The family did not know that their youngest son was no longer studying at the Faculty of Sciences, in Lisbon. Manuel entered the School of Fine Arts and his father was very angry when he was informed about that fait accompli. The painter and ceramist Manuel Cargaleiro told the episode to Expresso, in a major interview published in 2023.
“I was the one who came home and said: ‘I’m no longer at the Faculty of Sciences, I’ve joined the School of Fine Arts.’ For me it was victory. And he said to me: ‘Yes, but now I no longer give you money to study,'” he said. And he continued: “But I’m very naughty. At the News Diary there were ‘Vacant Places and the Competition’. And I ran for Caixa [Geral de Depósitos]. The boys who were competing asked me: ‘Do you come from commercial school or do you come from high school?’ And I replied: ‘I come from high school.’ They said to me: ‘You’re screwed . Because you need to know some things about commercials and you don’t know anything.’ Well, but I competed there. And the head of the secretariat asked everyone who was chosen: ‘What are your projects in relation to the Caixa Geral de Depósitos?’ And I said: ‘My projects are o be here for as little time as possible. I want to go away to the School of Fine Arts, which is next door.’ Then, he said to me: ‘Then you go to a department where you do your work. And I’m going to give the order so that you can leave whenever you want, to go to classes.’ The guy saw that I was so sincere… I earned 1800 escudos and put 900 escudos in the bank, to be there for as little time as possible. possible†.
Master Manuel Cargaleiro
The time spent at the School of Fine Arts was well spent, but the artist’s biggest breakthrough came when he went to live in Paris in 1957. He would become one of the most international Portuguese artists, with connections mainly to France and Italy. Three years before leaving for Paris, he was invited to a remarkable lunch in Lisbon. At that time, Cargaleiro had two paintings in the collective exhibition “I Salão de Arte Abstrata†, at Galeria de Março, in Lisbon. And, when he passed by the gallery, he knew he was invited to lunch. The invitation came from the painter couple Arpad Szenes and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, who had come from Paris to Lisbon to visit Maria Helena’s mother. From that lunch onwards, a strong bond was born between Manuel Cargaleiro and the artist couplewith whom he would spend a lot of time in Paris.
In the French capital, Cargaleiro continued to practice swimming, as he did almost all his life in the many countries he passed through, as he said in a 2023 interview with Expresso: “If this works [aponta para a própria cabeça], I think it was from swimming so much. It was my sport and it did me a lot of good, especially mentally. I think it had a huge influence. It was that and focusing a lot on other people’s paintings, in museums, on art history. This exercise is tiring, but it’s good.”
In the same interview with Expresso, Manuel Cargaleiro also spoke about the relationship he had with God, regarding his artistic connection and friendship with Maria Helena Vieira da Silva: “There was a lot of evil. And Vieira noticed and so did I, we talked about it often. There was a lot of evil, because I was 20 years younger, it was another generation. They said I copied Vieira da Silva. I didn’t copy, I was sincere with what I did. The greatest effort in my life has always been to tell the truth, even in painting. Vieira da Silva did her painting. She is the painter of perspectives. In fact, one of the things that Vieira da Silva said most, because it was her great obsession: ‘What is beyond the stars? And what about the planets? What’s next? And then? And then? And then?’ And I always said to her: ‘Oh Maria Helena, there is one thing. Goodbye. What you cannot explain is God. God is there. I mean, the person who solved all these problems is a man called God.’ Vieira laughed, she really liked this explanation. What do I want with my painting? It’s vertical, horizontal. It’s there, it’s that. It’s at the front, but I also like that there are secrets behind it. I have a mania for secrets, I have a mania for symbols.”
Anyone who wants to look for the artist’s secrets and symbols can now walk on the Lisbon or Paris subways, where there are tiles created by Cargaleiro. Once in Castelo Branco, you can and should visit the Cargaleiro Museum, created by the artist. And Seixal has a Manuel Cargaleiro Arts Workshop, designed by architect Ãlvaro Siza Vieira.
Jose Fernandes
Manuel Cargaleiro by Alexandre Nobre Pais
As a ceramicist, how important was Manuel Cargaleiro?
âHe is the most international ceramicist of his generation†, Alexandre Nobre Pais, who directed the National Tile Museum in Lisbon and has been the director of Museus e Monumentos de Portugal, tells Expresso. Here is his testimony: “Cargaleiro ended up taking the ceramics produced in Portugal to other countries, namely France and Italy. This is fundamental, to give voice to what was produced in Portugal. It is highly appreciated in Italy and France, there are public works in these places and this is one of the most relevant aspects of its presence in our ceramic production.
Just as he was a painter, he was also an excellent researcher of color in ceramics. Not by chance, architect Siza Vieira called him to choose the color of the tiles for the Portuguese Pavilion at Expo 98.
He is a man who, being a painter, seeks to have available in ceramics the chromatic palette that painting guaranteed him. This is not very easy, because the palette in ceramics is much smaller than in oil or gouache. These are two of the most important dimensions of Cargaleiro.
Another aspect is the sense of humor. He was a man with a great sense of humor, he told many stories. And his work is always full of joy, it gives us happiness. Precisely because of the color, because of some solutions he found.
There is a type of work that I find very interesting. The back of the tile panels have numbers and letters, which help us later to assemble the work. And Cargaleiro made Columbus’s egg, because he reversed the logic. He brings what is hidden to the foreground and hides from us what would be the work itself. We stop seeing the object and see what its assembly is. When he reverses logic, it is really to disconcert us, to intrigue us.
Jose Fernandes
Manuel Cargaleiro by João Pinharanda
“He is recognized as a great renovator of public tiles since the 1950s,†art historian João Pinharanda, who has been the artistic director of MAAT: Museu de Arte, reminds Expresso since the beginning of 2022. Architecture and Technology, in Lisbon. “The name and work of Cargaleiro are immediately recognizable in painting by the general public and critics. Today, it is urgent to apply a renewed and revealing look at essential facets of his plastic work (drawing, gouache and even painting) that remain hidden from the eyes of the public but also from specialized critics.
In 2021, João Pinharanda wrote the book “Manuel Cargaleiro – Uma Vida Desenhada†with Manuel Cargaleiro). And it draws attention to the drawing, in the artist’s work. “What seems important to me is to highlight that the common and popularized image of his work in its relationship with a matrix coming from the painting of Vieira da Silva is neither correct nor does it do justice to its aspects more original, especially in the field of drawing and gouache.â€
Jose Fernandes
Manuel Cargaleiro by Raquel Henriques da Silva
“He was a tireless worker and, also for that reason, His work is immense, in painting, drawing, engraving and various types of ceramics†, art historian Raquel Henriques da Silva tells Expresso.
“I highlight in his career the way he circulated between painting and ceramics, which was unusual in his time because, traditionally, painting, ‘major art’, and ‘ceramics ‘minor art’ were not mixed, except in predominantly ephemeral moments (see Picasso). But I consider that it is in this field, where he began his career, that his work is unavoidable and has received fair international recognition. I also highlight his determination to internationalize, at a time (since 1960) when this was not frequent at all and proves that, despite the constraints of the regime, the determination and Great commitment (and a lot of work) allowed an artist to be fully contemporary, and to circulate in a wide space with a very qualified network of contacts. Confident in the communication capacity, especially affective, of abstract art, for him, the plastic arts are form and color and their ‘language’ has full autonomy in relation to the reasons. That’s why he developed a personal iconography that, in the field of painting, is, in general, easy to identify. I also highlight his patrimonial activism, exemplarily implemented in the Cargaleiro Museum of Castelo Branco, which brings together an impressive number of his own works, in all the typologies in which he worked, and a collection of international ceramics (mainly Italian ) of a very high level. Finally, his love for popular arts and the legacies of the past which led him to create an exceptional collection, also made available to the public at the Cargaleiro Museum.
Manuel Cargaleiro by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
The President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa paid tribute today to Manuel Cargaleiro, in a note of condolence published on the website of the Presidency of the Republic. “Having lived in Paris since 1957, Manuel Cargaleiro never let cosmopolitanism mean uprooting. Proof of this is the memory of the images and colors of Beira Baixa in his work, namely the memory of patchwork blankets; Proof of this is also the artist’s committed presence in the region where he was born, through the Foundation and the Cargaleiro Museum.
Ceramist and painter, but also 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 continued to feel like him, a Portuguese artist.
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva said of Cargaleiro that she had the perfect technique, the right measure, the rare colors; and said Ãlvaro Siza Vieira, who showed an unusual joy in the Portuguese artistic scene. Having 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, the President of the Republic had the opportunity to pay homage to these singularities soon message for the catalog of the last exhibition he held, a text in which he saluted, and now renews his salute, his joyful and luminous work, faithful to the past and present, to a time that is It is ours and it was also yours.
The President of the Republic will never forget his last meeting with Mestre Cargaleiro, weeks ago, at the latter’s house in Lisbon, in which he continued to dream of projects for the future and believe in Life, always paying respect to Portugal†.
