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U.Porto Memory

University of Porto Famous Alumni

António Cardoso

António Cardoso 1932-2021 University teacher, painter and museum expert

António Cardoso Pinheiro de Carvalho was born in Amarante in 1932.
He studied at the Primary School in Tabuado, where his father was a teacher, and later at S. Gonçalo College in Amarante, which was near the family’s farm. He discovered the pleasure of close contact with the earth with the help of his grandfather, who was a man of many and varied interests and who loved Amarante.

Between 1949 and 1951, he took a teaching course which he completed at the age of 19, and began working in the schools in the region.
In the 50^s, he spent his free time in Amarante, at the Library-Museum, along with Albano and Victor Sardoeira, with whom he prepared the set up the library rooms of António Carneiro and António Cândido, and at the café owned by, "Gioconda de Pascoaes", where he used to play billiards and tell the news about Porto. In this city, besides studying painting at the Alvarez Gallery, established in 1954 by Jaime Isidoro and António Sampaio, like many other students he was a frequent visitor of the cafés Majestic, Rialto and Paladium, the Primus Cine-Clube, the TEP and the Telos Bookstore.

António Cardoso acted as the link between the Porto gallery and the Amarante Library-Museum. Jaime Isidoro painted the Amarante landscapes and the Alvarez Gallery organized 3 exhibits in Amarante. In Porto, an exhibition of works by Amadeo de Souza Cardoso was organized at the Alvarez Gallery (1956) and a Modern Art Exhibition (1957), in collaboration with the Group of Friends of the Library revealed new talents, such as Ângelo de Sousa, António Quadros, Júlio Resende, Tito Roboredo, and António Cardoso himself.

The artist’s painting was, since 1956, marked by the travels he undertook every year, on his motorcycle, alone or with friends such as António Bronze, across France, Spain, Italy and Belgium, where in 1958 he visited the first universal exhibition held after the 2^nd World War.

His work "Landscape III" was part of the collection sent to the 1^st Biennial of Paris in 1959. Portugal received the 1^st Prize, awarded by the critics to the work of António Cardoso as well as of Ângelo de Sousa, Artur Bual, René Bertholo, Lourdes de Castro, Luís Demée, Mário Eloy, António Quadros, Nuno Siqueira, Maria Teles and João Barata Feyo.
As a plastic artist, António Cardoso has exhibited his paintings in group and solo exhibits, in both Portugal and abroad (Porto, Braga, Alijó, Lamego, Peso da Régua, Bragança, Amarante, Vila Nova de Gaia, Chaves, Viana do Castelo, Viseu, Lisboa, Lourenço Marques [Mozambique] and Paris). He published an Album with 20 Drawings in 1980, prefaced by Diogo Alcoforado, and produced the posters for three congresses held in Porto - La Sociologie et les Nouveaux Défis de la Modernisation, in 1988; the 1^st International Congress on the Baroque Style; and Porto in Contemporary Times, in 1989.

Alongside his artistic interests, António Cardoso never forgot his pedagogical vocation and used his ideas concerning art in education and in the role of the educator as a stimulator of abilities and creativity in children. He wrote for "Escola Portuguesa", collaborated in the first two editions of the magazine "Coordenada – Cadernos de convívio" (1958-1959), as illustrator and editor. He directed "página Quatro" of the newspaper "Flor do Tâmega", of the modernists of Amarante, which enabled him to visit Brazil and the works of Niemeyer and Portinari, and worked for the cultural journal "Ângulo" (since 1966), which he directed together with Manuel Amaral and in which he proposed bold topics.

In the early 60s, the school inspector Baptista Martins, who later became responsible for the establishment of Teleschool, during a visit to Amarante was quite impressed with the local museum and with Professor António Cardoso. It was through his mediation that he joined the Institute of Audiovisual Media and the Institute of Educational Technology, hosting School Television programmes (1963-1965).

Between 1965 and 1974, António Cardoso worked as director at Educational Television and Teleschool/ITE, during which he was invited to participate in the 5^th International Seminar of the European Union, in Basel (1967). He directed the CPTV / ITE Course (1977-1981) and led training activities for Basic and Secondary Education Teachers in several Portuguese cities, sponsored by the Ministry of Education, and of CPTV Teachers, broadcasted by RTP Institute of Educational Technology. He was also part of the Commission of the Ministry of Education responsible for the renovation of the Student Assessment System in Basic and Secondary Education.

In the meantime, during the 60s he also invested in his personal academic training, attending the Porto Higher Institute of Fine Arts (1965-1966), which he abandoned as his school and work schedules were incompatible. He then thought about taking a Law degree, but with the opening of the Second Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto he enrolled in the History course. During this period, in which he completed the course in 1974 with the final mark of 16 out of 20, he was strongly marked by teachers José António Ferreira de Almeida and Carlos Alberto Ferreira de Almeida. His pedagogical training took place at the CPES, and he completed it with the final mark of 16. In 1981, the year of the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Picasso, he was admitted as staff teacher of the History Course, major in Art, at FLUP.

On this same occasion, he delivered many speeches on the work of Picasso for the Fine Arts Group of Madrid, at the Spanish Institute of Culture, in the Soares dos Reis National Museum, the Museum of Amarante and in secondary schools in Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia.
Due to university career requirements, he prepared his PhD on the 20^th century, which was his area of work, marked by the activity of José Augusto França. On the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of the Sociedade Martins Sarmento, in Guimarães, José Augusto França delivered a speech on the building and head-office of the said Sociedade and on its author, José Marques da Silva. Due to this fact, António Cardoso decided to study the work of this architect, instead of his countryman Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, which had been his first choice for the research project.

The broad outlines of his thesis, supported by a sponsorship from INIC between 1986 and 1988, were defined at the exhibition on Marques da Silva, and held at Casa do Infante, in 1986.
On 19 November 1992, he defended the PhD thesis at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto, entitled "Architect José Marques da Silva and the Architecture in the North of the Country in the first half of the 20^th century", and was approved unanimously with honours.
The work developed for his PhD thesis led to the donation of Marques da Silva’s legacy to the University of Porto, left in the will of architect Maria José Marques da Silva (24 June 1993), his heiress, leading to the establishment in 1994 of the Institute Architect José Marques da Silva, today known as Arquitecto José Marques da Silva Foundation Institute.

At the Faculty of Arts, along with the History of Art classes, he directed seminars on Heritage/Restoration, 20^th century Sculpture and Architecture in the Masters Course on History of Arts of the Department of Heritage Sciences and Techniques. He has supervised several Masters and PhD thesis and participated in university selection panels.
He has taught summer seminars, guided memorable visits to Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Mérida, etc.) in the context of the 20^th century History of Art subject, organized exhibitions of Porto artists, such as Ângelo de Sousa, Carlos Carreiro and Zulmiro de Carvalho at the FLUP facilities and was a member of the Heritage Commission of Porto City Council representing the Faculty (1996-2001). António Cardoso was now retired.

Outside this institution, he taught auxiliary technical museography experts at the IPPC and was a jury member in Masters exams at Universidade Nova de Lisboa/Faculty of Social and Human Sciences. He also organized three significant exhibitions in Porto: "Marques da Silva/Architect 1896/1947", held at Casa do Infante in 1986; "Casa de Serralves, a portrait of an era", held at Casa de Serralves in 1988; and "Water-colours by Marques da Silva", in 2001, at the Marques da Silva Institute. António Cardoso also collaborated with other educational and cultural institutions, in conferences and speeches.
In the 90^s, his interest in studying Local History and Museology (namely as a member of APOM), the constant collaboration with the Amarante Museum (through the Group of Friends of the Museum) and the work developed at FLUP made it inevitable for him to accept the invitation for the position of Director of the Museum of Amarante, which he kept until his death.

Among many other activities developed throughout his career, the following are worthy of note: conferences - at the Modern Art Centre of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, at the Alberto Sampaio Museum, in Guimarães, at the Biscainhos Museum, in Braga, at Cooperativa Árvore and at the Portucalense University, in Porto -, as well as in round-table conferences - at Casa de Serralves, Cooperativa Árvore and ESBAP, in Porto, at the Cupertino de Miranda Foundation in Vila Nova de Famalicão; the collaboration in pedagogical training in the Greater Porto area, the publication of several books, in particular on S. Gonçalo de Amarante, the Church of Gondar, Palácio da Bolsa and on the Architect Marques da Silva, the edition of dozens of scientific articles; studies and works on Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, for example, the production of a film for RTP, the participation in a film by Paulo Rocha and the collaboration in the catalogue raisonné of Amadeo and in the organization of an exhibition on the 100^th anniversary of his birth (1987), two initiatives of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; the close work with the magazine "Entremuros", on the Local History of Amarante, the first edition of which was sponsored by the Rectorate of the U.Porto in 1990; the visit to "Documenta 7" on Kassel and to the Biennial of Venice in 1982, on a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; as a member of the jury in the Idea Contest for the renovation project of S. Bento Railway Station (1985), organized by the Ministry of Social Equipment / Department of the Railway Bridge over the Douro River; he acted as Deputy for the National Education Board in Amarante, where he was responsible for classifying its most relevant architectural heritage; he is an ex-member of APOM (Portuguese Association of Museums) and of ARPPA (Regional Association of Cultural and Natural Heritage) and a member of the International Association of Art Critics (Portuguese Department).

The retired Professor of the University of Porto and Director of the Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Museum died in Porto on June 3, 2021, aged 89 years.
(Universidade Digital / Gestão de Informação, 2010)