Joaquim Manuel Guerreiro Baptista (Faro, 1936 - Lisbon, 2023) came to Lisbon, in 1957, and enrolled in the Architecture course of the Superior School of Fine Arts, which he gave up later, to concentrate entirely on painting. In the same year, he had his first exhibition at the Algarve Cultural Centre, in Faro. In 1962, after completing the Painting Complementary Course at ESBAL, he went to Paris, as a grantee of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, where he remained for approximately one year, consolidating his abstractionist trajectory. With a scholarship from the High Culture Institute, he had the opportunity to live in Ravena, in 1968. Meanwhile, he had already started his office as Assistant Professor of Painting at ESBAL, a position he held until 1972. In 1971, he was part of the team responsible for the redecoration of A Brasileira café, invited by AICA. Three years later, he participated in the making of the painting to commemorate the April Revolution, at the Modern Art Gallery, in Belém. Between 1977 and 1980, he travelled frequently to Lippstadte and to Schmallenberg (Germany), where he made four tapestries for the Folke Factory. He participated in numerous exhibitions, nationally and internationally. From the various group exhibitions, the following stand out: Independent Artists Salon (Fine Arts National Society, 1959), Fifth International Hallmark Art Award (New York, 1960), Plastic Arts Exhibition (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1961 and 1986), 7th São Paulo Biennial (Brazil, 1973), Kompositionem im Halbrund: facherblatter aus vier Jahrunderten (Zurich, 1984), 70-80 Portuguese Art (Brazil, 1987), 15 Years, 15 Artists (Portuguese Orient Institute, Macau, 2005) and Pós-Pop (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2018). Among his solo exhibitions, Galeria do Diário de Notícias (1963), 111 Gallery (1965), Quadrante Gallery (1967), São Paulo Art Museum (1981), Kunstverein, Kassel (1983), Vieira da Silva Museum (2019/2020), and many others. In 1996, Casa da Cerca organised an anthological exhibition of his drawing production. He received the Soquil Art Prize, in 1970, and the Arus Painting Prize, in 1982. His work is present in institutional and private collections.
FMV, October 2020
