José Malhoa (Caldas da Rainha, 1855 – Figueiró dos Vinhos, 1933) moved to Lisbon when he was eight years old and enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts four years later, where he was a student of M. A. Lupi, Vitor Bastos and Tomás de Anunciação. He completed the course with merit in 1875, the same year when he unsuccessfully applied, for the second time, to a State scholarship to study in Paris. Disappointed with the result of these applications, he temporarily stopped painting and started working as an employee at this brother’s shop. He returned to painting in 1881, stimulated by the positive criticism to the painting A Seara Invadida, then shown in Madrid. Malhoa was one of the founders of the Leão Group, responsible for the introduction of the naturalist movement in Portugal. He was an active figure in the Portuguese art world, showing his work not only with the Leão Group, between 1881 and 1889, but also at the Sociedade Promotora de Belas Artes (1880, 1884 and 1887), at the Grémio Artístico (1891-1899) and at the salons of the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes (SNBA, 1901-1933), of which he was the first president, in 1901, reoccupying this position in 1918. Internationally, his work achieved great visibility, with regular participations at the Salon de Paris (1897-1912), at the Paris Universal Exhibition (1900) and at the International Exhibitions of Berlin (1896), Madrid (1901), Rio de Janeiro (1908), Barcelona (1910), Buenos Aires (1910) and Panama-Pacific (1915), for which he received prizes. Within a naturalist path, Malhoa addressed, without any ideological concern, several genres, such as landscape and portrait. However, it was by recording the essence and identity of his country – the traditions and customs of the people, essentially in the rural milieu – that he became known as one of the most celebrated Portuguese painters. He also undertook orders for large historical and decorative compositions, namely at the Lisbon Museu da Artilharia, at Palácio da Ajuda, at the Medical School and at the Lisbon City Hall. In 1928, SNBA organised a major retrospective exhibition of his work and the José Malhoa Award was created. Five years later, he was honoured with the creation of the José Malhoa Museum, in Caldas da Rainha. His work is also represented at MNAC, Museu do Fado and other collections.
FMV, October 2020
