AXA Gallery-Press Release

Entrada (Entrance), ca. 1917
Oil on canvas with collage, 36 3/4 x 29 7/8 "
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão (CAMJAP).

From June 15 to September 16, 2000, the AXA Gallery (formerly the Equitable Gallery) will present the first exhibition ever mounted in the United States devoted exclusively to the work of Portuguese artist Amadeo de Souza Cardoso (1887-1918).

A pioneer of modernism and a national cultural hero in Portugal, Souza Cardoso experimented with major avant-garde innovations, developing a style that combined exuberant and fanciful color with the newly invented forms of futurism. This exhibition, which features 31 paintings, 19 works on paper, and archival materials, spans his entire, tragically brief career.

At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist – Amadeo de Souza Cardoso is presented by the Corcoran Gallery of Art with the Portuguese Ministry of Culture in Lisbon and the Embassy of Portugal in Washington. The exhibition was organized by the Office of International Relations, Ministry of Culture, Portugal, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The exhibition and catalogue were funded by a generous grant from the Gabinete das Relações Internacionais, Ministério da Cultura, Portugal, with additional support from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, the Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento, and the members of the Souza Cardoso Circle.

The AXA Gallery is sponsored by AXA Financial, Inc. and its subsidiary The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States.

Auto-Retrato (Self-Portrait), ca. 1913
Graphite on paper, 9 3/4 x 6 5/8 "
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão (CAMJAP). Donation of Mme. Lucia de Souza Cardoso.

Amadeo de Souza Cardoso immersed himself in the bohemian culture of Paris, where he settled as a student in 1906, befriending Amedeo Modigliani, Juan Gris, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Diego Rivera, and Constantin Brancusi. In the company of these artists, Souza Cardoso experimented with the dynamism of futurism as well as cubism, often using more than one point of view in a single painting. He originated a style characterized by elements of impressionism, cubism, futurism, and abstraction – or, in the artist’s words, “A little bit of everything.”

Using rhythmic, circular forms of floating color, Souza Cardoso also painted some of the earliest completely nonrepresentational pictures ever created. “With breathtaking facility, Souza Cardoso worked through the major avant-garde trends of his day and came up with an original modernist style characterized by wonderful color, inventive subject matter and innovative form,” says Dr. Jack Cowart, one of the curators of the exhibition.

Throughout his career, Souza Cardoso maintained a strong connection to his native Portugal while incorporating into his art modernist approaches developing in Europe, especially Paris. The exhibition includes paintings such as Montanhas, in which he painted the dramatic mountainous landscapes of Marão, his native region, as well as Galgos, which features greyhounds, the sleek dogs that are used for hunting throughout Portugal. Also included are extraordinary abstract portraits of his friends in Paris as well as complex, vibrant still lifes that combine elements of Portuguese folk art with symbols of the Paris metropolis.

Amadeo de Souza Cardoso was born on November 14, 1887 in Manhufe, a country village in northern Portugal. In 1905, he traveled to Lisbon to study architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts. On his 19^th birthday, Souza Cardoso left Lisbon for Paris, where he quickly abandoned his architectural studies to become a painter. While in Paris, Souza Cardoso participated in several important exhibitions, including the Salon des Indépendants of 1911 and 1912 and the Salon d’Automne of 1912. He also exhibited works at the Herbstsalon in Berlin and the Salon in London.

In 1913, American art impresario Walter Pach invited Souza Cardoso to present eight works at the most important exhibition of avant-garde art in America, the historic International Exhibition of Modern Art, better known as the Armory Show. The young Portuguese painter was one of the surprise hits of the show. Of the eight works he sent, seven sold, three of which are presented in this exhibition.

Souza Cardoso had left Paris to visit his family in Portugal —as he did every summer—when the First World War broke out. Stranded in Manhufe by the war, he made plans to exhibit again in the United States while he continued to paint, creating some of his most complex and original works. Two weeks before the armistice and shortly before his 31^st birthday, he died in the worldwide influenza epidemic. According to Dr. Cowart, “He was steadily gaining momentum with his adventurous work and had already made major contributions to modern art when he died. This exhibition not only showcases his life’s work, but provokes us to imagine what might have been.”

At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist – Amadeo de Souza Cardoso is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, the only monograph in English on the artist. It features essays by noted Portuguese experts, including Professor José-Augusto França of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, as well as American scholars Kenneth Silver of New York University, Rosemary O’Neill of the Parsons School of Design, and Laura Coyle, Assistant Curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Amadeo de Souza Cardoso in his rented studio at Cité Falguière, 14, in Paris, ca. 1908-09.
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão (CAMJAP).

The AXA Gallery presents works from all fields of the visual arts, including exhibitions originating outside of New York that would not otherwise have a presence in the city, as well as works from New York collections that would benefit from preservation and public presentation.

The AXA Gallery is located in the atrium lobby of Equitable Tower, 787 Seventh Avenue at 51^st Street in New York City. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free.