An exhibition dedicated to Sarah Affonso will be inaugurated in Lisbon

Museu do Chiado opens today an exhibition about Sarah Affonso’s journey

The biographical and creative career of the artist Sarah Affonso (1899 – 1983) will be in focus in an exhibition to open today, at 7 pm, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, in Lisbon.

It is titled “Sarah Affonso. Os dias das pequenas coisas” (“Sarah Affonso. The Days of Little Things“) and is curated by Maria de Aires Silveira and Emília Ferreira and will be on display at the Capelo Ward until January 5, 2020.

This is one of two exhibitions celebrating the 120th anniversary of the birth of the modernist artist and recalling her life and work.

The second exhibition is at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, entitled “Sarah Affonso e a Arte Popular do Minho” (“Sarah Affonso and the Popular Art of Minho”), which runs until October 7th.

Although recognized and inscribed in the history of national art, the artist Sarah Affonso remains unknown to the general public and reduced to the image of the woman of Almada Negreiros.

Last student of Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts, Sarah Affonso left in 1924 for Paris, where she attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.

Between 1928 and 1929, he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne and worked in a fashion atelier, performing fashion sketches, a practice that will continue in the press in Portugal.

An illustrator, in the periodical press and for several books by writers, such as Fernanda de Castro, she has been active for several decades as a painter, with particular emphasis on portraiture.

It was recognized by peers and critics, honored with the Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Prize in 1944, and organized several solo exhibitions in the 1920s and 1930s.

At the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, the exhibition “Sarah Affonso e a Arte Popular do Minho”, featured in the Founder’s Collection Gallery and curated by Ana Vasconcelos

This exhibition is dedicated to the artist’s particular relationship with the art and popular culture of that region, which has so strongly marked her since her childhood and adolescence, spent in Viana do Castelo.