Fernando Lemos (Lisboa, Portugal 1926 - 2019)
Fernando Lemos was a graphic designer, photographer, draftsman, painter, weaver, printmaker, muralist and poet. After attending the Escola de Artes Decorativas António Arroio between 1938 and 1943, he studied painting at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes [National Society of Fine Arts] in Lisbon. In the early 1950s, he began to devote himself more intensely to photography, capturing images of intellectuals and artists linked to the surrealist movement, as well as everyday scenes transformed by light effects. He worked as a draftsman in industrial lithography and contributed poems and illustrations to the magazine Uni/Pentacórnio. In 1953, he moved to Brazil and settled in São Paulo, where he began working with drawing and painting, developing a non-figurative body of work.
He taught graphic arts at the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo (FAU/USP) [School of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo]. Between 1968 and 1970, he presided over the Associação Brasileira de Desenho Industrial (ABDI) [Brazilian Association of Industrial Design], of which he was a founding member. As a writer and illustrator, he was on the editorial staff of the newspaper Portugal Democrático, the organ of Portuguese political exiles in Brazil, between 1955 and 1975. In 2003, the publisher Rosari released his book Na Casca do Ovo, o Princípio do Desenho Industrial [In the Eggshell, the Principle of Industrial Design], with his writings on design.
Critical Commentary
Fernando Lemos worked as a photographer in Portugal in the early 1950s and took part in an intellectual milieu of resistance to the Salazar dictatorship. His work is experimental in character, surrealist in inspiration, and close to that of Man Ray (1890 - 1976).
He came to Brazil and lived for some time at the Pensão Mauá, in Rio de Janeiro, where he photographed writers and artists. In 1953, part of his photographs was shown at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM/SP and at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro - MAM/RJ. His work is close to that of the modern Brazilian photographers active since the late 1940s and linked to the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante.
Fernando Lemos constantly uses processes of construction and ordering of space, as in Luz Teimosa [Stubborn Light], 1951/1952, in which light reveals itself in lines that subtly cut across an enclosed space. The short period in which he devoted himself more intensely to photography ended soon after his move to Brazil. He then began working with drawing and painting, producing non-figurative work, initially using in his compositions shapes cut out from the background, which often resemble graphic signs, in compositions structured mainly by line, as in Símbolos [Symbols], 1967. In other works, he uses geometry expressively and later begins to create organic forms that also evoke symbols. He also explores the luminosity of watercolor.
Lemos also works in the fields of visual communication and graphic planning, and as an illustrator for several publications. Together with Décio Pignatari (1927 - 2012), he ran the creative studio Maitiry in São Paulo. His work as a designer remains little known.
Collections
Acervo Artístico-Cultural dos Palácios do Governo do Estado de São Paulo - São Paulo SP
Acervo da Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo/Brasil - São Paulo SP
Centro Cultural São Paulo - CCSP - São Paulo SP
Fundação Bienal de São Paulo - São Paulo SP
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian - Lisboa (Portugal)
Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo - MAC/USP - São Paulo SP
Museu do Chiado - Lisboa (Portugal)
Critiques
"The first trait of the painter Fernando Lemos is that he presents himself as an intellectual amid the mass of artists who are not (and he really is one in practice, as a poet and writer) (...) The passage from proposition to rhythm is made through line, which is not, however, driven by an inner force capable of renewing itself along the way, in an undetermined direction, or even in a curve with a destination. (...) Basically, in Lemos's painting, it is above all form before being line. (...) The pictorial weave is characterized by a scheme of colors that draw close to one another and that, through the superimposition of shapes and marks, become toned areas, often in a cool range, or areas defined by the contrast of warm tones; between the crossings of shapes, intervals of canvas untouched by the brush open up, to which the painter turns his attention, either leaving them blank or reinforcing them as points of light, as signs".
Mário Pedrosa
CAVALCANTI, Carlos; AYALA, Walmir, org. Dicionário brasileiro de artistas plásticos. Apresentação de Maria Alice Barroso. Brasília: MEC/INL, 1973-1980. (Dicionários especializados, 5).
"Exactly fifty years ago, Fernando Lemos took part in his first exhibition in Lisbon, where he was born; shortly afterwards, he emigrated to Brazil because of his firm opposition to the Salazar dictatorship. (...) With so much time at work, it is inevitable that there are several different Fernandos within his output, both in the varied techniques he masters and uses - he is a draftsman, painter, photographer, visual designer and occasionally a poet - and in his stylistic changes. Older viewers will certainly remember his language of the 1950s, when he took part in the São Paulo Biennials from the second edition onward, receiving at the fourth the prize for Best National Draftsman (...). For my generation, however - the one that frequents galleries most today - it has nothing (or almost nothing) to do with the artist we knew in the 1970s, an unorthodox geometric abstractionist, neither heir nor epigone of concretism, but highly organized and precise; Aracy Amaral even spoke of his 'rigor'. It is therefore almost disconcerting to come across a painting that cannot even be considered abstract - since it visibly flirts with the figure here and there and makes it explicit - and that sinks its roots into fantasy and lyricism. But disconcerting only means disconcerting; it is not a qualitative value judgment. On the contrary, the surprise turns out to be positive, since it reveals from the outset the breadth of interests and expressive possibilities of a mature artist who is always willing to take risks. On closer observation, it also reveals his coherence, perhaps a circular trajectory, a point of arrival that connects to the point of departure. In the paintings and watercolors of the last five years, organic forms reappear that seem to have developed with the freedom and strength of natural things, as well as a kind of construction, of composition in space, that has much to do with the work of the 1950s (...) Lyricism itself, in turn, is another unifying element. Even the organized geometry of the 1970s never ceased to be, in Fernando Lemos, intuitive and affective in nature and expressive in purpose, not merely formalist".
Olívio Tavares de Araújo
LEMOS, Fernando. Telas e aquarelas. Apresentação Olívio Tavares de Araújo. São Paulo : Múltipla de Arte, 2000. [p. 3].
"Of Fernando Lemos's photographs, one might say, at first analysis, that they are close to a certain surrealist aesthetic. But is that enough to enlighten us? In fact, when Fernando Lemos took his photographs, between 1949 and 1951, the great creative period of surrealism had long passed. Lemos is not among its late epigones. More than a formal affiliation, it is undoubtedly a conjunction of deep intentions or, if one prefers, of fragments of common territories. One of these territories might perhaps be found in what Brassai beautifully called 'the perpetual incognito of photography', which allows it to 'penetrate phenomena, reveal their forms'. Around 1950, the history of photography was being written above all in Germany (with 'subjective photography') or in the USA (with Minor White or Harry Callahan, for example), with a concern to break away from pictorialism through the very modernist assertion of the autonomy of photographic form. Clearly, Fernando Lemos did not start from this concern. He does not seek to assert a medium in his language, but above all to enter an uncertain zone of phenomena and sensations, whose forms he tries to reveal rather than imposing on them a rule whose logic depends only on the medium itself. It is to this end that he resorts to procedures identified as 'surrealist' (solarization, superimpositions, negative and positive prints), whose function is not to build a language but rather to open the way to apparitions and unexpected encounters. It is undoubtedly also for this reason that his work contains elements that serve to divide, to blur the image - fragmentation, grids, framings, everything that distances and fragments the image, as is frequent, for example, in Man Ray".
Regis Durand
DURAND, Regis. Fernando Lemos ou a leveza do signo. In AVILA, María Jesús. Surrealismo em Portugal 1934-1952. Prefácio de E. Cuadrado. Lisboa: Museu do Chiado; Badajoz: Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo, 2001. p. 143.
Testimonials
"Why did you become interested in photography?
There are several reasons. One is that I didn't have much information about foreign photographers - the photography being made in Portugal at the time was the sunset, the little boat of Nazaré, the Lisbon landscape. I felt, not only in photography but in the visual arts, that we had no image. Portugal was a country without an image. The painters were good, but we didn't have a painting. We don't have a face! Spain does! There was that dryness. With the inspiration of the surrealist thing, the imagination let loose, we began to discuss a lot what the image was.
At the time, how did you see yourself? A surrealist photographer? Or just a surrealist?
A surrealist, painting, drawing, writing poetry. I began to adopt the attitude of the unconscious, of freedom of expression, which was a European wave. In fact, in Portugal - with the exception of the neorealists - there was no movement that had been formed in the name of freedom. And surrealism filled a lot of holes. So I went on taking photograph after photograph.
(...)
So why, during those four years, did you do nothing but photography? Were they four magical years?
Absolutely! What I wanted was to capture images of all those people, of our circle, which belonged to the opposition, who were my friends, older people who were shaping my mind. Mind you: Portugal was divided, we belonged to the Portugal that did not exist. My stance on photography was also to bear witness to that and to make photographs as if I were painting. Many people mistakenly imagined that I took negatives and laid one on top of the other. I never did that. There is no superimposition of images. My camera was not automatic, it was a Reflex, you had to wind it. I worked an image as if I were drawing or painting it - with some automatism, there is the surrealist side - and then I concealed a certain reality and then added another that merged with it. Without any darkroom tricks but with a lot of rigor - as I do in my drawing: things were born without being corrected. With the precision of an electrocardiogram, with no retouching at all, you can't cheat. Automatism has no retouching either - that is, you have to respect the images that appear and not fabricate them. I was a primitive when it came to photography. I didn't go after great techniques. There's more: the great influences I had were not photographers but painters - Max Ernst, the cubist painters, German expressionism. . .
When did you come into contact with the surrealist photographers?
In the 1970s or so, with the book published by Flammarion, A Câmara Escura [The Darkroom] - which is a collection of all the surrealist photography in the world. It was a revelation for me to find things similar to the ones I had made before..."
Fernando Lemos (2 jan 2002)
Entrevista com Fernando Lemos em: http://www.instituto-camoes.pt/noticiario/artes/flemos.htm. Acesso em 24.05.2002.
Solo Exhibitions
1952 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Fotografias de Várias Coisas [Photographs of Various Things], at Galeria de Março
1953 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Photographs, at MAM/RJ
1953 - São Paulo SP - Photographs, at MAM/SP
1954 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Solo, at Galeria de Março
1954 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at MAM/SP
1956 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at MAM/SP
1958 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at MAM/SP
1960 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria de Arte São Luís
1960 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Galerie 1900-2000
1962 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria de Arte São Luís
1962 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Galerie 1900-2000
1965 - São Paulo SP - Retrospective 1953/1965, at FAU/USP
1967 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Cosme Velho
1969 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Paintings, at Galeria Bonino
1973 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Painting, at Galeria Dinastial
1973 - Porto (Portugal) - Painting, at Galeria Dinastial
1973 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Múltipla de Arte
1975 - Porto (Portugal) - Solo, at Galeria Dinastial
1975 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Solo, at Galeria Dinastial
1975 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Galeria Dinastial
1975 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Arte Global
1984 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Paulo Figueiredo Galeria
1985 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Solo, at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
1987 - Paris (France) - L'Artiste du Monde: dessins, at Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian
1992 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Le Mois de la Photo
1994 - São Paulo SP - Desenho 3 Momentos [Drawing: 3 Moments], at Masp
1994 - Lisbon (Portugal) - À Sombra da Luz [In the Shadow of Light], at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
1995 - Salamanca (Spain) - À Sombra da Luz [In the Shadow of Light], at Universidade de Salamanca
1996 - Aix-en-Provence (France) - À Sombra da Luz [In the Shadow of Light], at Fête du Livre
1997 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Painting, at Galeria 111
1997 - Porto (Portugal) - Painting, at Galeria 111
1998 - Hamburg (Germany) - Fernando Lemos: Fotografien, at Handelskammer
1998 - Toulouse (France) - Solo, at Galerie Municipale du Château d'Eau
1999 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Os Signos Orgânicos [The Organic Signs], at Casa Fernando Pessoa
2000 - São Paulo SP - Telas e Aquarelas [Canvases and Watercolors], at Galeria Múltipla
2004 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Pinacoteca do Estado
Group Exhibitions
1946 - Lisbon (Portugal) - 1st General Exhibition of Visual Arts, at Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes
1952 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Painting, Drawing and Photography, at Casa Jalco
1953 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Contemporary Portuguese Painters, at Galeria de Março
1953 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Young Painting Prize, at Galeria de Março
1953 - São Paulo SP - 2nd São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão dos Estados - acquisition prize
1954 - Salvador BA - 4th Bahia Fine Arts Salon, at Hotel Bahia
1954 - São Paulo SP - Salon of the 4th Centenary of São Paulo, at Galeria Prestes Maia - executed a mural (destroyed in 1960)
1955 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Cargaleiro, Lemos and Vespeira, at Galeria Pórtico
1955 - São Paulo SP - 3rd São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão das Nações - foreign travel prize
1956 - São Paulo SP - Leirner Contemporary Art Prize, at Galeria de Arte das Folhas
1957 - São Paulo SP - 4th São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho - best national draftsman prize
1957 - Tokyo (Japan) - 4th Tokyo Biennial
1958 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - 9 Artistas de San Pablo [9 Artists from São Paulo], at Galeria Antígona
1958 - São Paulo SP - 7th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia - acquisition prize
1959 - Asunción (Paraguay) - Artists from the MAM/SP Collection
1959 - Lisbon (Portugal) - 50 Independent Artists, at Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes
1959 - Paris (France) - 1st Paris Biennale
1959 - São Paulo SP - 5th São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho - acquisition prize
1959 - Washington (United States) - Contemporary Draftsmen of Latin America, at Pan-American Union
1960 - Jerusalem (Israel) - 12 Artistas Brasileros [12 Brazilian Artists], at Bezalel Museum Jerusalen
1960 - São Paulo SP - 9th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1961 - Curitiba PR - 2nd Paraná Modern Art Salon - gold medal and acquisition prize
1961 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 15 Draftsmen, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1961 - São Paulo SP - 6th São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho
1962 - Belo Horizonte MG - Brazilian Modern Draftsmen, at MAP
1962 - Lisbon (Portugal) - 2nd Visual Arts Exhibition of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
1962 - São Paulo SP - Selection of Brazilian Artworks from the Ernesto Wolf Collection, at MAM/SP
1963 - São Paulo SP - 2nd International Biennial of Graphic Art - best book cover and best graphic presentation prizes for the children's book Televisão da Bicharada
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 2nd The Face and the Work, at Galeria Ibeu Copacabana
1965 - London (England) - Brazilian Art Today, at Royal Academy of Arts
1965 - São Paulo SP - 8th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1965 - Vienna (Austria) - Brazilian Art Today
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Artist and the Machine, at MAM/RJ
1966 - São Paulo SP - The Artist and the Machine, at Masp
1967 - São Paulo SP - 9th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal - Itamaraty Prize
1968 - São Paulo SP - Photographic Exhibition: Fernando Lemos, George Torok and Jorge Bodansky, at Galeria Astréia
1968 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st International Biennial of Industrial Design, at MAM/RJ
1970 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 2nd International Biennial of Industrial Design, at MAM/RJ
1970 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1970 - Warsaw (Poland) - 3rd Poster Biennial
1972 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Multiplied Art, at Múltipla de Arte
1972 - São Paulo SP - Múltiplos Brasileiros [Brazilian Multiples], at Galeria Múltipla de Arte
1973 - Paris (France) - 5 Peintres Portugais, at Galeria Mony Galatchi
1973 - São Paulo SP - 5th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1975 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Communication According to Visual Artists
1976 - Paris (France) - Artistes Portugais Contemporains, at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
1976 - Rome (Italy) - Arte Portoghese Contemporanea, at Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
1976 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art in the 20th Century: Paths and Trends, at Galeria Arte Global
1977 - Brasília DF - Contemporary Portuguese Art, at Ministério das Relações Exteriores
1977 - Porto (Portugal) - Photography in Portuguese Modern Art, at Centro de Arte Contemporânea
1977 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Contemporary Portuguese Art, at MAM/RJ
1977 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary Portuguese Art, at Masp
1977 - São Paulo SP - Collage, at Eucat Expo
1978 - São Paulo SP - The Biennials and Abstraction: The 1950s, at Museu Lasar Segall
1979 - São Paulo SP - 11th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1979 - São Paulo SP - 15th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1982 - São Paulo SP - Design in Brazil: History and Reality, at Sesc Pompeia
1982 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Refotos dos Anos 40 [Re-photos of the 1940s], at Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes
1983 - Montreal (Canada) - Le Surrealisme Portugais, at Galerie de l'UQAM
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1987 - Lisbon (Portugal) - 80 Years of Portuguese Modern Art, at Galeria de São Bento
1987 - São Paulo SP - The Biennials in the MAC Collection: 1951 to 1985, at MAC/USP
1987 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art Project - The 1950s, at MAB/Faap
1989 - Paris (France) - Peinture Portugaise Contemporaine dans une Collection Privée, at Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian
1989 - São Paulo SP - Viagem ao Papel nas Bienais Brasileiras [Journey to Paper in the Brazilian Biennials], at MAM/SP
1991 - São Paulo SP - Citizenship: 200 Years of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, at Sesc Pompeia
1992 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Portuguese Art in the 1950s, at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
1992 - Paris (France) - Aspects de la Photographie Portugaise, at Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian
1993 - São Paulo SP - Eram Brasileiros os que Ficaram [Those Who Stayed Were Brazilians], at Pinacoteca do Estado
1993 - São Paulo SP - Luso-Japanese-Brazilian Exhibition, at MAB/Faap
1993 - São Paulo SP - Works for Illustration of the Suplemento Literário: 1956 - 1967, at MAM/SP
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século XX, at Fundação Bienal
1994 - Lisbon (Portugal) - O Rosto da Máscara [The Face of the Mask], at Centro Cultural de Belém
1995 - Curitiba PR - Greenpeace: 50 Years of the Atomic Bomb
1995 - Kobe (Japan) - Greenpeace: 50 Years of the Atomic Bomb, at Museu de Kobe
1995 - Rio Grande do Sul - Greenpeace: 50 Years of the Atomic Bomb
1995 - São Paulo SP - 1st United Artists, at Casa das Rosas
1995 - São Paulo SP - Greenpeace: 50 Years of the Atomic Bomb
1995 - São Paulo SP - Contact Project, at Galeria Sesc Paulista
1995 - São Paulo SP - Ópera Prima, at Galeria Mário Schenberg
1995 - Tokyo (Japan) - Greenpeace: 50 Years of the Atomic Bomb, at Museu Nacional de Tóquio
1997 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Livro de Viagens: a Fotografia Portuguesa de 1854 a 1997 [Travel Book: Portuguese Photography from 1854 to 1997], at Centro Cultural de Belém
1998 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 50 Years, at Assembleia da República
1998 - Lisbon (Portugal) - O Que Há de Português na Arte Moderna Portuguesa [What Is Portuguese in Portuguese Modern Art], at Palácio Foz
1998 - São Paulo SP - Impressions: The Art of Brazilian Printmaking, at Espaço Cultural Banespa
1999 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Self-Portraits in the CAM Collection, at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
1999 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Linhas de Sombras [Lines of Shadows], at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
1999 - São Paulo SP - Cotidiano/Arte: O Consumo [Everyday Life/Art: Consumption], at Itaú Cultural
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brasil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition. Letter of Pero Vaz de Caminha, at Museu Histórico Nacional
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brasil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition, at Fundação Bienal
2001 - Badajoz (Spain) - Surrealismo em Portugal: 1934/1952 [Surrealism in Portugal: 1934/1952], at Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo
2001 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Surrealismo em Portugal: 1934/1952 [Surrealism in Portugal: 1934/1952], at Museu do Chiado
2002 - Madrid (Spain) - Surrealismo em Portugal: 1934/1952 [Surrealism in Portugal: 1934/1952], at Círculo de Bellas Artes
2002 - São Paulo SP - Imaginary Mexico: The Gaze of the Brazilian Artist, at Casa das Rosas
2002 - São Paulo SP - Who Makes the Biennials, at Galeria Múltipla de Arte
2003 - São Paulo SP - Israel and Palestine: Two States for Two Peoples, at Sesc Pompeia
2004 - São Paulo SP - Paper Cabinet, at CCSP
2005 - São Paulo SP - Small Great Works, at Cultural Blue Life
Source: Itaú Cultural
