Amadeu de Sousa Cardoso

Amadeo de Souza Cardoso

At the age of 18 he entered the Superior School of Fine Arts of Lisbon, and two years later he leaves to Paris, where he intends to continue his studies but soon he quits the architecture course and starts to study painting. In Paris he became close with artists and writers like Gertrude Stein, Juan Gris, Max Jacob, Delaunay and Brancusi.He was also a friend of Amedeo Modigliani,who exposed sculptures in is Paris studio. He returned to Portugal during World War I where he married with Lúcia Peretto and maintained contact with other Portuguese artists and poets like Almada Negreiros, Santa-Rita Pintor and Teixeira de Pascoaes. He died of influenza October 25th 1918.


He worked In the first stage, under the Spanish painter Anglada Camarasa, his painting stile was close to naturalism and impressionism. Around 1910 he became one of the first modern Portuguese painters, influenced both by cubism as by futurism.His style is aggressive and vivid both in form and colour and the compositional structure of his works may seem random or chaotic at first sight but are clearly defined and balanced. His more innovative paintings, like "Trou de la Serrure" look like collages, and seems to pave the way to abstractionism or even dadaism in his painting. In 1913 he exhibited eight works at Armory Show in USA, some of them can be seen in American museums. As a gifted draughtsman his ink drawings, always figurative, for their decorative richness and oriental like style can be somehow related to those of Aubrey Beardsley. His work remained almost unknown after his death until 1952 when a room dedicated to his paintings in Amarante Museum gained the public's attention.