Justino Alves

Justino Alves was born in Porto in 1940 and died in the same city in 2015. Between 1968 and 1970 he was a teacher and director of the Funchal Academy of Fine Arts, and from 1971 he taught at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts.

In 1976 he went to Paris on a Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation grant, coming into contact with the European painting avant-garde, an experience that awakened his interest in the potential of art in shaping individuals and communities. In 1978 he exhibited with Pedro Chorão at the Centre Culturel Portugais in Paris, in a show centred on works of an abstract leaning, whose catalogue included a text by Rocha de Sousa. In 1979 he received a grant from the Foundation to take part in the 1st World Quadrennial of Contemporary Art in Lyon.

His solo exhibitions include a show at the Abade de Baçal Museum in Bragança in 1965, a retrospective at the exhibition hall of the Galicia Foundation in A Coruña in 1991, and "Conta Corrente" at Galeria São Mamede in Lisbon in 2014. He took part in group exhibitions such as "Artistas Modernos Portugueses" at Galeria Quadrum in 1974 and "50 Anos de Arte Portuguesa" at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 2007. He also designed sets for ballet.

He received the Mestre Joaquim Lopes Prize in 1965, the National Painting Prize in 1969 and the 3rd Almada Negreiros Prize.

His work is represented in Portuguese public institutions, museums and foundations, including the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Modern Art Centre and MACAM.