At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist -
Amadeo de Souza Cardoso
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington
September 11 - November 28, 1999
The Corcoran Gallery of Art with the Portuguese Ministry of Culture in Lisbon and the Embassy of Portugal in Washington presents an exhibition of the major modernist paintings and drawings by Portuguese artist Amadeo de Souza Cardoso (1887-1918). The presentation spans Souza Cardoso’s entire career and features 34 paintings, 19 works on paper, and archival materials. At the Edge is the first exhibition ever mounted in the United States devoted exclusively to the work of this influential artist.
A pioneer of modernism and a national cultural hero in Portugual, Amadeo de Souza Cardoso enjoyed a promising but tragically brief career. He settled in Paris as a student in 1906, immersing himself in the bohemian culture of the city while becoming friends with Amedeo Modigliani, Juan Gris, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Diego Rivera and the sculptor Constantin Brancusi. In the company of these artists, Souza Cardoso developed a personal style that combined exuberant and fanciful color with the newly invented forms of cubism and futurism. He also played with abstracted and fragmented forms in his paintings, often using more than one point of view in a single picture.
"With breathtaking facility, Souza Cardoso worked through the major avant-garde trends of his day and came up with an original modernist style characterized by wonderful color, inventive subject matter and innovative form," says Dr. Jack Cowart, Corcoran Deputy Director and Chief Curator. "He was steadily gaining momentum with his adventurous work and had already made major contributions to modern art when he died in the great influenza epidemic shortly before his thirty-first birthday. This exhibition not only showcases his life’s work, but provokes us to imagine what might have been."
Throughout his career, Souza Cardoso maintained a strong connection to his native Portugal, but he also incorporated into his art modernist approaches developing in Europe, especially in Paris, where he lived. He worked in a variety of ways, often drawing the on the multiple viewpoints of cubism and the dynamism of futurism. He painted the dramatic mountainous landscapes of his native region Marão, in Montanhas; the elaborate Catholic processions he witnessed near his home in Portugal in Procissão Corpus Christi; extraordinary abstract portraits of his friends in Paris; and complex, vibrant still lifes that combine elements of Portuguese folk art with symbols of the Paris metropolis. Using rhythmic, circular forms of floating color, Souza Cardoso also painted some of the earliest completely nonrepresentational pictures ever created.
Amadeo de Souza Cardoso was born on November 14, 1887 in Manhufe, Portugal. In 1905, he traveled to Lisbon to study architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts. On his 19th birthday, Souza Cardoso left Lisbon for Paris where he quickly abandoned his architectural studies and decided to become a painter. While in Paris, Souza Cardoso participated in several important exhibitions such as the Salon des Indépendants of 1911 and 1912 as well as the Salon d’Automne of 1912. He also exhibited works at the Herbstsalon in Berlin and the Salon in London. In 1913, American art impresario Walter Pach invited Souza Cardoso to present eight works at the most important exhibition of avant-garde art in America, the historic International Exhibition of Modern Art, better known as the Armory Show. The exhibition opened in New York City and then traveled to Chicago and Boston. Souza Cardoso sold seven of his eight works to several notable American collectors.
Amadeo de Souza Cardoso was living in Paris but visiting his family in Portugual when the First World War broke out. Stranded by the war, he continued to paint and created some of his most complex and original works, such as Coty, a striking work that refers to the French perfume and combines the image of a female nude with bits of broken mirror, sand and hair pins.
After presentation at the Corcoran, At the Edge travels to the Arts Club in Chicago (January 20 - March 17, 2000). A fully illustrated catalogue, the only monograph in English on Souza Cardoso, accompanies the exhibition. It features essays by noted Portuguese experts, including Professor José-Augusto França of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, as well as American scholars Dr. Kenneth Silver of New York University, Ms. Rosemary O’Neill of the Parsons School of Design and Ms. Laura Coyle, assistant curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. These essays discuss Souza Cardoso’s biography, his stylistic development, the context of his years in Paris, his friendship with Robert and Sonia Delaunay, his relationship with Walter Pach, his participation in the Armory Show and the interest of American collectors in his work.
The exhibition was organized by the Office of International Relations, Ministry of Culture, Portugal and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART
500 Seventeenth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006
www.corcoran.org
