Maria de Lourdes Bettencourt de Castro (9 December 1930 – 8 January 2022) was a Portuguese artist from

Funchal Funchal () is the largest city, the municipal seat and the capital of Portugal's Madeira, Autonomous Region of Madeira, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. The city has a population of 105,795, making it the sixth largest city in Portugal. Because of ...

Madeira ) , anthem = ( en, "Anthem of the Autonomous Region of Madeira") , song_type = Regional anthem , image_map=EU-Portugal_with_Madeira_circled.svg , map_alt=Location of Madeira , map_caption=Location of Madeira , subdivision_type=Sovereign st ...

. After specializing in abstract art, in the 1960s she created collages and silk screens, seeking to capture ephemeral reality. From the 1970s, together with her partner Manuel Zimbro, she developed

shadow puppet Shadow play, also known as shadow puppetry, is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment which uses flat articulated cut-out figures (shadow puppets) which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim. The cut-ou ...

s for her Shadow Theatre, gaining acclaim throughout

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

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 ...

. In 1998, together with

Francisco Tropa Francisco Tropa (born 1968 in Lisbon, Portugal) is a Portuguese sculptor and visual artist. He lives and works in Lisbon. Biography Tropa attended the independent art college Ar.Co in Lisbon from 1987 until 1992. In 1992 he received a scholar ...

, she created an installation for Portugal's contribution to the

São Paulo Art Biennial The São Paulo Art Biennial (Portuguese: ''Bienal de São Paulo'') was founded in 1951 and has been held every two years since. It is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennale (in existence since 1895), which serves as ...

Biography

Born on 9 December 1930 in Funchal, Lourdes Castro studied at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts. From where she never graduated due to 3 paintings rejected at the time by a teacher. Her first solo exhibition at the Clube Funchalense in 1955 presented her early works which were influenced by

Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...

. On marrying her fellow student (1935–2005), in 1957 she presented an exhibition with him at Lisbon's Galeria Diário de Notícias. They then spent some time together in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

before moving 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 ...

in 1958, thanks to a grant Castro received from the

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation ( pt, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian), commonly referred to simply as the Gulbenkian Foundation, is a Portuguese institution dedicated to the promotion of the arts, philanthropy, science, and education. One o ...

. There the couple published the experimental art journal ''KWY'' (1958–1963), creating a movement which included the Bulgarian

Christo Vladimirov Javacheff Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks and ...

, the German Jan Voss, and Portuguese artists including , José Escada, João Vieira and Gonçalo Duarte. Together they specialized in silk-screen printing. Inspired by

Árpád Szenes Árpád Szenes (also french: Árpád Szenès; 6 May 1897, Budapest – 16 January 1985, Paris) was a Hungary, Hungarian-Jewish Abstract art, abstract painter who worked in France.

, Castro concentrated on

abstract painting Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...

but in 1961 followed the Nouveaux Réalistes, creating

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

s consisting of real objects such as printing press letters or bottle tops in silver-painted boxes. In 1962, she began working with shadows and silhouettes, frequently in portraits of her friends. In 1964, she extended this approach to include layers of screen-printed or transparent acrylics. From 1973, Castro worked with her lifelong partner Manuel Zimbro, creating shadow theatre shows which were widely presented in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

and

. In 1972 and 1979, she was a guest of the

DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (German: Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD) is a residential program for artists of all countries and ages run by the German Academic Exchange Service (German: ‘Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst', DAAD ...

. After 25 years based in

, she moved back to Funchal in 1983. In 1998, she worked with

on an installation for the

São Paulo Biennale SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S. ...

. Castro died in Funchal on 8 January 2022, at the age of 91. The President of Portugal,

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa Marcelo Nuno Duarte Rebelo de Sousa (; born 12 December 1948) is a Portuguese politician and academic. He is the List of presidents of Portugal, 20th and current president of Portugal, since 9 March 2016. He is a member of the Social Democrati ...

, expressed his regret at Castro's death, whom he described as "one of the most unmistakable Portuguese artists".

Distinctions

National orders

PRT Order of Saint James of the Sword - Commander BAR

Commander of the

Order of Saint James of the Sword The Military Order of Saint James of the Sword ( pt, Ordem Militar de Sant'Iago da Espada) is a Portuguese order of chivalry. Its full name is the Ancient, Most Noble and Enlightened Military Order of Saint James of the Sword, of the Scientifi ...

(8 June 2021)

References

External links

Examples of Lourdes Castro's work from Calouste Gulbenkian Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Castro, Lourdes 1930 births 2022 deaths 20th-century Portuguese painters 20th-century Portuguese women artists 21st-century Portuguese painters 21st-century Portuguese women artists Commanders of the Order of Saint James of the Sword People from Funchal