Veloso Salgado

José Maria Veloso Salgado (2 April 1864 22 July 1945) was a Galician-born Portuguese artist. He is regarded as one of the country's foremost masters of Naturalism with many distinguished works in historical painting, landscapes, and portraits.

Biography

José Maria Veloso Salgado was born in Galicia (Spain), in Melón (a small town in the province of Ourense, not far from the Portuguese border), where he lived until the age of 10. He was the son of two farmers, José Pérez and Dolores Veloso Rodrigues Salgado. In 1874, his parents sent him to live with his maternal uncle, Miguel Veloso Rodrigues Salgado, who run a lithography workshop (''Litografia Lemos'') in Lisbon, Portugal. Veloso Salgado started working as an apprentice at his uncle's workshop.

From 1878 to 1880, he attended evening classes for workers at the School of the Lisbon Academy of Fine Arts, and was approved with distinction. Encouraged by his results, he started attending normal evening classes in 1881 and, in the end of his first year, he won an award of 20-thousand réis. He then started daytime classes, where he studied under José Simões de Almeida and José Ferreira Chaves who taught Drawing and Painting, respectively; he achieved top marks in both classes.

In 1884, he had presented two works on the 13th exhibition of the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts (''Sociedade Promotora de Belas Artes''), achieving an honorable mention, and, in 1887, he also participated on the 14th exhibition. In 1887, Veloso Salgado finished his studies with a final grade of 17 out of 20; that same year, he became a naturalized Portuguese citizen. All these achievements allowed him to get a state scholarship to pursue further studies in Paris.

In 1888, Veloso Salgado rented an ''atelier'' in Paris (in Rue Denfert-Rochereau), which he shared with Artur Melo. It was also here that he befriended sculptor António Teixeira Lopes, who had a studio on the same building. Veloso Salgado was accepted to the ''École des Beaux-Arts'', studying there under Alexandre Cabanel, Benjamin-Constant, Jules-Élie Delaunay, Jean-Paul Laurens, and Fernand Cormon. Around this time, he contacted with painter Jules Breton and his daughter and apprentice Virginie Demont-Breton, as well as her husband, Adrien Demont, who became a close friend of Veloso Salgado's.

He debuted at the ''Salon'' in 1889. He won a third prize medal at the ''Salon'' with his ''Amor and Psyche'' (1891), the first of his important works, currently at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, in Lisbon. Meanwhile, he also won a painting contest hosted by the Lisbon City Hall (1890), and he participated in the 1st Exhibition of the Artistic Guild of Lisbon (''Grémio Artístico de Lisboa''). After his stay in Paris, Veloso Salgado journeyed to Italy before returning to Lisbon, stopping in Florence, where he studied the primitive painters, made copies of Renaissance works, and painted ''en plein air''. While in Italy, he made one of his most celebrated works, ''Jesus'' — which was considered ''hors-concours'' in the 1892 ''Salon'' (this painting was lost in 1900 when the ship bringing it back from the '' Exposition Universelle'' sank). In the 1890s, he also participated in the Munich Art Exhibition, and in the '' Exposition Internationale d'Anvers''. The Lisbon Academy of Fine Arts made him an "Academician of Merit".

He returned to Lisbon in 1895 and, in December of that year, was made interim professor of History Painting in the School of Fine Arts; two years later he was chosen over Columbano to the post of permanent professor. From this point on, he regularly participated in big artistic exhibition, both national and international, he was commissioned painting by distinguished personalities and institutions, and accumulated awards and distinctions (Officer of the Order of Saint James of the Sword in 1896, Knight of the French Legion of Honour in 1902, member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences in 1907). Apart from easel painting, he was also very frequently commissioned to decorate several public buildings and private residences: the Tribunal Room of the Stock Exchange Palace in Oporto, the Chamber of Deputies in the Palace of Saint Benedict in Lisbon, the Lisbon Military Museum, the Lisbon Medical School, the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Oporto. Alongside architect Miguel Ventura Terra, he also worked on the decoration of Politeama Theatre, in Lisbon, and the Lisbon Synagogue.

In 1901, following an artistic education reform, he started teaching History Painting alongside Columbano.

In 1896, he married Vitorina de Silva Mello, goddaughter and protégée of painter José Ferreira Chaves. The marriage produced two offspring: José Miguel Veloso Salgado (born 1896), and Maria Adelina Veloso Salgado (born 1899). When Ferreira Chaves's widow died in 1903, Veloso Salgado inherited most of her assets.

Veloso Salgado retired from painting in 1940, at age 76, and died five years later, in 1945.

Gallery

Retrato do Escultor Teixeira Lopes, no seu atelier em Paris, Rue Denfert Rocheraux (1889) - Veloso Salgado (Casa-Museu Teixeira Lopes).png, ''Portrait of sculptor Teixeira Lopes in his atelier in Paris'' (1889), Casa-Museu Teixeira Lopes
Vasco da Gama perante o Samorim de Calecute.png, ''Vasco da Gama before the Zamorin of Calicut'' (1898), Lisbon Geographic Society
El-Rei D. Dinis Administrando Justiça (1899) - Veloso Salgado.png, ''King Denis of Portugal Administers Justice'' (1899), Stock Exchange Palace
Medicina Portuguesa (c. 1906) - Veloso Salgado (Sala dos Actos, FCM-UNL).png, ''Portuguese Medicine'' (1906), NOVA Medical School
O Sufrágio (1913) - Veloso Salgado.png, ''The Suffrage'' (1913), Pimenta Palace
Manuel Fernandes Tomás, Veloso Salgado.png, Detail of ''The Constituent Courts of 1821'' (1921), Portuguese Parliament
José Veloso Salgado February 2015-1a.jpg, ''Youth'' (1923), José Malhoa Museum
File:A Pátria Coroando os Seus Heróis (1904) - Veloso Salgado (Museu Militar de Lisboa).png, ''The Motherland Crowning its Heroes'' (1904), Military Museum of Lisbon.
File:Retrato de Senhora (1917) - Veloso Salgado.png, ''Portrait of a Lady'' (1917)
File:Figura feminina no jardim (1917) - Veloso Salgado.png, ''Feminine Figure in the Garden'' (1917)
File:A Matemática (1917) - Veloso Salgado (Reitoria da Universidade do Porto).png, ''Math'' (1917), University of Porto.
File:As Ciências Físico-Naturais (1917) - Veloso Salgado (Reitoria da Universidade do Porto).png, ''Physical-Natural Sciences'' (1917), University of Porto.

Notes and references

Bibliography

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{{Authority control

1864 births
1945 deaths
Realist painters
People from Lisbon
19th-century Portuguese painters
Portuguese male painters
19th-century male artists
20th-century Portuguese painters
20th-century male artists
Members of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences