Ever wonder what other people are buying for their personal art collections? While your tastes may be different, seeing what others are buying can help you discover new artists whose works you might not have considered before.
Below, discover 6 artists — three established and three emerging — who have proven to be our collectors' favorites. For more ideas, search our new jobs and contact us so we can help you find jobs similar to your budget.
José de Guimarães
Known by the name of the city where he was born, José de Guimarães (1939) is a figure of Portuguese art, who explored various areas from the fine arts, through geology, engineering to archaeology. Travels to Africa, Asia and South America marked his career by stimulating and developing an aesthetic language. At the end of the 1970s, he created an alphabet based on the shapes and symbols of African culture, introducing these into his works. In the 1980s he began to explore the boundaries between painting and sculpture, with pieces produced with unconventional materials - fiberglass and paper specifically made by the artist himself. With strong and cheerful colors, his works are characterized by the crossing of themes between animal and human, mineral and vegetable. For decades, the Portuguese artist collected African, pre-Columbian and ancient Chinese art, which is currently on display at CIAJG - Centro Internacional de Artes José de Guimarães.
Júlio Pomar
In constant movement and creation, Júlio Pomar (1926-2018) is one of the most renowned Portuguese artists of the 20th century. During his long creative career, he addressed issues and themes in his works such as: protest, eroticism, fado, bullfighting, literature, mythology, the Xingu Indians of Brazil, Don Quixote, portraits and animals. Belonging to the third generation of modernists, Júlio Pomar is an artist with works ranging from neo-realism to expressionism, including abstractionism. He mainly produced paintings and drawings, but also carried out engraving, sculpture, illustration, ceramics, glass, tapestry, collages, theater scenography and mural decoration in tiles. In the last years of his life, he also dedicated himself to poetry and music.
Vhils
One of the main artists of the movement urban art (street art), Alexandre Farto (1987), better known as Vhils, continues to evolve and push his style forward by sculpting the faces of anonymous figures on a large scale, in order to reveal the hidden lower layers and the fragility of urban space. He emerged on the art scene in 2008, creating a revolution, through his innovative artistic practice, in which destruction is a form of construction. Vhils He became an international phenomenon, mainly due to his mural works in public spaces, honoring José Saramago, Zeca Afonso, among others. The space where he grew up, Seixal, an industrialized suburb on the other side of the river from Lisbon (Portugal), profoundly influenced his practice due to the transformations caused by intense urban development in the 1980s and 1990s. Bordalo II, Banksy and Jean-Michel Basquiat, it was on the streets that the basis for his initial artistic production was formed, ending up projecting his perceptions of the outside world through his creative acts. It often carves faces in public spaces - on the side of buildings - with a variety of tools and materials that can leave a mark or remove materials, including hammers, drills, etching acid, bleach and explosives. In addition to mural sculpture, he has also been exploring other media such as screen printing, installation, nfts and other media, such as advertising posters, wooden doors and metal plaques that he collects from the streets. Works by Vhils such as “Open Walls Baltimore 1”, “POW! WOW! Hawaii 2014 - King Lunalilo Mural” and “Dusk” reflect current themes in the artistic panorama, such as identity, representation, ephemerality and the individual’s experience in consumer society.
Joana Duarte
The compositions of Joana Duarte (Vila Franca de Xira, 1999) describe the essential lines of painting: color, shape, texture and movement. In his works with great abstract influences, few elements are used with undefined limits that create interesting chromatic relationships of great subtlety. The patches of color present in his painting offer the viewer a door to raw emotions and the immaterial, preferably exploring the tactile qualities and sensitive effects of color. Since he was a child, he has been interested in the world of visual arts, and when he reached secondary school he attended the Escola Artística António Arroio in Lisbon, graduating in artistic production. He later graduated in painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon. At the moment, he is taking a postgraduate degree in art curation at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. At the same time, he works as a freelance artist and exhibits his work in group and individual exhibitions, notably the exhibition Prémio Paula Rego 2018 and the 2020 Almada Drawing Biennial.
Ana Pais Oliveira
Ana Pais Oliveira (1982, Vila Nova de Gaia) lives and works in Espinho. She has a degree in Fine Arts – Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto (2005) and a PhD student in Art and Design – Painting from the same faculty (2015), with the project The color between the pictorial space and the architectural space: processes relational aspects in contemporary artistic practices. Obtained the Certification of Merit for obtaining the best classification in the 3rd Cycle Course in Art and Design, in the 2015/2016 academic year. He is a resident artist at FACE – Forum of Art and Culture of Espinho, where he has his studio and collaborates on several initiatives since April 2016. He is a contributing member of the research center in Art and Design at the Institute for Research in Art, Design and Society and was part of the research project Conceptual Bases of Research in Painting (2014-2019). She received a scholarship from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) between 2011 and 2015. She is also a member of the AIC Study Group on Environmental Color Design and APcor – Associação Portuguesa da Cor. She was part of the Portuguese selection for the Biennale Jovem Criação Europea 2013 /2015, traveling through nine European countries, was selected for the XV Convocation of Galeria Luis Adelantado in Valencia (2013) and won the Kunstpreis Young Art Award <33 [colour] from Galeria Art Forum Ute Barth in Zurich, Switzerland, where she exhibited individually in the summer of 2014. It was also selected for the longlist of the Solo Award 2016 / London Art Fair 2017, promoted by the Wilson Williams Contemporary Art Gallery, London, for the Fundação Focus-Abengoa Painting Prize 2017, Seville and for the longlist of the well-known Jackson's Painting Prize 2021 (400 out of 8674 applications worldwide). His painting Outdoor #2 was selected for print and presentation at the Munsell Centennial Color Symposium at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston (10-15 June 2018) and in the special issue of the Journal Color Research and Applications. She was also invited by the Desistart group to design a collection of luxury rugs, Perspectives Collection, which was presented for the first time at Maison & Objet 2019, in Paris, and at The Hotel Show Dubai, at the Dubai World Trade Centre, May 2021. She was invited by Vinha Boutique Hotel, a luxury hotel in Porto, to create a site specific work measuring 200x500cm, installed in its main lobby.
Won 1st Prize in the XLIX International Painting Competition Homenaje a Rafael Zabaleta, Quesada, Jaén, Spain. Received the Acquisition Award from the Friends of the Library-Museum of Amarante in the 9th Edition of the Award Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso (2013) ) and the 1st Eixo Atlântico Prize at the VIII Bienal Eixo Atlântico do Noroeste Peninsular (2008), among other prizes and honorable mentions in painting and fine arts. He has exhibited individually and collectively since 2003, in Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, Brazil, Netherlands, Lithuania and Hungary.
He regularly participates in conferences and seminars, having recently presented his work at conferences in Genoa, Newcastle, Valencia, Lisbon, Monção and Porto. He was a member of the jury of the IX Bienal Eixo Atlântico do Noroeste Peninsular (2010), the XXI Encontro Internacional de Estátuas Vivas, Espinho (2017), the Short Animation and Experimental Film section of FEST – New Directors, New Films Festival, Espinho, 2018 and of a master's test at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto. She was invited to curate two group exhibitions included in the programming of the 6th International Art Biennial of Espinho: Show me your face, at Centro Multimeios de Espinho and Paperwork, at Galeria da Junta de Freguesia de Espinho (April 2021).
His work is represented in the collections S&A, Porto, Zabaleta Museum, Quesada (Jaén, Spain), Focus-Abengoa Foundation (Seville), Banco BPI, Eixo Atlântico, Casa da Cultura/Casa Barbot, Municipal Museum of Espinho, Municipal Museum of Amarante and several private collections.
