José Barrias (Lisbon, 1944 – Milan, 2020), son of painter Miguel Barrias, attended the Painting course at the Oporto Fine Arts School, where he lived between 1950 and 1967, moving later to Paris, where he stayed for one year (1967-1968). He then took residence in Milan, where he lived and worked until he passed away, not losing, however, the connection to his home town, through many exhibitions. In 1980, he participated at the Paris Biennial and in 1984 he represented Portugal at the Venice Bienale. In 1990, he had his first solo exhibition in Portugal and in 1996 a general exhibition of his work was organised – José Barrias Etc…. -, at the Modern Art Centre of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. In the same year, he was awarded the AICA Prize. His work is made of mixed materials and techniques, using not only traditional media, such as drawing, painting and sculpture, but also photography, film and written text, many times conjugated in the form of installations. Generally organised in correlated thematic nuclei, as if it were a long narrative, his work is inspired by literary references, and it has a strong autobiographic component, exploring in particular the notions of memory and heritage. Some of his main exhibitions were Presente (1995, Perugia, Italy), Um quarto de página (1995, Casa Fernando Pessoa), Sete artistas contemporâneos evocam a geração de 1911 (1999, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation), In Itirene (2011, Serralves Foundation), José Barrias: Correspondências (2014, Bragança) and Escrever com a luz: Notas para a biografia de uma sombra (2019, Guimarães), his last exhibition in Portugal.
FMV, October 2020
