DEMHIST is an international forum for debating problems and solutions related to the conservation and administration of house museums.

One of the committee’s objectives is to create a methodological classification system for the numerous types of historic house museums, aiming to help professionals better understand historic sites and efficiently define their mission and objectives, conservation policy, management, security and communication between these professionals and the public.

This committee is part of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), a global organization of museums and museum professionals. ICOM is dedicated to the promotion and protection of natural and cultural heritage, present and future, material and intangible.

With more than 35,000 members in 135 countries, the ICOM network is made up of professionals covering a wide range of disciplines related to museums and heritage.

ICOM is a non-governmental organization, which maintains a formal relationship with UNESCO and has the status of a consultative body to the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

Curricular Note

Born in Mindelo (Vila do Conde), António Ponte (1970) is Director of Soares dos Reis National Museum since April 2021. Previously, he was Regional Director of Culture of the North (2013-2021), and Director of the Paço dos Duques de Bragança , in Guimarães (2009 and 2012). He developed a large part of his museological career at the Vila do Conde Museum (from 1994 to 2009, and also between 2012-2013), having been linked to several interventions in the field of museology, of which the Alfândega Régia – Naval Construction Museum stands out. / 16th century ship and the renovation of José Régio House.

He holds a PhD in Museology from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto, and has a degree in Historical Sciences from the Universidade Portucalense (1993), having attended, in the same year, a Postgraduate course in Museology. He would later return to Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto to complete his Masters in Museology (2007) with a thesis on the theme of House Museums.

José Malhoa divided his life between Lisbon and Figueiró dos Vinhos, where he lived in a house better known as cocoon of Malhoa.

Disapproved twice for the State scholarship in Paris, he temporarily abandoned painting until, in 1881, the painting A Seara Invadida em Madrid (The Invaded Harvest in Madrid) gained him critical appreciation.

As one of the founders of Grupo do Leão, he joined the Naturalist movement generated around Silva Porto. He exhibited at the Sociedade Promotora de Belas-Artes (1880, 1884, 1887), the Grupo do Leão (1881 to 1889), the Grémio Artístico (1891 to 1899) and, since 1901, he was a regular presence in the salons of the National Society of Fine Arts. He received the Medal of Honor (1903) and several First Medals from this Society and was elected its President in 1918.

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Self-portrait of José Malhoa (1928) @Museu José Malhoa

With around 150 works by 99 artists, the exhibition also includes several objects from the collection of the Soares dos Reis National Museum, placed in dialogue with artworks from the Treger Saint Silvestre Collection, such as the Reliquary Bust of St. Pantaleon; the death mask of Soares dos Reis, by José Joaquim Teixeira Lopes; Spittoon, by Rafael Bordallo Pinheiro; and the oil Mãe e Filha (Mother and Daughter), by Sarah Afonso; among others.

Started in the 1980s, the Treger Saint Silvestre Collection, in deposite at the Oliva Centre Art, comprises a numerous collection of artworks of Art Brut, being one of the most important and extensive private collections in the world and counting on a large number of recognized authors .

The exhibition Portreto de la Animo is an excerpt from this magnificent collection that brings together a nucleus of works focused on portraits and self-portraits.

The portraits reveal an inner figure, a particularly lively creativity and invention, as can be seen in the works of Aloïse Corbaz, Ted Gordon, James Deed, Edemund Monsiel, Aleksander Lobanov, Alessandra Michelangelo or the Portuguese Jaime Fernandes, among others. Many of them appear to be self-portraits that reclaim an existence that these artists were and felt deprived of.

The exhibition Portreto de la Animo is promoted in partnership with the Municipal Council of São João da Madeira, the Centro de Arte Oliva and the collectors António Saint Silvestre and Richard Treger, with the patronage support of Fundação Millennium bcp and Lusitânia Seguros and the institutional support of the Círculo Dr. José de Figueiredo – Association of Friends of Soares dos Reis National Museum.

It will be open to the public until December 31, 2023.

The death at the age of 30 dictated the abrupt end of a pictorial work in full maturity and a promising international career, but still in the affirmation phase.

Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso had a short and intense life in Paris, where he made contacts with modernist artists, and returned to Portugal at the beginning of the World War I as a painter recognized in avant-garde circles.

He participated in group exhibitions in Paris, Berlin, New York, Chicago, Boston and London, and exhibited and sold his work in the United States, being considered, by the American art critic Robert Loescher, “one of the most well-kept from the beginning of modern art”.

In 2016, more than 40 thousand people visited the exhibition dedicated to Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso at the Soares dos Reis National Museum, in Porto (which later went to the Chiado Museum, in Lisbon), and, in the same year, at the Grand Palais, in Paris, another exhibition brought together around 250 works by the artist in painting, drawing and engraving.

The exhibition at Soares dos Reis National Museum was a recreation of another solo that Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso held in Porto, in 1916, in the former Passos Manuel Garden.

The couple of artists renowned by promoting Orphism lived for about a year in Portugal, during the period of the First World War, and became acquainted with the Portuguese artists Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso and Almada Negreiros, from who became friends.

It was in the summer of 1915 that the artist couple settled in Vila do Conde.

Sónia Delaunay’s stay in Portugal was the starting point of an exhibition about this artist, entitled «Sónia Delaunay – Simultaneous Fabrics», which the Soares dos Reis National Museum hosted in 2001, the year in which Porto was European Capital of Culture, aiming to illustrate the inspiration that Portugal represented in her work.

The exhibition focused on Sónia Delaunay’s work as a designer, with a large number of her designs for fabrics taking the main part of the exhibition.

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(Cover) Robert Delaunay, 1905–06, Autoportrait, oil on canvas, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris

(Article) Exhibition Catalog «Sónia Delaunay – Simultaneous Fabrics», 2001/12/13 to 2002/02/24, Soares dos Reis National Museum, Porto [Commissioner – Petra Timmer; Coordination – Portuguese Institute of Museums (Manuela Correia, Anabela Carvalho and Maria Amélia Fernandes) and Soares dos Reis National Museum (Ana Paula Machado)

The conservation and restoration of Art Brut raises new challenges. Being an artist without the intention of being one defines the biographical note common to most of the authors who contributed to the birth of the concept of Art Brut. When the conservator analyzes and defines a methodology for the conservation of this estate, he cannot neglect the social, cultural and biographical context of the author.

The object is the object and its circumstances – the singularity and contingency of the materials reflects the authorship. The precursor gesture of thinking, creating with what is at hand; the material precariousness present in supports and surfaces; the memory of the simple object before the artistic nature. Therefore conservation should contribute to intangible permanence while respecting the fragility of matter.

Joana Guerreiro is a Conservator-Restorer at the Municipal Historical Archive Division of the Municipality of Porto. Master in History of the Portuguese Empire from the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of Universidade Nova de Lisboa, degree in Art, Conservation and Restoration from Catholic University of Porto and degree in Archeology from the University of Minho. For ten years he collaborated with the Conservation and Restoration Center of the School of Arts of the Catholic University of Porto, where she participated in numerous projects, including conservation interventions and restoration of artworks from the Treger Saint Silvestre collection, in deposite at the Oliva Art Center.

Salomé Carvalho has a degree and PhD in Conservation and Restoration from the Catholic University of Porto, professor and researcher in the area of ​​Conservation and Restoration for 17 years. Conservator-restorer at the Soares dos Reis National Museum for 12 years, she has additional training in various areas of Conservation and Restoration, such as sculpture, ceramics and glass, textiles, preventive conservation, Art History, risk management, science management, SCRUM project and editorial management. She was a member of the Board of Directors of ARP (Professional Association of Conservators-Restorers of Portugal) from 2016 to 2020 and is part of executive and scientific committees in meetings and scientific publications.

The International Committee for Architecture and Museum Techniques (ICAMT) of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) annually organizes an important international conference that brings together experts from different areas, namely museography, museology, architecture and exhibition design.

This year, the 49th International Conference is promoted in partnership with the Portuguese entities Transdisciplinary Research Center Culture, Space and Memory (CITCEM) and Center for Architecture and Urban Studies (CEAU).

The main theme of the conference will be “Undoing conflict in museums: materiality and meaning of museum architecture and exhibition design”. Conference participants will be able to focus their reflections on the importance of conflicts, debating how opposing ideas can foster change and evolution in museums and exhibitions, and on the role of architecture and exhibition design in managing conflict in museums.

As part of the partnership established with the Soares dos Reis National Museum, on October 25th, conference participants will have the opportunity to visit the museum, focusing on the curatorial aspects related to the process of developing and assembling the long-term exhibition, as well as the architectural aspects of the building.

Christian Berst is gallerist, collector, curator and theorist. At the beginning of the 90s, he specialized in the field of contemporary art brut and opened his first gallery called “Objet Trouvé” in Paris. As a specialist in the field of art brut, Christian Berst works with several museums.

In 2012, the Arpad Szenes-Vieira da Silva Foundation invited him to curate in Lisbon the exhibition “Arte Bruta – terra incógnita, Treger Saint-Silvestre Collection”.

With partner Daniel Klein, Christian Berst opened a second 300 m2 space in New York in 2014. The two galleries adopt the new name “Christian Berst Art Brut (Klein & Berst)”.

In 2017, he was responsible for “Brut Now: art brut in technological era”, a landmark exhibition in art history. For the first time, digital art was presented as a possible field within Art Brut.

The Portreto de la Animo exhibition includes selected pieces from the Treger Saint Silvestre Collection that relate to processes of self-representation and that were mostly produced in contexts of illness. The Soares dos Reis National Museum thus provides the meeting point for these works of art, included in currents that go beyond the traditional ones, with others from its own collection.

The exhibition has the patronage support of the Millenium bcp Foundation and Lusitânia Seguros, as well as the institutional support of the Dr. José de Figueiredo Circle – Friends of the Soares dos Reis National Museum.

Isabel Alçada, escritora e consultora para a Educação do Presidente da Républica, e Manuel Sobrinho Simões, médico e professor emérito da Universidade do Porto, unem-se para dar uma nova perspetiva em temas relacionados com a leitura e o seu papel nos nossos dias.

He didn’t study at the Academia Portuense de Belas Artes, but he used books and publications as a vehicle for artistic culture. In the screens, boards and pastels he painted, we can see various aspects of the Alto-Douro and Vale do Vouga regions, Gaia and Porto, such as Rio Douro, from 1906, exhibited at the Soares dos Reis National Museum.

Although he was most appreciated for the landscapes he created, Manuel Maria Lúcio was also notable for his figurative works, such as Retrato da Mãe (Mother’s Portrait), from 1907 (in the photo).

Manuel Maria Lúcio, an amateur painter, chose the painter Artur Loureiro as his master. Among the artists who attended the studio-school in the gardens of Palácio de Cristal, Manuel Maria Lúcio was one of his favorite disciples.

Manuel Maria Lúcio, an amateur painter, chose the painter Artur Loureiro as his master. Among the artists who frequented his studio in the gardens of the Crystal Palace, Manuel Maria Lúcio was one of his favourite disciples. Since 1944, the Soares dos Reis National Museum has housed a significant part of his art collection and library.

In this double self-portrait, dated 1929, the artist paints himself in the very act of representation. Game of contrary times premeditatedly implemented between the two universes in which the artist moved — that of drawing and that of painting — with evident reinforcement of the first, since the painted portrait is here the moment of passage and the drawing, refined in rigor and in synthesis, the final artwork.

This is a unique painting that José Tagarro carried out at the end of his life prematurely interrupted. It is considered one of the most revealing of the artist’s understanding of his own production and career and one of the most striking self-portraits in Portuguese art.

The delegation from the Met Museum – The Metropolitan Museum of Art continued its guided visit to the Soares dos Reis National Museum, visiting the Romanticism and Naturalism rooms, acquiring knowledge about the movement of Portuguese artists and their training paths abroad, as well as about the importance of commercial and cultural exchanges between the Portuguese and the people of the new continents.

Teixeira Gomes was an important cultural person. When he was elected President of the Republic, he already had published literary works and a diplomatic career that had helped to give credibility and consolidate the republican regime in London, Portugal’s main ally at the time.

Art collector, talented diplomat, tireless traveler, passionate visitor to museums and galleries, Teixeira Gomes bequeathed his private art collection to several national museums, including the Soares dos Reis National Museum. Here you can see the portrait of Manuel Teixeira Gomes, by Marques de Oliveira, in a painting dated 1881 (in the photo).

In 2010, the Soares dos Reis National Museum hosted the exhibition “Manuel Teixeira Gomes – The years in Porto”, promoted on the occasion of the Centenary of the Establishment of the Republic. An initiative of the Institute of Museums and Conservation, in partnership with the National Commission for the Celebrations of the Centenary of the Republic.

The selection of poems chosen for this activity includes «Tristezas do Desterro», an exile poem by Alexandre Herculano that served as inspiration for António Soares dos Reis to produce the sculpture O Desterrado (The Exiled) (in the photo).

The object was the final test of the Sculpture course and was held in Rome, where Soares dos Reis stayed, at the Instituto de Santo António dos Portugueses, to complete his scholarship abroad.

The nostalgic emotion that the sculpture conveys is translated into marble by the nostalgic posture of the figure sitting on a rock beaten by the sea. In a broader sense, the work gives us back the image of a lonely and thoughtful man, which is closely linked to the idea of ​​evasion in the romantic imagination.

Saudade (Missing), the desire to return to the Homeland, nostalgia for the motherland seem to form a dominant state of mind in the maritime experience of the Portuguese, a level in which O Desterrado (The Exiled) by Soares dos Reis assumes a superior dimension, of collective representation.

Paula Távora Vítor

Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra. Graduate (2001), Master (2005) and PhD (2017) from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra; Integrated Researcher (Legal Institute); President of the Board of Directors of the Family Law Center (FDUC); Member of the Executive Board of the International Society of Family Law and the Coordinating Group of Family Law in Europe Academic Network (FL-EUR); Author of several monographs and articles in the area of ​​Family and Succession Law and Personal Law (capacity). Co-author of legislative projects. Member of the Working Group to review the Mental Health Law.

António Ponte

Current Director of the Soares dos Reis National Museum, António Ponte has a degree in Historical Sciences (1993) from the Portucalense University, a Master’s degree (2007) and a PhD in Museology (2014), from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto. He held the position of Regional Director of Culture for the North, between 2013 and 2021.

Pedro Morgado

Psychiatrist at Braga Hospital, researcher and professor at the University of Minho School of Medicine, and winner of the 1st edition of the FLAD Science Award Mental Health, the highest award in the field of ​​mental health in Portugal with a project in the area of ​​disorder obsessive-compulsive. Since February 2022, he has been Northern Regional Coordinator for Mental Health.

The Soares dos Reis National Museum has been carrying out several actions within the “Art & Health” programmatic axis.

The Portreto de la Animo exhibition and parallel activities are the focus of this program in 2023, continuing with a cultural offer aimed at minimizing the impact of mental illness, increasing self-confidence and well-being, enabling the construction of a safe environment, alleviating the suffering and reducing the anguish of the people who participate in them.

The Portreto de la Animo exhibition includes selected pieces from the Treger Saint Silvestre Collection that relate to processes of self-representation and that were mostly produced in contexts of illness. The Soares dos Reis National Museum thus provides the meeting point for these works of art, included in currents that go beyond the traditional ones, with others from its own collection.

The exhibition has the patronage support of the Millenium bcp Foundation and Lusitânia Seguros, as well as the institutional support of the Dr. José de Figueiredo Circle – Friends of the Soares dos Reis National Museum.

Gonçalo de Vasconcelos e Sousa is a full professor at the School of Arts at the Portuguese Catholic University, where he is director of the Interpretive Center for Goldsmithing in the North of Portugal. He chairs the Scientific Council of the School of Arts (between 2011-2013 and since 2017), being scientific coordinator of the degree in Art – Conservation and Restoration, the master’s degree in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Assets and the doctorate in Heritage Studies. PhD (2002) and Agregado (2006) in Art History from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto, where he defended his master’s thesis (1997). Corresponding Academic of the Portuguese Academy of History (2003) and the National Academy of Fine Arts (2001).

The Círculo Dr. José de Figueiredo – Friends of the Soares dos Reis National Museum is an association created in 1940, a collective entity of a cultural, non-profit nature, with public utility status, which aims to contribute to the development of culture, arts, defense of cultural heritage, with the main objective being the progressive appreciation of the Soares dos Reis National Museum.

Since 1942, the association has published the Decorative Arts magazine MVSEV, directed at the time by Vasco Valente, then Director of the Soares dos Reis National Museum, among other publications within its editorial activity.

The association has focused its activity on supporting the development of the Museum, increasing its collections, acquisitions and donations, complementing the Museum’s programming with trips, courses and various visits, organizing conferences, congresses, concerts, etc.

Currently it has many hundreds of friends, making it, in the panorama of cultural associations of friends of museums, a reference association, in addition to a very large group of institutional associates who support the various initiatives promoted.

David Silva is the guest soloist for the performance at the Soares dos Reis National Museum.

The Esmoriz Mandolin Orchestra was officially formed in 1984 as a result of a musical movement started by founding maestro Luís Marques Aleixo, in which the orchestra accompanied the revue theatre of the time.

It currently has around 20 instrumentalists, aged between 14 and 83, both amateurs and professionals, and the musical direction of maestro, composer and instrumentalist Luís Sá.

Soloist David Silva has participated in the most diverse chamber music ensembles, having collaborated with the Orquestra do Norte, Orquestra Património | Ópera na Academia e na Cidade and as a founding member of the Oporto Chamber Ensemble.

Born in Montreal, Canada, in a Portuguese family, he moved to Portugal at a young age. He studied at the Escola Profissional de Música de Viana do Castelo and at the Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espectáculo in Porto, with Professors Iva Barbosa and António Saiote.

He won the “Prix-d’Europe” and the “Canadian Music Competition – Stepping Stone” in 2016, in Canada, and has won several other honours.

David is regularly invited by various orchestras: Hyogo Performing Centre Orchestra (Japan), Macao Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Portuguese Chamber Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Camerata Zurich, Musikkollegium Winterthur Orchestra and Basler Festival Orchestra (Switzerland).

Manuel Maria Lúcio, an amateur painter, chose the painter Artur Loureiro as his master. Among the artists who frequented his studio in the gardens of the Crystal Palace, Manuel Maria Lúcio was one of his favourite disciples. Since 1944, the Soares dos Reis National Museum has housed a significant part of his art collection and library.

In Gaia, in the house where he lived all his life, he assembled an important collection, especially of contemporary paintings, pieces of furniture, earthenware and enamels. As well as being a collector, Manuel Maria Lúcio was a remarkable bibliophile.

Although he didn’t study at the Academia Portuense de Belas Artes, he used books and publications as a vehicle for artistic culture. In the screens, boards and pastels he painted, we can see various aspects of the Alto-Douro and Vale do Vouga regions, Gaia and Porto, such as Rio Douro, from 1906, exhibited at the Soares dos Reis National Museum.

Joaquim Lopes enrolled at the Porto School of Fine Arts in 1906, where he was taught by José de Brito in Drawing and Marques de Oliveira in Painting. Marques de OIiveira had a great influence on his education and his friendship and admiration for the master are evident in the work he later wrote about him.

In Oporto, Joaquim Lopes was a member of the Oporto Fine Arts Society, presenting his work at its exhibitions from 1918 onwards and taking part in the attempt at renewal carried out by various artists.

In his vast oeuvre he touched on various genres, such as landscape, which was a frequent motif in his painting, giving it a characteristic colour and vigour. In addition to the Soares dos Reis National Museum, Joaquim Lopes’ work can be found in various museums and public institutions, such as the Chiado Museum in Lisbon, the Grão Vasco Museum in Viseu and the Abade de Baçal Museum in Bragança, as well as in private collections.

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Soares dos Reis National Museum
Inventory No.: 900 Pin CMP/ MNSR
Title: Boats unloading on the River Douro
Author: Lopes, Joaquim Francisco
Dated: 1927

At the age of 20 he became a state student abroad. Between 1867 and 1870 he stayed in Paris as a pensioner, receiving lessons from Jouffroy, Yvon and Taine. In Paris he received several prizes for his work.

After a brief stay in Portugal, in 1871 he left for Rome, a decisive stage in his education. It was in Rome that he began work on O desterrado (The Exiled) (1872), a work of classical inspiration, an essay in the transition to naturalism, which was awarded a prize at the General Fine Arts Exhibition in Madrid in 1881.

Returning to Porto in 1873 to devote himself to his artistic career, he collaborated in publications and chaired the Centro Artístico Portuense. From 1881, he taught sculpture at the Porto School of Fine Arts, although he disagreed with the organisation of the teaching.

Soares dos Reis was admired by his contemporaries, received commissions, took part in competitions and exhibitions and designed public monuments. Illness and dissatisfaction led him to commit suicide in his studio in 1889.

About the Soares dos Reis National Museum

The Soares dos Reis National Museum has its origins in the Museum of Paintings and Prints and other Fine Arts objects, created in 1833 by Pedro IV of Portugal, the first Emperor of Brazil, to safeguard the assets sequestered from the absolutists and convents abandoned during the civil war (1832-34).

With the extinction of the religious orders, works were collected, among others, from the monasteries of Tibães and Santa Cruz de Coimbra. Known as the Museu Portuense, it was housed in the former Convent of Santo António da Cidade, in Praça de S. Lázaro, and was formalised by decree in 1836 by King Maria II.

In 1839, it passed to the direction of the Academia Portuense de Belas Artes, which organised a series of exhibitions in which notable artists such as Soares dos Reis, Silva Porto, Marques de Oliveira and Henrique Pousão were honoured, in successive generations of masters and disciples.

With the proclamation of the Republic, it was renamed the Soares dos Reis Museum in memory of one of the most outstanding names in Portuguese art.

In 1932, it was renamed the National Museum, a period marked by a significant reorganisation by Vasco Valente, through the incorporation of objects from the Episcopal Palace of Porto (Mitra) and the Industrial Museum, as well as the deposit of collections from the extinct Municipal Museum. This was followed, in 1940, by the installation of the Museum in the Carrancas Palace, where it still remains.

Jean Pillement (Lyon 1728 – 1808) was a French artist who trained in textile design at the Gobelins factory in Paris. He lived in Lisbon before the 1755 earthquake, where he worked as a draughtsman at the Royal Silk Factory. Having travelled around Europe, he returned to Portugal around 1782, where he excelled in pastel technique in the field of Landscape.

The painter treated idyllic countryside and marine scenes, idealising nature. He also captured aspects of Portugal linked to the fishing of the Tejo and Douro rivers. In Oporto, he laid the foundations for a current of Landscapes with Domingos Vieira and his son, Francisco Vieira, the Portuense.

As part of the programme of October, a guided tour in Portuguese on naturalism in painting will take place on October 19 at 6pm.

The programme will focus on the works of Silva Porto (1850-1893), Marques de Oliveira (1853-1927) and Henrique Pousão (1859-1884). The tour is completed with other artists who left their mark on the city of Porto in the first half of the 20th century.

In Portugal, in 1867, the Academies of Fine Arts began awarding scholarships to students abroad. Silva Porto (1850-1893) and Marques de Oliveira (1853-1927) were the first students in Paris.

They joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1873 and, in the forest of Barbizon, lived with a group of artists who followed open-air painting, focussing on the effects of light on the landscape.

Henrique Pousão also went to Paris in 1880. His paintings of roads and streets, courtyards, houses and aspects of Paris bear witness to his creative journey, which culminated in his stays in Rome and Capri.

His work, which reveals the boldness and talent of the young painter and his absolute interest in the values of the painting itself to the detriment of the themes or the narrative, was given, after his premature death, to the Academia Portuense de Belas Artes.

The Ludovice Ensemble is a group specialising in the interpretation of early music. It was created in 2004 by Fernando Miguel Jalôto and Joana Amorim with the aim of publicising the vocal and instrumental chamber repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries through historically informed interpretations using antique instruments. Its name honours the German architect and goldsmith Johann Friedrich Ludwig (1673-1752), known in Portugal as Ludovice.

As well as being the stage for the recording of the album “Assembly of Foreign Nations” by the Ludovice Ensemble, the Soares dos Reis National Museum also provided the image of the painting Marinha (fishing harbour), chosen for the album cover, by the French painter Jean Pillement.

Jean Pillement (Lyon 1728 – 1808) was a French artist who trained in textile design at the Gobelins factory in Paris. He lived in Lisbon before the 1755 earthquake, where he worked as a draughtsman at the Royal Silk Factory. Having travelled around Europe, he returned to Portugal around 1782, where he excelled in pastel technique in the field of Landscape.

The painter treated idyllic countryside and marine scenes, idealising nature. He also captured aspects of Portugal linked to the fishing of the Tagus and Douro rivers. In Oporto, he laid the foundations for a current of Landscapes with Domingos Vieira and his son, Francisco Vieira, the Portuense.

Following the 1820 Revolution in Portugal, the Parliament ordered his return, but Pedro IV refused to embark for Europe. It was then that, as leader of the independence movement in that colony, he decided to proclaim Brazil’s independence on the banks of the Ipiranga River (1822). Soon afterwards, he was proclaimed Emperor of Brazil.

After the death of his father João VI in 1826, Pedro was appointed king of Portugal by the regent Isabel Maria and granted the Portuguese the Constitutional Charter of 1826. He wanted to abdicate in favour of his daughter, Maria da Glória (the future Queen Maria II), but the civil war between the liberals, led by Pedro, and the absolutists, led by his brother Miguel, who also wanted the throne, postponed Maria’s coronation until 1834.

The Museum of Paintings and Prints and other Fine Arts objects was created with the aim of collecting the goods confiscated from the abandoned convents of Porto and the monasteries of S. Martinho de Tibães and Santa Cruz de Coimbra. The looting took place during the civil war between absolutists and liberals, led by the regent Pedro, Duke of Bragança.

It was installed in the Convent of Santo António, in the eastern part of the city (Jardim de S. Lázaro), under the direction of the painter João Baptista Ribeiro. It was confirmed by King Maria II in 1836, as part of the public education reforms carried out by Minister Passos Manuel.

In 1839, the Museum’s collection came under the direction of the Academia Portuense de Belas-Artes, which led to a strengthening of the relationship between the museum and art education in the 19th century.

As part of the institutional reforms of the Republic in 1911, the museum was renamed the Soares dos Reis Museum, after the sculptor who had been honoured by the Portuense Academy of Fine Arts. In 1932, the centenary museum acquired the status of National Museum. Its installation in the Carrancas Palace in 1940 is part of the Museum’s recent history, at the time under the direction of Vasco Valente.

At the Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis, Portreto de la Animo is on display to the public, an exhibition of portraits and self-portraits that are part of the Treger Saint Silvestre collection, one of the most important and extensive private collections of Brute Art in the world.

António Saint Silvestre, painter and collector, curates the exhibition. With the musician and gallerist Richard Treger, he began the creation of the Treger Saint Silvestre Collection in the 1980s, the fundamental subject of this exhibition.

Richard Treger and António Saint Silvestre began their collection inspired by the path started by Jean Dubuffet, a pioneer in collecting artistic productions that become reports of the unconscious.

The collection is made up of approximately 1700 works by 350 artists, reflecting the evolution of different historical moments and ramifications of marginal arts to the circuits of the established artistic system, from the classics of Art Brut to its variants.

The collection is particularly distinguished by its great chronological range, demarcated by artists born at the end of the 19th century to authors active today. It also stands out for its broad geographical representation, which covers the traditional “centers of raw art” in Western Europe and North America, expanding to artists from Africa, Asia, Eastern, Central and Southern Europe and Central Latin America. , highlighting the diversity of Portuguese and Brazilian artists.

The works that make up the collection cover a wide variety of techniques and materials, including painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, tapestry, photography, electrical mechanisms, recovered objects and atypical materials such as organic materials.

Presented for the first time in Portugal in 2012, at the Arpad Szenes-Vieira da Silva Foundation, the collection has been in long-term storage at the Centro de Arte Oliva (São João da Madeira) since 2014.

Paula Távora Vítor

Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra. Graduate (2001), Master (2005) and PhD (2017) from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra; Integrated Researcher (Legal Institute); President of the Board of Directors of the Family Law Center (FDUC); Member of the Executive Board of the International Society of Family Law and the Coordinating Group of Family Law in Europe Academic Network (FL-EUR); Author of several monographs and articles in the area of ​​Family and Succession Law and Personal Law (capacity). Co-author of legislative projects. Member of the Working Group to review the Mental Health Law.

António Ponte

Current Director of the Soares dos Reis National Museum, António Ponte has a degree in Historical Sciences (1993) from the Portucalense University, a Master’s degree (2007) and a PhD in Museology (2014), from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto. He held the position of Regional Director of Culture for the North, between 2013 and 2021.

Pedro Morgado

Psychiatrist at Braga Hospital, researcher and professor at the University of Minho School of Medicine, and winner of the 1st edition of the FLAD Science Award Mental Health, the highest award in the field of ​​mental health in Portugal with a project in the area of ​​disorder obsessive-compulsive. Since February 2022, he has been Northern Regional Coordinator for Mental Health.

The Soares dos Reis National Museum has been carrying out several actions within the “Art & Health” programmatic axis.

The Portreto de la Animo exhibition and parallel activities are the focus of this program in 2023, continuing with a cultural offer aimed at minimizing the impact of mental illness, increasing self-confidence and well-being, enabling the construction of a safe environment, alleviating the suffering and reducing the anguish of the people who participate in them.

The Portreto de la Animo exhibition includes selected pieces from the Treger Saint Silvestre Collection that relate to processes of self-representation and that were mostly produced in contexts of illness. The Soares dos Reis National Museum thus provides the meeting point for these works of art, included in currents that go beyond the traditional ones, with others from its own collection.

The exhibition has the patronage support of the Millenium bcp Foundation and Lusitânia Seguros, as well as the institutional support of the Dr. José de Figueiredo Circle – Friends of the Soares dos Reis National Museum.

In this cycle of performances associated with the festival, artists are challenged to explore performatively using archival materials, personal or not, or problematizations of memory.

The main objective is to present performative proposals in their expanded areas (interdisciplinary, spatial and thematic displacements). At the same time that intimacies and familiarities are problematized, creative possibilities are projected that cross disciplines and borders, reinforcing, within the festival-event, the fine line between the real and the performative.

PERFORMANCE PROGRAM

NÁCAR, by BRUNO SENUNE – 6:30 pm

Nácar is a performative proposal that reflects on forgetfulness, memory fiction.

A TALE FOR THE ROOTLESS, by TERESA NORONHA FEIO – 6:45 pm

The work is part of an investigation that allowed the artist to reconstruct and embody a memory, which she does not want to be forgotten.

ROER, by VERA MOTA – 7:15 pm

Roer proposes a reflection on the binary that distinguishes organic from inorganic matter, on the subjective distinction between biological and geological bodies.

The Family Film Project is a film festival that has taken place annually in Porto since 2012.

The initiative aims to involve people, communities and institutions around the world, to empower the defence of the cause of mental health and its relationship with human rights.

At the Soares dos Reis National Museum, and within the scope of the parallel program to the temporary exhibition Portreto de la Animo, the celebrations of World Mental Health Day extend throughout the month of October, with various activities. The initiative has the support of the National Coordination of Mental Health Policies.

Tomorrow, at 6 pm, the talk about Art and Normality will take place, with guests António Roma Torres and Heitor Alvelos, moderated by Hugo Barreira.

On October 18th, at 6 pm, will take place the session about Art, Human Rights and Mental Health, with guests Paula Távora Vítor and António Ponte, moderated by Pedro Morgado.

The training, which brings to Porto European experts in different areas, namely conservation and restoration, has a strong practical component and allows greater knowledge on the use of portable, low-cost, minimally invasive and easy-to-use tools to identify and analyze metals.

This edition of the ENDLESS Metal project course is organized in a partnership between the Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto.

About the Association

Formed in 2022 by active members of the local community, Quarteirão Criativo – Associação para o Desenvolvimento Local has as its main objectives the promotion, support and development of the potential of the territory of its social area, with a view to local and regional growth in the quest to improve people’s lives.

The Association wants to be a driving force for the promotion of solidarity, cooperation and networking between traders, entrepreneurs and residents of the Bombarda Quarter, as well as for the animation and implementation of local and regional development programmes.

Documenting, valuing and disseminating the social capital and preserving the artistic and creative character of the Quarteirão, enhancing the geographical area at a social, urban, environmental, cultural and tourist level, or designing, organising and promoting local, regional and international events, are just some of the lines that guide the work of Quarteirão Criativo – Associação para o Desenvolvimento Local.

About the Quarter

For over 25 years, the Miguel Bombarda Quarter has been an epicentre for business and creatives.

The concentration of contemporary art galleries in this area of Porto has fuelled what is an internationally recognised brand – Bombarda Porto Art District.

It comprises more than 178 establishments in the areas of commerce, media and leisure services, culture and entertainment.

The Simultaneous Inaugurations are an example of its cultural dynamism. As well as optimising and synchronising resources for the visibility of contemporary art, this bi-monthly circuit has established itself as a magnetic asset for new businesses – commerce and adjacent services – as it attracts thousands of visitors for each edition in a circuit that involves the whole area.

Located in the Union of Parishes of the Historic Centre of the city of Porto, in the heart of the old parish of Cedofeita, the Bombarda block includes Rua de Miguel Bombarda, Rua do Rosário, Rua do Breyner, Rua da Boa Nova, Rua de Adolfo Casais Monteiro, Rua D. Manuel II, Rua da Maternidade and Largo da Maternidade.