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U.Porto Memory

University of Porto Famous Alumni

António Sampaio

António Sampaio 1916-1994 Painter and teacher

António de Assunção Sampaio was born in no. 3, Rua Luís de Camões, in Vila Nova de Gaia, on 19 August 1916. He was the son of Armando Sampaio and Zélia de Assunção Sampaio, and brother of Armando Artur, Vítor, Maria Lígia and José Heitor.
His father was an army officer and administrator of Caconda, in Angola. When he returned to Portugal, he entered the trade business and owned a guesthouse - Pensão Aviz, in Porto.

During his childhood, António Sampaio attended the school "Escola das Palhacinhas", in Rua Direita, Vila Nova de Gaia (1923-1927) and also studied at the Universal College (1928-1929), in Porto.
At the age of 14, he enrolled in the preparatory course at the Porto School of Fine Arts, without the knowledge of his father, to study Painting.
At this school, he was friends with other future plastic artists and architects such as Abel Moura, Guilherme Camarinha, Januário Godinho, Fernando Távora, Nadir Afonso and Dominguez Alvarez.

In 1932, he joined the Special Painting Course at the ESBAP. During his degree, he produced mural decorations for shops and cultural facilities, as well as official works, including works in partnership with Abel Moura for the Colonial Exhibition of Porto.

Later he enrolled in the Painting Course (1937-1944) at the ESBAP, where he was taught by Dórdio Gomes and Joaquim Lopes; at that time, he combined studies with work at the ceramic works "Cerâmica Lusitânia" (1937-1944).

In 1938, he sold his first paintings to prominent Porto personalities.
The following year, he joined a cultural group that opposed the Estado Novo regime, which met at the Café Majestic, in Rua de Santa Catarina, Porto, and was attended by people such as Eduardo Santos Silva, Virgínia Moura, Artur Vieira de Andrade and Januário Godinho.

In 1940, he and other members of the cultural group founded the Sociedade Editora Norte, which published an underground newspaper. On a scholarship, he continued his studies on the legacy of Ventura Terra and won the first of many awards: the Rodrigues Soares Award.

In 1941, he held his first solo exhibition at the Silva Porto Salon, in Porto. From that date until 1993, he participated in many other exhibitions, including many solo exhibitions in Portugal (Porto, Vila Nova de Gaia, Amarante, Viana do Castelo, Braga, Póvoa de Varzim, Ofir, Vila Praia de Âncora and Leiria), in London and New York.

Between 1943 and early 90s, he often participated in group exhibitions, in institutions such as the National Society of Fine Arts, the National Information Office, National Museum Soares dos Reis and National Museum Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, and joined the exhibitions of the "Independentes" and the Biennial Exhibitions of Cerveira.

Between 1944 and 1947, he shared a workshop with architects Paulo Alijó, Moura da Costa and Sequeira Braga.

In the meantime, in 1945 he presented a thesis at the ESBAP, married Marie Thérèse Beyer who bore him two daughters (Maria Antónia, 1949 and Maria Teresa, 1951) and started a long teaching career in secondary education.

In December 1947, he left for Paris, where he remained until the summer of 1948. During that period, he attended the academies La Grande Chaumière and Julian, the workshops of painters André Lhote and Fernand Léger, and the workshop dedicated to frescoes owned by Duco de La Haix, and studied printing at the School of Fine Arts. He socialized with Júlio Resende, Nadir Afonso, Nadir Afonso, with the poet André Figueiras. He was also a visitor of the workshop of Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes and did engravings, studies of nude figures, indoor and city views, as well as small jobs (signed "Jean Luc" and "AS") which he sent to be sold in Portugal.

During the fifties, he established the Alvarez Academy along with com Jaime Isidoro, in no. 171, 1^st floor, Rua da Alegria, in Porto (1954), organised the cultural activities in Carnival for the National Mountaineering Club (1957), set up a Open Workshop in Rua Formosa (1954) and held form the ephemeral group "Ceramistas Modernos" [Modern Ceramists](1961).

He taught for 30 years at various schools: Industrial School Infante D. Henrique, Soares dos Reis School of Decorative Arts, in Porto, Industrial School of Viana do Castelo, Industrial School of Oliveira de Azeméis, School of Ceramics of Viana do Alentejo, and in schools in Covilhã, Faro and Lisbon, and at the Secondary School of Monserrate, in Viana do Castelo, where he retired in 1986.

Throughout his artistic career, he illustrated the work "Sede" by António Ramos de Almeida (1942), textbooks by Pedro Homem de Melo, and ethnographic postcards (1944). Along with architect António Neves, he designed coats of arms to decorate draperies in manor houses (1938). He decorated shops in downtown Porto, and painted, among others, the frescoes in Bocage pastry shop, in Rua de Santo Ildefonso, and a fresco for Batalha Theatre. In 1954, he also produced works inspired by the Alentejo (ceramic, watercolours and drawings). He painted portraits of members of the society such as Joaquim Carvalho, benefactor of Coliseu (1941), Maria José Mariani (1944) and the great-niece of Teixeira de Pascoaes (1950). He explored the artistic potential of ceramics, producing ceramic panels for a factory (1964) and for a hotel (1972) in Espinho. He painted and drew landscapes of Sintra, Minho, Marão and other quiet and enigmatic places, in a period during which he withdrew from public life (1975). He painted naïf paintings and jointed the Institute of Child Support, in the 90s. He designed tapestries manufactured at the "Manufactura de Tapeçarias Muro" and for the Hotel Praia-Golfe in Espinho.

António Sampaio lived in many places. When he married, he moved from Vila Nova de Gaia to Quinta do Mirante, in Águas Santas, owned by his in-laws. Between 1950 and 1952, he rented a house in Ofir, where he often lived. Two years later, he moved to Viana do Alentejo. In 1955, he returned to Porto, and in 1958, after selling the estate in Maia, he rented a house in Rua de S. Crispim. In 1961, he moved to Rua do Seixal. The following year, he built "Casa do Rio", in Gondomar, designed by Fernando Tudela, and moved in 1963. Fifteen years later, he purchased a house in Gouvim, Gondarém, close to Vila Nova de Cerveira, which he began to restore in 1979, at a time when he lived in both Gondomar and Afife. He settled there in the 80s.

In all the places where he studied, worked and lived, he was always surrounded by friends, such as painters Dominguez Alvarez and Carlos Carneiro, the sculptor Arlindo Rocha, poets Pedro Homem de Melo, Teixeira de Pascoaes, Sebastião da Gama, Júlio/Saúl Dias and António Porto-Além, violinist Herberto de Aguiar, writer Luísa Dacosta, brothers Ernesto and Eduardo Veiga de Oliveira, Alexandre and Júlia Babo, and master ceramist Lagarto. Between the 60s and the 25 April 1974, he welcomed people of the arts and journalists in his workshop in his workshop at the Gondomar house.

António Sampaio was also a curious traveller. He had deep knowledge of Minho, and after his marriage he visited S. Pedro do Sul, Lisbon, Sintra, Arrábida and the Algarve. He visited the great museums of Spain and France, travelled across Alsace, the hometown of his wife, Belgium, Italy and England, and returned several times to Spain and France.

He died at his home in Gouvim on 27 March 1994.

In 2016 two posthumous exhibitions were dedicated to him: 100^th anniversary of the birth of Antonio Sampaio, in the Cultural Forum of Cerveira (Vila Nova de Cerveira), and António Sampaio: from the Douro to the Sea, in the Port Wine Museum (Porto).
(Universidade Digital / Gestão de Informação, 2009)