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U.Porto Memory

University of Porto Famous Alumni

Gustavo Bastos

Gustavo Bastos 1928-2014 Sculptor, designer and lecturer

Gustavo Telles de Faria Correia Bastos was born in S. Julião, in Figueira da Foz, on 9 March 1928. He was the son of Alberto Bastos da Costa e Silva, a doctor, and Teresa Cândida Telles de Faria Correia Monteiro.

He soon became interested in art and, as a child, used to cut out pictures of animal from the advertising flyers of the Casino in Figueira da Foz, especially horses, one of the key themes in his future work.
When he was seventeen, he received a prize at an exhibition organized by the Portuguese Youth Association, with a sculpture entitled Escultura Equestre do Infante D. Henrique (Prince Henry on Horseback).

He studied at the Bissaya e Barreto Secondary School, at the Academia Figueirense, in Figueira da Foz, and was a student at the Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas private boarding school, in Oliveira do Hospital. He sat his 6th year exams at the D. João II secondary school, in Coimbra, and then moved to the Dr. Dias Valente Private School, in Estoril. he then sat the 7th year exams at the Liceu de Camões school.

In 1949 he was admitted to the Special Sculpture Course at the School of Fine Arts in Porto, which he attended for quite some time. In 1952, having moved to Lisbon, he completed the 4th year of the course, but soon returned to Porto to enrol in ESBAP, in the Higher Degree Sculpture Course. His end of the year project consisted of a sculpture entitled Jovem, (Youth), for which he received full marks.
During his training period, he was supervised by painters Heitor Cramês, Joaquim Lopes and Dordio Gomes, among others, and by sculptor Barata Feyo.

In 1955, the Head of the School Board saw to it that he received the prize awarded by the Rotary Club to the outstanding students.

He lectured in secondary schools for four years and attended the Pedagogic Sciences Course at the Faculty of Arts in Coimbra.

His work was exhibited at the 1st Plastic Art Exhibition promoted by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and at the Magna Exhibitions held at the ESBAP.

In 1958, Correia Bastos began to lecture at the ESBAP as Assistant Professor, and sat the exams for the tenure of Full Professor in 1962, presenting a figure and a major composition work, as was usual in his work. Between 1972 and 1975, he worked as librarian at that School and, in 1995, became the first Full Sculpture Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto. In 1997, he was awarded Professor Emeritus status.

In the meantime, in 1960, he received a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

His career is marked by his involvement in various activities, for instance, as a member of the National Buildings and Monuments department of the National Education Board, as a member of the National Academy of Fine Arts and of the Academic Board of the ARCA-ETAC (School of Artistic Technologies, in Coimbra), where he was also a lecturer.

His work is extensive and coherent, falling under what we would call the "school of Barata Feyo", often forgotten due to its association to a controversial historical period, that of the Estado-Novo (The New State).

The works of Gustavo Bastos can be found in various national public spaces. In Porto, we have, for instance, the statue the statue O Repouso, molded in cement in 1953, and implanted in the Garden of the School of Fine Arts of Porto (FBAUP); the granite pedestrian statue of João Pedro Ribeiro, at the entrance of the Palace of Justice (1961); two reliefs of the towers of the elevators of the South margin of the Arrábida Bridge (The Geny of the Douro River and The Man dominating the waters of the Douro river) of 1963; To the builders of the Railway Station, in the lobby of S. Bento Ralway Station (1971); the Equestrian statue of D. Afonso Henriques, destined to the Republic Square but placed in the Military Museum (1984); the bas-relief of S. Martinho, in apparent concrete, on the wall of the Presbytery of the Church of S. Martinho de Aldoar (1988); the Monument to Sá Carneiro, in Praça Francisco Sá Carneiro, commissioned in 1990 on the X anniversary of the Camarate accident and inaugurated in 1991; the sculptural ensemble The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (bought in 1969 and initially deposited in the small garden at the intersection of the avenues of Boavista and Marechal Gomes da Costa) and the allegorical sculpture the Serpent placed in the Garden of Virtues since 1993; the Bronze Peasants Group in the Supply Market (1994); Seagull, bronze sculpture in the António Cupertino de Miranda Foundation Headquarters (1994) and the bronze portrait of José Vitorino Damásio, in Pasteleira, inaugurated in 1998 in the 50th anniversary of the Industrial Association of Porto.

Other symbolic works of art include: the sculpture of Inês de Castro, the statues of King João III and of Diogo Afonso, in Cape Verde; the statue of Francisco Sá Carneiro, in Póvoa de Varzim; the statues of Justice, in Mirandela, Tondela, Alijó and Lisbon; the embossed work done for the Court House in Lisbon, for the façades of the Casino in Figueira da Foz and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Coimbra.

His work can be admired in many reference sites, such as the Soares dos Reis National Museum, the Military Museum, in Porto; the Matosinhos City Council; the Machado de Castro National Museum, in Coimbra; the Ovar Museum and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in Lisbon.
In 1989, his work was shown at a retrospective art exhibition, held in the Figueira da Foz Municipal Museum.

Gustavo Bastos was a peer of Arlindo Rocha, and Lagoa Henriques, who completed the course at the same time, and received the same final marks, and of Jorge Vieira and Aureliano Lima.

He had two daughters from his first marriage to Isabel Maria Reymão Nogueira Cerveira Pinto (Mafalda and Alexandra), and a son (Jorge) from his marriage to Cristina de Freitas.

Passed away in Porto in 2014.

(Universidade Digital / Gestão de Informação, 2009)