“It is an exhibition with multiple perspectives, both artistic and emotional, highlighting his role as one of the founders of Cooperativa Árvore in 1963, a time when many from Porto’s visual arts and intellectual community united during challenging times,” stated José Emídio, plastic artist, president of the institution, and one of the exhibition’s curators, alongside historian and art critic Laura Castro.
While not exactly a retrospective, the exhibition presents “a significant collection of Armando Alves’ work, spanning from 1958 to the present day,” resulting from “a collaborative selection of artworks from the artist’s studio.”
“Certainly, the final decision was always his [Armando Alves],” emphasized José Emídio, recalling the artist’s first solo exhibition in 1965 at Árvore, when he was “in his early 20s.”
This exhibition “aptly showcases a lifetime of work in painting, without neglecting his significant contributions to graphic and design arts,” among other areas, noted the curator.
Titled “Armando Alves na Árvore,” the exhibition also aims to “highlight Armando Alves’ long-standing connection to Árvore, with his involvement in various leadership roles and important events at the cooperative,” he added.
“Armando Alves’ painting has always struck me as very clean, reflecting his own organized nature in life and work. His art, rooted in the landscapes of his Alentejo homeland, is recreated in an extraordinary, innovative manner, bordering on abstraction,” said José Emídio, acknowledging the difficulty in, as a painter, discussing another artist’s work.
Among the showcased pieces, José Emídio highlighted a possibly unprecedented work, “a lengthy drawing or a set of 10 graphite drawings adhered together, about seven meters long and 50 centimeters tall, dated 2004.”
“We also have a sculpture from 1970, two meters tall,” alongside an acrylic painting on canvas from 1962, displaying “a slightly different expression from Armando’s usual work, marked by its grey tones, diverging from his typically vibrant palette.”
Sixty years after his first exhibition at Cooperativa Árvore, Armando Alves returns to where “it all began” in the year marking his 90th anniversary.
Born in Estremoz in 1935, Armando Alves is regarded as a prominent figure in contemporary Portuguese art. Trained at Porto’s School of Fine Arts, where he would later teach, he co-founded the group “Os Quatro Vintes” with Ângelo de Sousa (1938-2011), Jorge Pinheiro, and José Rodrigues (1936-2016).
Painter, designer, illustrator, and educator, Armando Alves constructed, according to the exhibition curators, “a rigorous and profoundly humanist body of work, distinguished by clarity of line and color delicacy.”
With this exhibition, Cooperativa Árvore celebrates the artist, founder, and friend, paying tribute to a life devoted to art and the beauty of creation.
Opened last Saturday without the artist’s presence due to health issues, the exhibition is spread over three rooms and can be visited free of charge until November 29.
