Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso

Born in Amarante, Amadeo attended the course of Architecture at the School of Fine Arts of Lisbon, but did not finish it. He left for Paris in 1906 and returned to Portugal in 1914 due to the war. A refugee in Amarante, he kept company with artists Sonia and Robert Delaunay, who had since settled in Portugal. He died prematurely of pneumonia in Espinho. Amadeo is the great artist of Portuguese modernism and probably the greatest Portuguese artist of the 20th century. His body of work is extent, reflects the main currents of painting of his time, and stands out in relation to the work produced by painters of his generation. He was a pioneer in the national panorama and belatedly discovered by Portuguese artists. Contemporary praise came from Almada Negreiros. With the aim of consecrating Amadeo’s creative genius, the Municipality of Amarante reinstated the Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Prize in 1997. The winners have been: Fernando Lanhas (1997); Fernando de Azevedo (1999); Costa Pinheiro (2001); Júlio Pomar (2003), Nikias Skapinakis (2005); Angelo de Sousa (2007); João Vieira (2009); António Sena (2011); Paula Rego (2013); Alberto Carneiro (2015); Jorge Pinheiro (2017); Eduardo Batarda (2019).