Abel Manta - Library

ÉZANNE, Paul (1839-1906) French painter, firstly an impressionist supporter from which he later parted in the search of a painting he wished so "solid and lasting as the Art of the museums". The proceeding of structural synthesis elaborated by Cezanne, as leaving to the colour and form an absolute value so reducinng the representativeness of Nature to the cube, cone and cylinder, opened at last the path that "fauvism" and cubism would walk at the beguining of our century.

AUVISM - French artistic movement from the beguining of the actual century, its characteristics are by the practice of a distirted drawing and the violent use of colour values. These characteristics made a critic during the 1905 Autumn Exhibition in Paris, to call "fauves" ("wild beasts") the members of the said movement that took part in the exhibition such as Henry Matisse (1869-1954), Albert Marquet (1875-1947), Maurice Vlaminck (1876-1958) e André Derain (1880-1954).

MPRESSIONISM - Artistic movement born in France during the second half of nineteenth century. Its main objectiv was to represent colour and tone in the most natural possible way, by means of little brush strokes of pure colour. The word "impressionism" was coined from a canvas "Impressions: soleil levant" - "Impressions: rising sun", presented in 1874 by Claude Monet (1840-1926) in what became later known as the "Irst Impressionist Exhibition". In that exhibition took also part some other painters who would made his names remarkable in the field of Fine Arts, which is the case of Édouard Manet (1832-1883), Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Camille Pissarro (1831-1903) and Auguste Renoir (1841-1919).

ANTA, João Abel (b. 1928) - Son of the portuguese painters Clementina Carneiro de Moura and Abel Manta, graduated in Architecture by Escola Superior de Belas Artes de Lisboa (Lisbon Superior College of Fine Arts), 1951. He has disclosed a very important activity not only as an architect, but also and mostly as a painter, a scenographer and graphics artist (poster, philately, illustratin, book, newspaper and magazine design). He is considered the most important portuguese cartoonist of this century, an heir of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, Stuart Carvalhais and Leal da Câmara, having published three albums in Portugal and one in Germany.
He was assigned some national and foreign prizes: 1961, Drawing Prize at the II Fine Arts Exhibition of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; 1965, Silver Medal at Graphic Arts Exhibition, Leipzig; 1975 Prize for Illustration at Graphic Arts Exhibition, Leipzig.
Besides having taken part in different collective exhibitions, from Lisbon to Tokyo, he exhibited individually in 1971 (Painting, at Galeria Interior), 1975 (Paintind and Drawing at Escola Superior de Belas Artes de Lisboa - Lisbon Superior College of Fine Arts), 1976 (Drawing, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London) and 1992 (Graphic Work, Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro Museum, Lisbon).

OTA, Eduardo (b.1958) - Born in Gouveia, Portugal, father of two children, teacher, melomaniac, editor, guitar player, cibernaut enough, Art History writer and writer of many other stories («Abel Manta», 1978; «Administração Municipal de Gouveia em Finais de Setecentos» - «Council Board Administration in Gouveia at the end of Eighteenth Century», 1990 and «Corografia Setecentista do Concelho de Gouveia», 1992 - «Eighteenth Century Corography of Gouveia Council»), ex stamp collector, ex football player and ex student of the Coimbra University an Nun'Álvares School of Gouveia.

OURA, Clementina Carneiro de (1898-1992) - Portuguese painter was a pupil of Columbano in the Escola de Belas Artes de Lisboa (Lisbon Fine Arts School), where she took a degree in Painting in 1920. She married Abel Manta in 1927 and next year they hand a son, João Abel. An artist gifted with a remarkable feeling, she devoted herself to teaching in the Thechnical Schools (Afonso Domingues, Machado de Castro e Josefa de Óbidos) and left a theoretical work («História da Arte Popular em Portugal» - «History of Portuguese Popular Art») and also a plastic one divided between painting («Auto-Retrato com o Filho João Abel» - «Self-Portrait with Her Son João Abel») and craftworks in wich field she was known as the "master of patchwork"

USEU MUNICIPAL DE ARTE MODERNA ABEL MANTA (Gouveia, Portugal). The Council's Museum Abel Manta of Modern Art is installed in a building of XVIII century style acquired and reformed by the City Council for this purpose: the antient manor-house of the Condes (Counts) de Vinhó e Almedina. The Opening Act took place in February 1985.
     The Museum has a room devoted to Manta's art, with twenty of his works in exhibition. The Museu collection of portuguese art is a set of paintings, drawings, engravings and sculptures donated by Architect João Abel Manta, Abel Manta's son, to the Museum. The exibited works reach a large period that goes from the fellow artists of The Painter of Gouveia during his parisian adventure, i.e. the first generation of portuguese modernists - such as Francisco Franco and Dordio Gomes - to the artistic values of 70's Generation, wich is the case of António Sena e Zulmiro de Carvalho.
     The second Generation of modernists is represented by important artists as Carlos Botelho, Bernardo Marques, António Duarte and the swiss Fred Kradolfer. As to the third modernist Generation, we underline the works of artists as Júlio Resende, Sá Nogueira, João Abel Manta, Menez, João Vieira, Paula Rego e Joaquim Rodrigo.
     Some of the pioneer artists of «surrealism» and «neo-realism» are also represented in te Museum. It is the case of Vespeira, António Dacosta, Manuel Ribeiro Pavia, Rogério Ribeiro e Lima de Freitas.
     We can, at last, see the works of artists that took the most recent path of «neo-figurative» or «neo-abstraction», as Manuel Baptista, Maria Velez and Gil Teixeira Lopes or also those who kept themselves out of any artistic movement, as Sarah Afonso, Clementina Carneiro de Moura and Luís Dourdil.

• Rua Direita, 45 - Gouveia (Times of opening: tuesday to sunday 10-5).

OGUEIRA, Luís (b. 1938). He earns his life as a teacher. Translated and published English, American, French, Italian and Spanish-speaking Poetry (Durrell, Elizabeth Jennings, Tom Gunn, Synge, Pound, E. E. Cummings, Ginsberg, Corso, Ferllinghetti, Ciardi , Paul Éluard, Aragon, Henri Michaux, Robert Desnos, Montale, Quasimodo, Machado, Neruda, and others) and a French novel («La Sale de Bain» - Jean Philippe Toussaint).
     Published also some of his own poetry on newspapers, magazines and a book («5 Poemas e um envio» - «Five poems and an envoy») and some short stories.
     Has, since his college times disclosed what he considers a very important activity in Theatre, be it as a translater and dramaturgist (Molière, Bergman, Brecht, Pinter, Goldoni, Lorca and many others) or as a director.
     He did some literary criticism work (mostly about poetry) for newspapers and magazines and writes ocasionally articles of opinion for newspapers.

IBEIRO, Aquilino (1885-1963), a very close friend of Painter Abel Manta, is one of the most important portuguese novel writers of XXth century and doubtless the most original prose writer of this period. It is dificult for a foreign (or even a portuguese) reader to reach the deepness of his language, rich, nervous, beautifully surprising and sometimes conceptually new in the field of novel conception and structure, as is the case of «O Malhadinhas» (1949) or the genially conceived fresco of a certain portuguese society which is «A Casa Grande de Romarigães» (1957) certainly one of the highest moments of the european novel of all times.
The themes of his work, deal with the human destiny, and particularly with the sequels of History in conection with the present problems of the portuguese people. His permanent criticism and the courage of his opinions, made him one of the most visible oponents to dictator Salazar's regime. Aquilino was also a paladin of the defense of the artist's economic independence and professionalism was at his time, the unique portuguese novelist to depend for his subsistence only upon his work as a writer
His work is vast and goes from the novel to the free translation (Cervantes' «D. Quixote», for instance), the historical thesis («A Aventura Maravilhosa de D. Sebastião» 1937), the biography («A Vida de Camões» and «Portugueses das Sete Partidas») or the wonderfull novels and short stories he wrote for the children («O Romance da Raposa» and «Arca de Noé - III Classe»).

Suggestions and comments to:
eduardomota@mail.telepac.pt