Júlio Resende

Júlio Resende was born in Porto in 1917 and died in Valbom, Gondomar, in 2011. He began his artistic training at the Silva Porto Academy under Alberto Silva and graduated in Painting from the Porto School of Fine Arts in 1945. As a young artist, he worked as an illustrator for newspapers and children’s publications.

In 1943, he participated in the First Exhibition of the Independents and held his first solo exhibition at Salão Silva Porto. A scholarship from the Instituto para a Alta Cultura, awarded in 1946, enabled him to travel to Paris the following year, where he studied fresco and printmaking techniques. After a period in Viana do Alentejo, he settled in Porto in 1951, combining his artistic practice with teaching. He served as both a professor and director of the Porto School of Fine Arts.

The human figure holds a central place in his work. The rural communities of the Alentejo, fishermen and the inhabitants of Porto’s riverside neighbourhoods informed paintings attentive to everyday life and living conditions. Throughout his career, he brought figuration and abstraction into close dialogue, exploring geometry, patches of colour and gestural freedom through a distinctly lyrical visual language.

His practice also encompassed printmaking, illustration, stage design, stained glass and tapestry. He created ceramic works for public buildings, including Lisbon’s Palace of Justice and São João Hospital in Porto. Among these works, "Ribeira Negra" stands out: a glazed stoneware panel completed in 1986 and inaugurated the following year beside Porto’s Ribeira tunnel.

He participated in several editions of the São Paulo Biennial and presented his work in numerous exhibitions in Portugal and abroad. In 1989, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation dedicated a retrospective to his paintings, bringing together works produced since 1946. His distinctions include the second Painting Prize at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s First Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1957 and the AICA Prize for 1984, awarded in 1985.

In 1993, he established Lugar do Desenho, the Júlio Resende Foundation, in Valbom, where he lived and maintained his studio. Opened in 1997, the institution preserves a significant collection of his drawings and organises exhibitions, research projects and art education activities.

His work is held in the collections of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Modern Art Centre, the Serralves Foundation, the National Museum of Contemporary Art and the Soares dos Reis National Museum, among others.