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| Júlio Pomar | |
|---|---|
| Name | Júlio Pomar |
| Birth date | 1926-01-10 |
| Birth place | Lisbon, Portugal |
| Death date | 2018-10-22 |
| Nationality | Portuguese |
| Known for | Painting, Drawing, Printmaking, Sculpture |
Júlio Pomar
Júlio Pomar was a Portuguese painter, drawer, printmaker, and sculptor whose career spanned post-World War II Europe and the late 20th century, engaging with movements from Social Realism to Neo-Expressionism. He worked across Lisbon, Paris, and Évora, intersecting with figures and institutions in Portugal, France, Spain, and beyond, and his oeuvre reflects encounters with international currents including Surrealism, Cubism, Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, Fauvism and Socialist Realism.
Born in Lisbon in 1926, Pomar trained at the School of Fine Arts, Lisbon where contemporaries included members of the Portuguese Neo-Realist Movement and activists linked to the Portuguese Communist Party. He was exposed to bibliophilic circles associated with publishers like Ática (publisher) and periodicals such as Seara Nova and Diário de Notícias, while Lisbon institutions including the National Museum of Contemporary Art and the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum informed his early visual literacy. Travel to Paris after early recognition brought him into contact with ateliers and galleries tied to figures from André Breton's milieu and scenes around the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles.
Pomar's career began amid the political turbulence of the Estado Novo regime and the cultural debates around Neo-Realism and the Portuguese Modernist Movement. His first exhibitions connected him with galleries such as Galeria de Março and critics writing for A Capital and O Século. In the 1950s and 1960s he alternated between figurative commissions and international exhibitions in venues connected to the Biennale di Venezia, the São Paulo Art Biennial, and Parisian spaces frequented by artists associated with Pablo Picasso, Jean Dubuffet, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse and Willem de Kooning. Later work showed affinities with contemporaries like Antoni Tàpies, Joaquín Torres García, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Anselm Kiefer and Gerhard Richter.
Pomar's trajectory divides into identifiable phases: early Social Realism canvases reflecting the conditions critiqued by writers such as Almeida Garrett and Eça de Queirós; a figurative period of the 1950s aligned with peers like Mário Cesariny and António Pedro; a Parisian turn informed by contacts with André Masson and the CoBrA group; a return to Portugal featuring monumental series inspired by Portuguese history and literature, including allusions to works by Camões and iconography resonant with Fado culture; and late abstract and gestural works comparable to Abstract Expressionism exhibitions at institutions such as the Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Key works often invoked in scholarship include large-scale paintings, socially charged lithographs, and sculptural experiments exhibited alongside curated shows by curators from the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and the Centro Cultural de Belém.
Pomar employed oil painting, watercolor, tempera, etching, lithography, collage and sculpture using iron and mixed media, often producing series that juxtaposed graphic prints and canvases. His brushwork ranged from controlled figuration to vigorous impasto akin to Jean-Paul Riopelle and Nikolai Fechin, while his printmaking engaged inks and presses comparable to techniques used in ateliers linked to Ateliers d'Art (Paris), Tamarind Institute practice, and the printrooms of the Museo del Prado. He cited influences from Goya's prints and the draughtsmanship tradition through references to Piero della Francesca, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Masaccio-era composition, filtered through modernist vocabularies employed by contemporaries such as Mark Rothko and Arshile Gorky.
Pomar's work was shown in solo and group exhibitions across European and international venues including the Bienal de São Paulo, the Venice Biennale, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Documenta circuit, the Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea, the Palácio Nacional da Ajuda, the Berardo Collection Museum, and the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves. He received awards and honors from Portuguese cultural institutions connected to the Gulbenkian Foundation, the Ministry of Culture (Portugal), and municipal accolades from Lisbon City Council. Retrospectives curated by figures associated with the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian and international curators placed his work alongside collections associated with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Louvre, and the National Gallery (London).
Although primarily a practicing artist, Pomar engaged with students and younger artists linked to the Escola de Artes Decorativas António Arroio and participated in workshops and lectures at institutions such as the Universidade de Lisboa, the Universidade de Évora, the Royal College of Art, and guest visits to academies in Madrid, Paris, Lisbon and Berlin. His peers and interlocutors included critics, curators and artists from networks tied to José-Augusto França, Mário-Henrique Leiria, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Joaquim Rodrigo, and transnational dialogues with figures associated with Fluxus, Situationist International, and Concrete Art practitioners.
Pomar's legacy is discussed in scholarship from Portuguese and international critics linked to journals like Arte Portuguesa, Cadernos de Arte》， and exhibition catalogues produced by institutions such as the Fundação de Serralves, the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian and the Centro de Arte Moderna. Critics have situated his work within debates on 20th-century European modernism, intersections with Iberian traditions exemplified by Spanish Civil War-era cultural responses, and post-dictatorship cultural renewal following the Carnation Revolution. Collections holding his work span national museums, municipal collections, and private foundations, ensuring ongoing exhibitions, monographs, and academic dissertations hosted at universities including the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and the Universidade do Porto. His influence persists among contemporary Portuguese artists represented by galleries active in Lisbon Contemporary Art Scene and collectors tied to institutions across Europe and the Americas.
Category:Portuguese painters Category:1926 births Category:2018 deaths