The Portuguese artist was born in Amarante on November 14th, 1887. He settled in Paris, where he made his second home, where he deprived with artists such as the Italian painter Modigliani, the Romanian sculptor Brancusi, the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and the French painters Sonia and Robert Delaunay. He exhibits his work alongside the greatest of his time, such as Braque, Picasso, Duchamp, Matisse, Kandinsky or Léger.
He inaugurated two exhibitions in Lisbon and Porto in 1916 – both were considered a scandal – in an individual exposition that Almada Negreiros considered more important for history than the discovery of the sea route to India by Vasco da Gama. He also participates in collective exhibitions in Paris, Berlin, New York, Chicago, Boston and London.
Amadeo returns to Portugal at the beginning of World War I, after a visit to Barcelona that allows him to meet Gaudi. He returns as a painter recognized in the avant-garde media. He died on October 25th, 1918, in Espinho, a victim of the flu pandemic, at the age of only 31.
The citiies where the artist died and was born a hundred years ago are celebrating his anniversary. In Amarante, the expansion of the Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Museum is being prepared, valuing the painter's dimension as a symbol of the national artistic panorama. In parallel, and for a year, there will be a cycle of activities that will evoke the centenary of Amadeo's death and will end with the 12th edition of the Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso biennial Prize.
In Espinho, the tributes also unfold on one of the most brilliant artists of the twentieth century. Álvaro Siza Vieira, Manuel Cargaleiro, Joana Vasconcelos, Júlio Resende and Nadir Afonso are some of the 100 creators challenged to design works inspired by Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso. The works are part of the exhibition "Amadeo", resulting from an invitation that the local authority directed the artists to honor with a work of their own the memory of the modernist painter. The exhibition "Amadeo" can be visited until December 15 and has free admission.
The modern art collection at the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon is where the overwhelming majority of the artist's works are nowadays, as well as photographs, letters and other papers sold and donated by the family from the mid-60s. There are 62 paintings, 138 drawings and 38 objects. Outside the country, the Pompidou has a painting, The Art Institute of Chicago has three, and the Michigan Museum also has a painting by Amadeo.
