Ofélia Marques
Learn about the artist's universe through a text accompanied by a selection of works from the exhibition “All I want – Portuguese women artists from 1900 to 2020”
By Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Text by Lígia Afonso / Plano Nacional das Artes
A self-taught visual artist born in the early 20th century, Ofélia Marques was a member of the Portuguese modernist movement, closely following its international developments alongside Bernardo Marques, a companion during a significant part of her career.
Untitled (not dated) by Ofélia MarquesCalouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Untitled, not dated
Graphite and crayon on paper
34,2 x 48 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. DP656
Untitled (not dated) by Ofélia MarquesCalouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Untitled, not dated
Colour pencil, Indian ink, pastel and gouache on paper
26,1 x 39,4 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. DP643
Untitled (not dated) by Ofélia MarquesCalouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Untitled, not dated
Graphite and pastel on paper
45 x 65,2 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. 80DP624
Untitled (not dated) by Ofélia MarquesCalouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Untitled, not dated
Graphite, watercolour and Indian ink on paper
27,2 x 32,7 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. DP637
Essentially recognised for her work in painting, it was in drawing that her practice proved to be most innovative. She was a regular contributor to periodicals and illustrated books and was a pioneering creator of children's comic strips. It was, however, in her multiple deeply psychological self-portraits and in her series of portraits of friends, artists and writers imagined as caricatures of children that her work acquired a greater technical and reflective power.
Her erotic work, only presented to the public posthumously, reveals a more transgressive, irreverent, cosmopolitan and experimentalist facet of her work. Ofélia Marques' intimate homoerotic scenes depicting females are captured variously in black and white compositions, in luminously expressive and contrasting works of colour, and in India ink, graphite, crayon, pastel and gouache.
With a lushly sexualised ambience, these works reveal subtle and empathetic relationships of domination and subjugation, in which the presence of a cat appears perhaps as a metaphor.
Untitled (1933) by Ofélia MarquesCalouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Untitled, 1933
Graphite, watercolour and Indian ink on paper
24,9 x 21,4 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. DP652
Untitled (not dated) by Ofélia MarquesCalouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Untitled, not dated
Indian ink and wash on paper
25,5 x 33 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. DP631
Untitled (not dated) by Ofélia MarquesCalouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Untitled, not dated
Indian ink on paper
27,5 x 34,5 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. DP630
Learn more about the artist:
Ofélia Marques | Museu Calouste Gulbenkian
Selection of works presented at the exhibition All I want: Portuguese women artists from 1900 to 2020, in its first moment at Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, within the scope of the cultural program that takes place in parallel to the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2021.
Exhibition organized by the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage (DGPC) and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in co-production with the Center of Contemporary Creation Olivier Debré, Tours, and with the collaboration of the Plano Nacional das Artes (Portugal).
Curators:
Helena de Freitas and Bruno Marchand
Text by Lígia Afonso / Plano Nacional das Artes
Selection of online resources Maria de Brito Matias
Learn more about Ofélia Marques's works presented in the context of this exhibition:
All I want: Feminine Plural
