisioner. This work was selected and awarded and shown at Tate Gallery. However, given his opposition to the État Nouveau, it was built only in 1994, in Beja. In 1954, he attended Slade School, in London. Throughout the following decades, he was the author of various public interventions, such as the group of bas-reliefs for the Bloco das Águas Livres (1956) and the Monument to the Miner (1986-1988), in Alustrel. In 1958, at the Brussels International Fair, he was the only Portuguese sculptor to participate in the 50 ans d’art modern exhibition, and two years later he was awarded the first prize at the Plastic Arts Exhibition of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. In 1976, he began working as Assistant at the Oporto Fine Arts School and he moved to the Lisbon Fine Arts School, in 1981, where, eleven years later, he would become laureate professor in Sculpture. He spent a great part of his last years in Alentejo, where he bought a house in 1982. The relationship he established with this region would lead to the creation, in 1995, of the Casa das Artes Jorge Vieira, in Beja – a museum that has a great part of his work. In the same year, a retrospective exhibition of his work was inaugurated at the Chiado Museum. Other projects should be emphasised, such as the sculpture Homem-Sol [Man-Sun] (1998), an order for Expo’98. There are various public works nationally and he is represented in institutional and private collections.
FMV, October 2020
