Gonçalo Duarte

Gonçalo Duarte was born in Lisbon in 1935 and died in Paris in 1986. He studied fine arts in Lisbon and in Munich, later settling in the French capital, where he held a grant from the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. His artistic activity developed mainly between Portugal and France.

In Paris he joined the KWY group, formed around the magazine of the same name, founded by Lourdes Castro and René Bertholo in 1958. This circle also included Costa Pinheiro, José Escada, João Vieira, Christo and Jan Voss. The collaboration between these artists gave rise to a space of experimentation and of encounter between different languages, in which Gonçalo Duarte took part with works in screenprint.

After experiments linked to lyrical abstraction, he developed a figurative language of surrealist inspiration. In his paintings and drawings, human figures, animals, geometric forms and machines appear in unexpected associations, close to the logic of dreams. The narrative dimension coexists with an enigmatic atmosphere in which the motifs recur and take on new meanings from one composition to the next. Portuguese history and mythology also occupy a place in his work. In works such as those of the Batalha de Alcácer Quibir series, he revisits episodes of the past, bringing historical memory closer to references to the contemporary world.

Alongside painting, he made assemblages and sculptures from found objects and materials gathered from everyday life. Fragments of wood, bone and metal are brought together in small-scale constructions in which he explores relationships of balance and the expressive possibilities of combining materials. He also worked in clay, keeping in this sculptural strand a closeness to the surrealist imagination.

He held solo exhibitions in spaces such as the Judite da Cruz and São Francisco galleries in Lisbon, and Messine, Toumarkine and Diagonale in Paris. In 1979 the Centro Cultural Português of the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, in the French capital, presented an exhibition devoted to his painting, as part of a cycle presenting the Foundation’s grant holders and former grant holders.

His work is part of the collection of the Centro de Arte Moderna of the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, which presented a group of his sculptures between 2001 and 2002, and of various private collections in Portugal and abroad.