René Bertholo

René Bertholo (Alhandra, 1935 – Vila Nova de Cacela, 2005) attended the School of Fine Arts of Lisbon (ESBAL) between 1951 and 1957. From an early age, still a student at ESBAL, he was an active critic of the Portuguese artistic education marked by conservatism and absence of freedom. In 1957, he left Portugal for Munich and a year later he went to Paris, where he started publishing the KWY magazine with Lourdes Castro, Costa Pinheiro and Gonçalo Duarte, who had followed the same path and were later joined by João Vieira, José Escada, Jan Voss and Christo. Bertholo began by painting canvases with a strong dreamlike bent and pop inspiration, followed by a series of motorized objects, of great formal simplicity, representing archetypes of landscapes alluding to the images typical of tourist advertising. In the mid-1970s he returned to painting.

René Bertholo was part of the Portuguese representation at the São Paulo (1959) and Paris (1962) Biennales. Until the end of the 1970s, when he returned to Portugal, he participated in several exhibitions in European countries. In 2000, the Serralves Museum presented an anthological exhibition of his work.