José Manuel Espiga Pinto (1940-2014) was born and grew up in Vila Viçosa, Alentejo. He attended the Lisbon School of Fine Arts between 1957 and 1960, holding his first solo exhibition in 1958 at Galeria Pórtico, in the same city. Between 1960 and 1966 he returned to Alentejo, where he taught at the Industrial and Commercial School of Estremoz. The fact that he was born in Alentejo was a determining factor in this early phase of his production, characterised by David Santos as "late neo-realism". In the words of the artist himself, he had taken the decision to "Sing the Alentejo", revisiting the "fields, the work, the peasants, peasant women and horses, in a symbiosis between the hardness of the work from dawn to dusk and the experience of the traditional clothing, the markets, the olive presses, the popular, religious and pagan festivals, the end of the olive harvest festivals...". The horses, which he confessedly fell in love with, and the peasant figures are the motto of this composition. The space is free of any perspective construction, composed by a succession of bands in the verticality of the paper. The high chromatic economy allows him to concentrate on a play between full and empty in the construction of the several figures, which immediately bestows/ sets rhythm to the work. Added to this is the intertwining of forms, where horses and peasants, drawn in overlapping diagonals, tend to form a single and very dynamic whole. Espiga Pinto's work would develop in different directions in the following years, both thematically and formally. However, certain elements linked to his origins and which were present in his initial phase will never again abandon his production.



LC