Figures of Portuguese History and Culture

Florbela Espanca was seven years old when she wrote the poem A Vida e Morte (Life and Death), revealing very early a choice of subjectmatter that, along with love, would define her. A great name of Portuguese poetry, she was born in Vila Viçosa on December 8th, 1894.

Her vast work mirrors an afflicted existence, characterised by sadness and loss. She also chose to die on December 8th, in desperation from a neurosis that worsened from day to day. She was only 36 years old.

Writing was always her vocation and refuge. She published Livro de Mágoas (Book of Sorrows), O Livro de Soror Saudade (The Book of Longing), As Máscaras do Destino (The Masks of Destiny) and O Dominó Preto (The Black Domino), among many other titles. She translated French novels and collaborated with magazines.

Maria Keil is an undisputed reference of Portuguese plastic creation. She was a painter, a designer, an illustrator, a decorator, a graphic and furniture designer, a ceramist, a stage and a costume designer, an author, and the creator of tapestries and tile compositions.

She was born in Silves on August 9th, 1914. She studied painting at the School of Fine Arts of Lisbon, and married the architect Francisco Keil do Amaral. She died two years before completing a century.

With reference to her tilework, her creative genius embellished public spaces in Portugal and abroad, such as the Metropolitan of Lisbon, TAP of Paris and New York, Infante Santo Street in Lisbon, the Airport of Luanda and the Casino of Vilamoura.

Also worth mentioning is the illustration and authorship of children’s books, as well as the tapestries she created for the Hotel Estoril Sol, TAP of New York, Copenhagen and Madrid, and the Casino Estoril.

Joaquim Namorado, poet and essayist, was an initiator and theoretician of the neorealist movement. He also distinguished himself for his doctrinal and cultural activities. His literary debut was Aviso à Navegação (Notice to Skippers).

A militant of the Portuguese Communist Party, he defended the dissemination of culture as an instrument to raise the awareness of the people. In the magazine Vértice, which he directed, he published thoughts of Karl Marx under the alias of Carlos Marques, an episode which earned him a visit from PIDE.

He was born in Alter do Chão on June 30th, 1914. He graduated in Mathematical Sciences, and was also a university professor. Incomodidade (Inconvenience), A Poesia Necessária (The Necessary Poetry) and Uma Poética da Cultura (Poetics of Culture) are some of his works. He diedin 1986.

João Hogan was an artist that excelled in painting, namely landscape painting, and in engraving, in which he focused on abstract themes or the human figure.

Of Irish descent, he was born in Lisbon on February 4th, 1914. For more than 20 years he reconciled painting with his profession of cabinet maker, studying Fine Arts at night.

He created his own naturalist style, in which vastness, uninhabited places and the harshness of the land would stand out. From the 60’s onwards, however, his painting gained almost abstract features.

Professor at ARCO, he was awarded several prizes and participated in several exhibitions in Portugal and abroad. In 1992, four years after his death, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation dedicated an anthology to him.

António Dacosta was one of three artists responsible for the first surrealist exhibition held in Portugal, in Casa Repe, in 1940.

He was born in Angra do Heroísmo, Azores, on November 3rd, 1914 and as an adult he moved to Lisbon to study Fine Arts. He then moved to Paris at the invitation of the French government, where he lived out the rest of his days until his death in 1990.

He excelled as a painter and poet, but was also a designer and illustrator. In all of these facets, the initial phase of his work mirrors the anxiety of a Europe overshadowed by the war.

He did not paint for more than two decades, but remained connected to the arts as a critic and columnist of Portuguese newspapers, as well as of the Brazilian newspaper Estado de S. Paulo.

He reemerged in 1983 with a new painting, with a crystalline look. The following years were years of consolidation.

José Sebastião e Silva was one of the most remarkable Portuguese mathematicians. Combining a humanist culture with a vast scientific knowledge, he also distinguished himself as an educator.

He was born in Mértola on december 12th, 1914. He was full professor of the Institute of Agronomy and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, member of the Academy of Sciences and director of the Centre of Mathematical Studies of Lisbon, having influenced the academic development of many scientists and professors.

He was the author of numerous scientific articles which had a tremendous international impact and of teaching texts for university and pre-university education, which remain a reference to this day.

In 1968, as president of the Study Commission for the Modernisation of the Teaching of Mathematics in secondary education, he defended that «it is not the responsibility of the school to produce men-machines but, rather, to form thinking beings, with creative imagination and the ability to adapt».