Excursus : Study trips and artistic immigration : Portuguese artists in Paris, 1929-1976 — Joana Baiao (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

ARTL@S Seminar, May 26, 2016 – 13:30-15:30. Institut d’histoire moderne et contemporaine (45 rue d’Ulm, Paris).

Although Portuguese Art History recognizes France as one of the most influential cultural milieus for the development of Portuguese artistic production in the twentieth century, Portuguese artistic brief visits and immigration to Paris have never been systematically studied.

This Post-Doctoral project aims at analysing the Portuguese artists’ training and activities in Paris, from 1929 to 1976, focusing on cultural, social, political and institutional contexts. The research will thus integrate and reinforce the international debates about the centre/periphery dichotomies, contributing to rethink Franco-Portuguese artistic relationships throughout the 20th century.

The research sets out to achieve two main goals :
– 1) the construction of an online database with information regarding the Portuguese artists’ activities in Paris during the above mentioned period, which will allow an important statistical analysis of the subject, and shall be reusable for further research and uses ;
– 2) a comprehensive study of the collected data, considering the cultural, socio-political and institutional contexts in which Portuguese artistic activity abroad developed. Furthermore, it will provide some insight into Portuguese cultural politics and institutional programmes for artistic development.
These objectives will be accomplished by approaching the following topics :
-the art grants funded by the Portuguese State (Junta Nacional de Educação ; Instituto de Alta Cultura ; Instituto para a Alta Cultura) and by the most important Portuguese private cultural institution, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation ;
-the activity of Portuguese institutions in Paris in supporting and disseminating the Portuguese artists’ works (Casa de Portugal, Centre Culturel Portugais Calouste Gulbenkian) ;
-the French artistic scene – art schools, events, artists, art market ;
-the importance of Paris as distribution platform to other cultural milieus and its consequences for Portuguese artists’ careers ;
-the critical reception of Portuguese artists’ works in Portugal and France : exhibitions, publications.

This study will link two academic institutions, the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and the École Normale Supérieure, Paris and will be connected to two ongoing research projects : the Online Catalogue Raisonné of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Art Exhibitions and the Artl@s project and its online Global Database of Exhibition Catalogues.

Joana Baião is researcher at the Institute of Art History (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Museum Studies research group.

She is graduated in Fine Arts – Sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon (2005) and holds a Master degree in Museology from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (2009). She has completed her PhD studies in Art History, specialization Artistic Heritage and Museology at this same Faculty, supported by a doctoral grant by the Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/BD/63045/2009).
Joana has cooperated as a fellow researcher (SRFH/BI/33589/2009) with the National Commission for the Commemoration of the Republic Centenary (2009-2010) and has participated in the research project « Sources for the History of Art Museums in Portugal » funded by the FCT from 2010 to 2013 (PTDC / EAT-MUS / 101463/2008).
She has been cooperating with various institutions in projects related to the Portuguese history of art and culture, namely with the National Museum of Contemporary Art – Museu do Chiado and the Arpad Szenes – Vieira da Silva Foundation. Currently (until June 2016) she is assisting the coordination in the research project « RaisExpo – Online Catalogue Raisonné of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Art Exhibitions », funded by this institution.
She is author of the books Vieira da Silva (2010) and Museus, arte e património em Portugal. José de Figueiredo (1871-1937) (2015). She is also author of several articles published in Portugal, Spain and Brazil.