Projects

Barristas e Imaginários: Quatro Artistas Populares do Norte

Livraria Divulgação, Lisboa, 1964.
Livraria Divulgação, Lisbon, 1964.
Vista da exposição. Na parede ao fundo, estudo comparativo entre arte erudita e arte popular por Ernesto de Sousa.
Exhibition view. On the back wall, a comparative study between erudite and popular art by Ernesto de Sousa.
Vista da exposição.
Exhibition view.
Vista da exposição.
Exhibition view.
Vista da exposição.
Exhibition view.
Vista da exposição.
Exhibition view.
Cabeçudo de Rosa Ramalho (1964).
Cabeçudo by Rosa Ramalho (1964).
Cabeça de Cristo vidrada de Rosa Ramalho (1964).
Glazed ceramic Christ head by Rosa Ramalho (1964).
Ernesto de Sousa e Rosa Ramalho na sua oficina, Barcelos, c. 1964.
Ernesto de Sousa and Rosa Ramalho at her workshop, Barcelos, c. 1964.
Ernesto de Sousa na oficina de Mistério, Barcelos, c. 1964.
Ernesto de Sousa at Mistério's workshop, Barcelos, c. 1964.
Quintino Vilas Boas Neto na sua oficina, Esposende, c. 1964.
Quintino Vilas Boas Neto in his workshop, Esposende, c. 1964.
Estudo ''Franklin e etc. I'' de Ernesto de Sousa, c. 1964 (não concluído).
Study ''Franklin e etc. I'' by Ernesto de Sousa, c. 1964 (unfinished).
Estudo ''Franklin e etc. I'' de Ernesto de Sousa, c. 1964 (não concluído).
Study ''Franklin e etc. I'' by Ernesto de Sousa, c. 1964 (unfinished).
Estudo ''Franklin e etc. I'' de Ernesto de Sousa, c. 1964 (não concluído).
Study ''Franklin e etc. I'' by Ernesto de Sousa, c. 1964 (unfinished).

Livraria Divulgação, Lisbon, May–June 1964.
Popular art exhibition curated by Ernesto de Sousa and included at the Ethnology and Popular Culture program organized by the Cultural Sections of the Students' Associations.

With pieces by Mistério, Rosa Ramalho, Quintino Vilas Boas Neto and Franklin Vilas Boas.
For this program Ernesto de Sousa presented the text Barristas e Imaginários.


In general, one of the main features of each and every folk artist is this sense of an absolute beginning, of an immediate and total production of the him or herself in external things. The folk artist (...), even if closely conformed to tradition, as usually happens, acts with the spontaneity of the demiurge: a creator of objects with an activity of their own and an immediate power to transform the world. His or her spirit lacks allegorical abstraction or any other consideration of formal canon. The abstract notion of harmony seems foreign to them because they don't produce anything that isn't immediately in harmony with themselves, with their habits and understandings of their daily lives and with their desires and aspirations for the future. (...) It's never about imitating, as someone said of the folk art exhibition "Barristas e Imaginários" we recently organized. (...) Folk art does not have to remain in fixed templates, as it would be unfair wanting to keep the social condition of the farmer.

Ernesto de Sousa, "Conhecimento da Arte Moderna e Popular", Arquitectura, nr. 83, September 1964.