Júlio Pomar

Júlio Pomar (Lisboa, 1926 – Lisboa, 2018) entered the António Arroio Art School at eight years old, and followed his studies, in 1942, at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts. In 1944, he moved to the Oporto School of Fine Arts and participated in the Independents Exhibition (Porto and Coimbra; Lisbon, 1945), integrating, the following year, the IX Missão Estética de Férias, in Évora, with the influence of rurality present in works such as Gadanheiro. Meanwhile, he started his literary production and was responsible for the “Art” page at the Oporto’s A Tarde newspaper. Until 1953, he published more than 70 articles in various publications.  These texts – which addressed the need for reformation in Portuguese painting – reflect the key role that this artist had in the neo-realist movement in Portugal. The first years of his career were also associated to political activism, in resistance to the État Nouveau regime, namely through the Juvenile MUD, at the origin of Pomar’s detention at the Caxias prison, between April and August 1947. In the same year, he was part of the II General Exhibition of Fine Arts at SNBA, where his painting Resistance was apprehended. Between 1950 and 1952 he had various solo exhibitions in Oporto and Lisbon. In 1953, he participated in the II São Paulo Biennial. In 1956, with other artists, Pomar founded the Gravura cooperative and, the following year, he received the 1^stEngraving Prize at the I Fine Arts Exhibition of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG), where, in 1961, he would also be awarded the Painting Prize at the II Fine Arts Exhibition. In 1963, he moved to Paris, and the following year received a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. One of the works of Le Bain turcseries was shown at the Louvre Museum, in 1971. From 1983, Pomar lived both in Paris and in Lisbon. The following decades were marked by an intense artistic and exhibitory activity, including several retrospective and anthological exhibitions, both nationally and internationally, and by several awards, such as the AICA-SEC Prize (1994), the Celpa/Vieira da Silva Award (2000) and the Amadeu de Souza-Cardoso Award (2003). In 2004, the artist founded the Júlio Pomar Foundation and, in 2003, the Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar was inaugurated. His work is represented in numerous collections, in Portugal and abroad.

 

 

FMV, October 2020