Maria de Lourdes Bettencourt de Castro (9 December 1930 – 8 January 2022) was a Portuguese artist from

Funchal Funchal () officially Funchal City (), is the capital, largest city and a Municipality (Portugal), municipality in Portugal's Madeira, Autonomous Region of Madeira, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. The city has a population of 105,795, making it ...

Madeira Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of ...

. After specializing in abstract art, in the 1960s she created collages and silk screens, seeking to capture ephemeral reality. From the 1970s, together with her partner Manuel Zimbro, she developed

shadow puppet Shadow play, also known as shadow puppetry, is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment which uses flat articulated cut-out figures (shadow puppets) which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim. The cut-o ...

s for her Shadow Theatre, gaining acclaim throughout

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. In 1998, together with Francisco Tropa, she created an installation for Portugal's contribution to the

São Paulo Art Biennial The São Paulo Art Biennial ( Portuguese: ''Bienal de São Paulo'') was founded in 1951 and has been held every two years since. It is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennale (in existence since 1895), which serves as ...

Biography

Born on 9 December 1930 in Funchal, Lourdes Castro studied at the

Lisbon School of Fine Arts The Lisbon School of Fine Arts (''Escola de Belas-Artes de Lisboa'') was a university-level school for painting, sculpture and architecture. It started life in 1836 as part of the National Academy of Fine Arts (''Academia Nacional de Belas-Arte ...

. From where she never graduated due to 3 paintings rejected at the time by a teacher. Her first solo exhibition at the Clube Funchalense in 1955 presented her early works which were influenced by

Fauvism Fauvism ( ) is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of (, ''the wild beasts''), a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong col ...

. On marrying her fellow student (1935–2005), in 1957 she presented an exhibition with him at Lisbon's Galeria Diário de Notícias. They then spent some time together in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

before moving to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in 1958, thanks to a grant Castro received from the

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (), commonly referred to simply as the Gulbenkian Foundation, is a Portuguese institution dedicated to the promotion of the arts, philanthropy, science, and education. One of the wealthiest charitable founda ...

. There the couple published the experimental art journal ''KWY'' (1958–1963), creating a movement which included the Bulgarian

Christo Vladimirov Javacheff Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks an ...

, the German Jan Voss, and Portuguese artists including , José Escada, João Vieira and Gonçalo Duarte. Together they specialized in silk-screen printing. Inspired by

Árpád Szenes Árpád Szenes (also ; 6 May 1897 in Budapest – 16 January 1985 in Paris) was a Hungary, Hungarian-Jewish Abstract art, abstract painter who worked in France.abstract painting Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a Composition (visual arts), composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. ''Abstract art'', ''non-figurative art'', ''non- ...

but in 1961 followed the Nouveaux Réalistes, creating

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

s consisting of real objects such as printing press letters or bottle tops in silver-painted boxes. In 1962, she began working with shadows and silhouettes, frequently in portraits of her friends. In 1964, she extended this approach to include layers of screen-printed or transparent acrylics. From 1973, Castro worked with her lifelong partner Manuel Zimbro, creating shadow theatre shows which were widely presented in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

and

. In 1972 and 1979, she was a guest of the

DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (German: Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD) is a residential program for artists of all countries and ages run by the German Academic Exchange Service (German: 'Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst', DAAD) ...

. After 25 years based in

, she moved back to Funchal in 1983. In 1998, she worked with Francisco Tropa on an installation for the

São Paulo Biennale SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Serb Autonomous Regions (''Srpska autonomna oblast'', SAO), during the breakup of Y ...

. Castro died in Funchal on 8 January 2022, at the age of 91. The President of Portugal,

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa Marcelo Nuno Duarte Rebelo de Sousa (; born 12 December 1948) is a Portuguese politician and academic who is the president of Portugal since 2016. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party, though he suspended his party membership for the ...

, expressed his regret at Castro's death, whom he described as "one of the most unmistakable Portuguese artists".

Distinctions

National orders

PRT Order of Saint James of the Sword - Commander BAR

Commander of the

Order of Saint James of the Sword The Military Order of Saint James of the Sword (), formerly known as the Ancient, Most Noble and Enlightened Military Order of Saint James of the Sword, of the Scientific, Literary and Artistic Merit (), is one of the four former ancient Port ...

(8 June 2021)

References

External links

Examples of Lourdes Castro's work from Calouste Gulbenkian Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Castro, Lourdes 1930 births 2022 deaths 20th-century Portuguese painters 20th-century Portuguese women artists 21st-century Portuguese painters 21st-century Portuguese women artists Commanders of the Order of Saint James of the Sword People from Funchal