Sarah Affonso
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
Sarah Affonso grew up in Viana do Castelo, in northern Portugal. The festivities, beliefs and traditions of the Minho region, especially processions, popular festivals, dances and weddings, form the backdrop to an idyllic, almost mythical imaginary realm, where, she says, “everything is a scene waiting to be painted”. Affonso was also influenced by the popular art produced in those parts, especially the clay figures of Barcelos, which feature in her paintings.
Portrait of Matilde (1932) by Sarah AffonsoCalouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Portrait of Matilde, 1932
Oil on canvas
83,5 x 58,5 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. 83P637
Her vividly colourful works are allegorical and ostensibly naive, while being modern in their themes, references, synthesis of forms, contours and precisely defined composition. Affonso had an ethnographical instinct: her gaze was drawn to time-honoured rural life, the rituals of fishermen and the doings of women and children. This was expressed in drawings, embroidery and ceramics, although the rate at which she produced paintings slowed following her marriage to Almada Negreiros in 1934.
Little girls (1928) by Sarah AffonsoOriginal Source: Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea – Museu do Chiado
Little girls, 1928
Oil on canvas
92 x 77 cm
Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea – Museu do Chiado, inv. MNAC 1525
Intimate portraits – of herself, her children and grandchildren – would come to predominate in her work. Working within an essentially masculine artistic milieu, she would go on to produce a major series of portraits of her circle of friends and peers, in a formally synthetic style, yet with all the psychological intensity of a mind “accessing painting through emotion”.
Portrait of Tagarro and Waldemar da Costa (1929) by Sarah AffonsoCalouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Portrait of Tagarro and Waldemar da Costa, 1929
Oil on canvas
73 x 59 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. 83P1109
My portrait (1927) by Sarah AffonsoOriginal Source: Private Collection
My portrait, 1927
Oil on canvas
50 x 40 cm
Private Collection
Learn more about the artist:
Sarah Afonso: Biografia do Centenario 1899-1999 | RTP Arquivos (in Portuguese)
Conversas sobre Sarah Affonso | Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (in Portuguese)
Exposição «Os Dias das Pequenas Coisas» – Conversas Sobre Sarah Affonso | Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea (in Portuguese)
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 Sarah Affonso's works presented in the context of this exhibition:
All I want: The Gaze and the Mirror
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