Who was Júlio Resende?
Between figuration and abstraction, the works of Júlio Resende (1917-2011) express a transition of artistic movements that end up interconnecting. The Portuguese painter portrayed, in a personal way, his lyrical tastes in the plastic experiments he carried out. He began his career as an illustrator for various periodicals, after completing a painting course in 1945 at the Escola Superior de Belas-Artes in Porto. The expressionist phase began with a trip to Paris, where he studied fresco and engraving techniques. Between 1949 and 1950, he lived in Viana do Alentejo where he worked as a teacher, having developed at this time several dynamic compositions that characterize the social and cultural environment of this space. In 1951 he settled in Porto, continuing to teach and maintaining his artistic production diversified between expressionism, geometrism, gesturalism, neo-realism, non-figuration or neo-figurativism.
1. Painter of transition of artistic movements.
Júlio Resende he was a transitional painter between figuration and abstraction, different movements that are intertwined in his work. It presented a strong lyrical feature, in a personal and syncretic way, reflections on different plastic experiences, such as expressionism, geometrism, gesturalism, non-figuration or neo-figurativism.
2. One of the great names of national neo-realism.
Reo-realism was an avant-garde current that denounced social injustices through poetry, visual arts and other means. Neo-realism takes on a dimension of social intervention, heightened by the post-war period and by the seduction of socialist systems that the Portuguese climate of dictatorship mythologizes.
Between 1949 and 1950, Júlio Resende began to paint themes that are based on the environments and characters that surround him. In the 1950s, the protagonist of his works became the people of the sea. In fact, the works of Julio Resende represented working class life and peasant scenes, thus demonstrating class consciousness and class struggle.
3. Was influenced by the works of Picasso and Goya.
In 1946, he received a scholarship from the Institute for High Culture and the following year he left for Paris, where he studied fresco and engraving techniques. The work produced in Paris, of an expressionist nature, was exhibited in Portugal in 1949, raising some apprehension on the part of critics. This scholarship from the Institute for High Culture allowed him to experience Europe, in particular Paris and Madrid. He thus had privileged contact with the works of Picasso and Goya, which, according to him, awakened in him a special attention to abstractionist painting.
4. He was a painter and also a teacher.
During his life, he always shared his time between art and teaching. In 1949 and 1950, he taught in Viana do Alentejo and at this time created paintings whose themes are based on the environments and characters that surround him and which are characterized by the dynamism and plasticity of the compositions.
In the 1950s, the painter settled in Porto, always sharing his time between art and teaching, thus always maintaining an intense artistic activity, participating in exhibitions and responding to orders for mural painting, ceramic panels , scenography, illustrations. Due to the influence of the region, people from the sea became the dominant theme of his painting, having presented his works in individual exhibitions in countries such as Spain, Belgium, Norway and Brazil.
5. Júlio Resende created tile and ceramic panels, among other decoration projects.
In the 1960s, Resende also became interested in decoration and architecture projects, including six stoneware panels at the Palace of Justice in Lisbon. In Porto, he created two ceramic panels for the Hospital de São João and also the gigantic panel of tiles "Ribeira Negra" existing at the exit of the lower deck of the Bridge of D. Luís I, this panel eventually becoming one of his most recognized works . In Gondomar, there is a fantastic tile panel, located in the center of the parish of Gondomar (São Cosme). The panel can be seen in Largo do Souto, next to the amphitheater.
6. The work of Júlio Resende earned him numerous awards and decorations.
In 1951, he won the Special Prize of the Bienal de São Paulo and, in 1959, he surprised again, getting an honorable mention. Ten years later, he returned to the São Paulo Art Biennial, winning the Graphic Arts Prize, with illustrations for the novel "Aparição", by Vergílio Ferreira.
He was named a member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts in 1972, and in 1982 he received the insignia of Comendador de Mérito Civil de España awarded by the King of Spain. In Portugal, he was distinguished with the AICA Prize (International Association of Art Critics) in 1985. On October 23, 1997, in the presence of the President of the Republic, Jorge Sampaio, the opening session of Lugar do Escolha – Fundação Júlio Resende, an institution that houses a collection of around two thousand drawings, which the artist gathered throughout his career and which is today a reference in national culture and art.
7. The work of Júlio Resende it can be found in the main collections of contemporary art.
Outside Portugal, Resende's work is currently represented in the collections of Unesco's headquarters in Paris, the Royal Library Alberto I (Brussels), the Cabinet of Prints in Antwerp, the Ateneum Art Museum (Helsinki, Finland), the Kunstforening Museum ( Aalesund, Norway) and the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art – the city where he would win the 1st Graphic Arts Prize at the X São Paulo International Biennial, in 1985. In Portugal, we find Resende in some of the main collections of modern art and contemporary, such as the collections of the national museums of Soares dos Reis (Porto) and of Contemporary Art (Lisbon), Serralves (Porto) and the FCG Modern Art Center (Lisbon).
