Manuel Cargaleiro died at the age of 97. President highlights an artist who “never let cosmopolitanism mean uprooting”
The Portuguese painter and ceramist Manuel Cargaleiro died this Sunday, June 30. He was 97 years old. The news was given by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, through a note published on the website of the Presidency of the Republic. “The President of the Republic expresses his regret for the death of Mestre Cargaleiro, who left us today,†the note reads.
Recalling that Mestre Cargaleiro lived a large part of his life in Paris, France, since 1957, the head of state highlights that, put it this way, “Cargaleiro never let cosmopolitanism mean uprooting†and the proof of this “is the memory of the images and colors of Beira Baixa in his work, namely the memory of the patchwork blankets” and “also the committed presence of the artist in the region where he was born, through the Foundation and the Cargaleiro Museum.
“Ceramicist and painter, but also a designer, engraver and sculptor, Mestre Cargaleiro left his signature on churches, gardens or metro stations, and on countless pieces as geometric and chromatic as those of other cosmopolitan artists who lived in Portugal. Therefore, having been away for decades, he continued to feel, and we continue to feel like him, a Portuguese artist,” adds Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
“Of Cargaleiro said Maria Helena Vieira da Silva who had the perfect technique, the right measure, the rare colors; and said Ãlvaro Siza Vieira that he showed an unusual joy in the Portuguese artistic panorama,†recalls the President who, he also recalls, decorated him in 2017 with the Grand Cross of the Order of Infante D. Henrique and, in 2023, with the Grand Cross of the Order of Camões.
Jose Fernandes
Concluding the note, the President of the Republic states that “he will never forget the last meeting with Mestre Cargaleiro, weeks ago, at his house in Lisbon, in which he continued to dream of projects for the future and to believe in Life, always honoring Portugal†.
