Jorge Barradas

Jorge Barradas was born in Lisbon in 1894 and died in the same city in 1971. A painter, illustrator and ceramicist, he belonged to the first generation of Portuguese modernism. He attended the Escola de Belas-Artes de Lisboa briefly, afterwards pursuing an essentially self-taught training.

In 1912 he took part in the I Salão dos Humoristas Portugueses, alongside artists such as Almada Negreiros and Emmerico Nunes. His regular contributions to newspapers and magazines, among them "ABC", "Ilustração Portuguesa" and "Contemporânea", gave his work wide visibility and helped to spread a new graphic language in Portugal. With Henrique Roldão he founded the publication "O Riso da Vitória", and he also worked on stage design and costumes for the teatro de revista.

In his painting and illustration he portrayed the working-class quarters of Lisbon, their characters and the settings of urban life, giving particular prominence to the female figure. A taste for stylisation and decorative draughtsmanship runs through these compositions. His stay in São Tomé in 1931 introduced into his work tropical landscapes of exuberant vegetation and strong chromatic contrasts, a theme he would return to in the last years of his life.

From the 1940s onwards he devoted himself intensively to ceramics, becoming a central figure in its renewal in Portugal. He created sculptures, decorative objects, tiles and relief panels, bringing references from popular tradition close to an ornamental taste of Baroque inspiration. The integration of ceramics into architecture was of particular importance in his career, with commissions for numerous public and religious buildings. Among the most notable are the bas-reliefs of the Fonte Monumental in Alameda D. Afonso Henriques, the tile panel at the Faculdade de Letras of the Universidade de Lisboa and the works for the Centro Cultural Português of the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Paris.

He was awarded the gold medal at the Exposição Internacional de Paris in 1937, the Prémio Columbano in 1939 and the Prémio Sebastião de Almeida, dedicated to ceramics, in 1949.

After his death, Galeria São Mamede organised a retrospective of ceramics and drawing in 1972, paying tribute to him again in 1977. His work is represented in the Centro de Arte Moderna of the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, the Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea, the Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis and in numerous private collections in Portugal and abroad.