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U.Porto Memory

University of Porto Famous Alumni

Guilherme Camarinha

Guilherme Camarinha 1912-1994 Painter

Guilherme Duarte Camarinha was born in Valadares, Vila Nova de Gaia, on 1 November 1912, and his birth was registered in Gulpilhares on 28 April 1913. He was the son of Joaquim Francisco Camarinha and Maria da Silva Duarte, who died when Guilherme was about 11 years old.

As a child, he was particularly fond of painting, visible in the drawings on the walls of his house in Vilar de Paraíso. He continued to draw whilst attending the Alexandre Herculano secondary school, in Porto, which he left upon completing the 3rd year of high school education.

In 1927, with the help of his father, he enrolled in the Preparatory Course - Painting, at the School of Fine Arts in Porto, where he studied under José de Brito, Acácio Lino and Joaquim Lopes, whom he particularly admired, and where he was a fellow colleague of Augusto Gomes, among others.

Prior to concluding his end of the course painting, Guilherme Camarinha was already involved as a lecturer at the Francisco de Holanda School, a post he had been invited to take by the School’s Principal, sculptor António de Azevedo. Later, he lectured in industrial schools in Porto and Guimarães.
For his thesis, he presented a painting entitled Bacanais (Bachanals). However, at the end of the Painting course, he requested permission to exhibit the painting Inflamação de Jesus Cristo (The Passion of Jesus), dated 1939, which clearly reveals the influence of the Spanish painters Goya and El Greco. This painting received full marks.

As a student, he had come into contact with the work of Goya during one of his visits to Spain, and he was overwhelmed by it. Later, he was captivated by Italian painting, especially the works of Paolo Uccelo and the Venetian masters. Among the Portuguese artists, Guilherme Camarinha was particularly fond of the paintings by Dordio Gomes, his colleague Augusto Gomes and some of the members of the Brasileira group (a group of artists who gathered at the Brasileira Café), such as Almada Negreiros and Eduardo Viana.

He was also a member of the + Além Group, founded in the School of Fine Arts in Porto against the conservative teaching methods and Naturalism. Although he did not sign the Manifesto of the movement, he took part in the exhibitions at the Silva Porto Exhibition Hall, in 1929, and at the Ateneu Comercial do Porto, in 1931. During the 40s, he was one of the so-called Independent Painters and in this capacity participated in several exhibitions.

Between 1959 and 1962, he lectured at the ESBAP, as Assistant Professor, and took part in the Magna Exhibitions held during this period.

From the end of the 1950s on, he was committed to Public Art, especially tapestry work, for which he was famous. He nevertheless continued to consider himself a painter, an activity which absorbed part of the models he used in the decorative arts used in monuments.

The official commissions he received consisted mainly of monumental tapestries, made in Manufactura de Portalegre factory, and intended for decorating Court Houses, City Halls, Universities and Portuguese embassies abroad.

He designed decorative ensembles to decorate the halls in various Court Houses, depicting mostly allegories and historical themes, such as A Valorização do Mundo (The Value of the World), for the Ministry of Finance (1953), Régia Cúria (The Royal Court), for the Coimbra Court House (1959) and the work entitled Reforma da República (Reform of the Republic), for the Lisbon Court House (1970).

The same theme was used for other fresco paintings found in other audience rooms in Portuguese courts, for instance A Devolução da Várzea Grande ao Povo de Tomar (The Restitution of the Plains to the People of Tomar), found in the Tomar Court House (1959), A Primeira Sentença (The First Verdict), in the Alijó Court House (1966), and Fauna do Mar (Sea Fauna), in the Ovar Court House (1968).

Over a period of fifteen years, he worked in sixteen Court Houses (Chaves, in 1956, Coimbra and Tomar, in 1959, Vila Nova de Famalicão, in 1961, Faro, in 1962, Amarante, in 1964, Santa Comba Dão, in 1965, Alijó and Pombal, in 1966, Santiago do Cacém and Ovar, in 1968, Águeda, in 1969, Lisbon, in 1970, and Tondela, in 1971). The many commissions he received from the Ministry of Justice were the result of the good relations he kept with architects Januário Godinho and Raul Rodrigues Lima, who commended him to the Ministry of Justice, and due to the special admiration towards his art shown by Minister Antunes Varela.

He produced several designs for the tapestries to be exhibited in the noble halls of several Portuguese City Halls, for example: Lenda do Senhor de Matosinhos (The Legend of the Lord of Matosinhos), in 1960, for the Matosinhos City Hall; a portrait depicting farming activities, for the Famalicão City Hall, in 1961; and, for the Porto City Hall, the works entitled Honra e Glória (Honour and Glory), in 1958, Actividades no Porto junto ao Rio e S. João do Porto (Activities in Porto near the river and near S. João do Porto), in 1962.

Other designs by the artist were commissioned by the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (Alegoria à Medicina (Allegory to Medicine)), in 1950, the Faculty of Arts of the University of Coimbra (Artes e Letras (Arts)), in 1955, the Faculty of Law in Lisbon (Alegoria de Direito (An Allegory to Law)), in 1968, and a tapestry for the Main Reading Room in the Lisbon National Library (Leitura Nova (New Reading)), in 1966.

The compositions he designed for the Embassy in Pretoria are also worthy of mention (Cabo das Tormentas (the Cape of Good Hope - or “of the Storms”, as it was commonly called), in 1973, and for the Embassy in Brasília (Actividades (Activities)), in 1977; for the Ocean Liner Santa Maria (Ilha dos Amores (Love Island)), in 1952, and for the head-office of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in Paris (Jardim das Artes (Art Gardens)), in 1968.

Guilherme Camarinha also received many commissions from companies and private individuals. Some of these works are: A Lenda da Misarela (Misarela Legend), for EDP-Hidroeléctrica do Cavado, in 1950; the Actividades e Histórias dos Pedreiros (Activities and Stories of the Stonemasons), in 1970, for the Stonemasons Cooperative; Alentejo, in 1972, for ENATUR; Terra e Mar (Land and Sea), in 1974, for the Estoril-Hotel Guincho company; Vinho. Alegria Dourada for Sogrape, in 1958.

In 1936, he received the Amadeo de Souza Cardoso Award from the Secretariat for National Propaganda, a prize to award young artists. In 1957, together with Júlio Resende, he won the 2nd Painting Award at the 1st Plastic Art Exhibition promoted by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, with the famous Auto-retrato (Self-portrait), from the 50s. In 1967, he won the National Tapestry Prize, and in 1989 he received the Gold Merit Medal, from the Porto City Hall, given in a posthumous ceremony held in 1995.

He participated in several exhibitions, namely: the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris, with a panel for the Portuguese Pavilion; the 2nd Modern Art Biennial, in São Paulo, in 1953; a painting exhibition at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, with the painting Funambulesco (Funambulatory), complying with geometric patterns; the first two international tapestry biennials, in Lausanne; he also took part in the Tapestry and Glass Exhibition, in Stuttgart, in 1966, and the exhibition at the Angers castle, in 1981.

He died in Porto in 1994.

After his death, a group of friends erected a memorial plate at the Coimbrões Workshop where Guilherme Camarinha had lived and worked.

Guilherme Camarinha was a discreet, friendly and unpretentious man, who socialized with other artists such as Henrique Moreira, whom he painted and from whom he received a sculpture, and António Régio. But above all he was a remarkable artist who, further to painting and doing tapestry work, also produced stained-glass windows, sculptures, glazed-tiles (for the crypt in the Sameiro Sanctuary, in Braga) and frescoes, such as the magnificent Via Sacra (Stations of the Cross), found in Nossa Senhora da Conceição Church, in the Marquês de Pombal Square, in Porto, those found in the former Café Rialto, in Porto, and in the Bom Pastor Church in Igreja Lusitana, in Vila Nova de Gaia (1964).
(Universidade Digital / Gestão de Informação, 2009)