Dominguez Alvarez (Porto, 1906-1942). Son of Galician parents, José Cândido Dominguez Alvarez starts by studying architecture at the Porto School of Fine Arts. Two years later, in 1928, he opts for Painting, graduating with the highest grades in 1940. He joined only a few group exhibitions. In 1929, the exhibition of the group + Além, inspired by the Galician group “Máis Alá”, and stating a critical view of the academic and naturalistic teaching, Alvarez was clearly noted. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War broke out and he finally chose the Portuguese nationality, he organized his only solo exhibition at the Salão Silva Porto.
Art historians point out three phases in his work. The first, starting in 1927, is known as “red” (although we will acknowledge a drastic chromatic reduction from 1928 on); in 1930, there is a turn for abstract, cubist, experiences; and, in 1937, a more fantastic phase, of Spanish inspiration (after some travelling in Castile in 1932), kicks off. At the same time, however, there are always several other bucolic inspirations, of Galician influence.
Not a traveller (apart occasional visits to Galicia and the travel experience to Castile), Alvarez will never even visit Lisbon, remaining an outsider to the Portuguese modernist official standards. In 1939, his work was refused by the 4th SPN Exhibition of Modern Art. He was, however, well aware of Galician (and generally of Spanish) pictorial and literary culture, and of the work of masters such as Castelao, Solana, Maside, among others. These, and especially El Greco, will shape his lonely and disturbing atmospheres, his distorted and expressive architectures and characters, wondering under stormy skies and a stubborn golden light.
Devoted to his private research (his fragile health condition held him from concluding his major before 1940), he wrote extensively about art, publishing in Jornal de Notícias between 1934 and 1940. He died of tuberculosis in Porto, in 1942, two months after his 36th birthday.
EF, dezembro 2020
