Maria Aurélia Martins de Sousa (June 13, 1866 – May 26, 1922) was a Portuguese painter.

Biography

She was born in

Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

, the fourth of seven children to Portuguese emigrants António Martins de Sousa and Olinda Peres. The family lived in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and Chile before moving back to

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

in 1869, when she was three years old. They lived in the Quinta de China near the

Douro River The Douro (, , ; es, Duero ; la, Durius) is the highest-flow river of the Iberian Peninsula. It rises near Duruelo de la Sierra in Soria Province, central Spain, meanders south briefly then flows generally west through the north-west part of ...

in a home bought by her father before he died in 1874, when she was eight years old. She was sister of the painter

Sofia Martins de Sousa Sofia Martins de Sousa (March 23, 1870 – November 28, 1960) was a Portuguese painter. Biography She was born in Porto, Portugal, the youngest of seven children to Portuguese emigrants António Martins de Sousa and Olinda Peres. The family liv ...

. At the age of sixteen she began taking lessons with António da Costa Lima and painted her first self-portrait. In 1893 she began studies at the Fine-Arts Academy of Porto, where she was a pupil of

João Marques de Oliveira João Joaquim Marques da Silva Oliveira (23 August 1853 – 9 October 1927) was a Portuguese painter in the Naturalist style. Biography Oliveira was born in Porto. In 1864, when he was only eleven, he entered the . Five years later, he enrolled ...

, who greatly influenced her style. In 1898, she moved to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

to study painting at the Julian Academy, taking courses with

Jean-Paul Laurens Jean-Paul Laurens (; 28 March 1838 – 23 March 1921) was a French painter and sculptor, and one of the last major exponents of the French Academic style. Biography Laurens was born in Fourquevaux and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet and Alexand ...

and

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (also known as Benjamin-Constant), born Jean-Joseph Constant (10 June 1845 – 26 May 1902), was a French painter and etcher best known for his Oriental subjects and portraits. Biography Benjamin-Constant was bor ...

. She held her first exhibition, then traveled in Europe in the next three years, before finally returning to Portugal in 1901, where she worked as an illustrator and participated regularly in Porto's art scene, exhibiting at the Sociedade de Belas-Artes do Porto, in the Galeria da Misericórdia, and annually in the Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes, in

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

. She died in Porto in 1922, at fifty-five years old. Her painting was of a personal and naturalist style, at times with

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...

impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

and

post-impressionism Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...

influences. Her subjects included

portraits A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of Terrestrial ecoregion, land, its landforms, and how they integrate with Nature, natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionar ...

, and scenes of everyday life. She is most famous for her "Self-Portrait", painted in 1900.

Tribute

On June 13, 2021,

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

celebrated her 155th birthday with a

Google Doodle A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running an ...

References

Bibliography

* SILVA; Raquel Henriques da, ''Aurélia de Souza'', Col. Pintores Portugueses. Lisboa: Edições Inapa, 2004.

External links

Aurélia de Sousa, Antiga Estudante da Academia de Belas Artes do Porto
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sousa, Aurelia De 1867 births 1922 deaths People from Valparaíso University of Porto alumni Académie Julian alumni 19th-century Portuguese painters 20th-century Portuguese painters 19th-century women artists 20th-century Portuguese women artists Chilean people of Portuguese descent