Marcelino Vespeira (Alcochete, 1925 – Lisbon, 2002) started his training at the António Arroio Decorative Arts School, where he studied until 1942, followed by the Architecture course at the Fine Arts School, which he gave up after one year. He then concentrated on graphic arts, working at Estúdio Técnico de Publicidade, and he also dedicated himself to painting. At the beginning of the 1940’s, he attended the meetings at café Herminius, showing his work for the first time in 1943, together with Júlio Pomar, Pedro Oom, Fernando de Azevedo and Gomes Pereira, in a room they rented for that purpose. The post-War socio-political context created in the artist a desire to intervene through his art, with works that followed the ideals of Neo-realism. He further defended art’s interventionist character in his Open Letter to Portuguese Painters, in 1945. The following year, at the Plastic Arts Exhibition, he showed the painting Apertado pela fome (Cramped by hunger), 1945, that marked the beginning of his approach to this current. However, the chosen adopted language already announced his future connection to the surrealist movement, to which he adhered fully in 1947, as one of the founders of the Lisbon Surrealist Group, participating in all its activities. During this period, his palette expanded, with a distinct erotic character in the compositions. The year of 1952 marked an interruption in the surrealist production, with a brief passage over abstractionism, returning to the oneiric compositions and the surrealist language of the previous period, in the 1960’s. In parallel, he remained active in the area of graphic arts, and was graphic director of Colóquio magazine between 1962 and 1966. He had a significant role in the campaigns that followed the 25th of April 1974 and was part of the Comissão Central de Dinamização Cultural e Acção Cívica of the MFA, creating various iconic posters. He was representative of a unique and original moment of Surrealism in Portugal, and he was honoured with the creation of the Vespeira Prize, in 1985, by the Municipality of Montijo. He received the Columbano Prize, in 1957, and the AICA Award, in 2000, the year MNAC organised his first retrospective exhibition. His work is represented in various institutional and private collections.
FMV, October 2020
