Lisbon's subway - Rossio station

Maria Keil (b. 1914 – d. 2012) developed a vast oeuvre in painting, illustration, engraving, tapestry and azulejos. As far these last are concerned she made a name by being the first Portuguese artist to give azulejos a modern look, based on the Portuguese azulejo-making tradition which she studied in depth, at a time when the national art community still considered azulejos as artisanal work. In 1959 the first underground stations of Metropolitano de Lisboa were inaugurated, along a project by her husband, the architect Francisco Keil do Amaral (b. 1910 – d. 1975), and Maria Keil was given ten stations to decorate. The revetments she designed between 1955 and 1972 reveal the complex simplicity that marks her production. In this panel, dated 1963, Maria Keil once again revisits Portuguese tradition by suggesting the Spanish Moorish tiles in Corda Seca technique ("Dry Rope"), used in the XVI century.