Nadir Afonso
Encyclopedia
Nadir Afonso, GOSE is a geometric abstractionist
painter. Formally trained in architect
ure, which he practiced early in his career with Le Corbusier
and Oscar Niemeyer
, Nadir Afonso later studied painting in Paris and became one of the pioneers in Kinetic art
, working alongside Victor Vasarely
, Fernand Léger
, Auguste Herbin
, and André Bloc
.
As a theorist of his own geometry
-based aesthetics
, published in several books, Nadir Afonso defends that art is purely objective and ruled by laws that treat art not as an act of imagination but of observation, perception, and form manipulation.
Nadir Afonso achieved international recognition early on in his career and currently holds many of his works in museums. His most famous works are the Cities series, which depict places all around the world. and at 90 years of age, he is still actively painting.
, Portugal
, on December 4, 1920. His parents were Palmira Rodrigues Afonso and poet Artur Maria Afonso. His very unusual first name was suggested by a gypsy to his father on his way to the Civil Registry, where he was due to be registered as Orlando.
By the age of four, he made his first "painting" on a wall at home: a perfect red circle, which anticipated his life as under the signs of rhythm
and geometric
precision. His teen years were dedicated to painting, earning him his first national prize at age 17. It was only natural that he was sent to the bigger city of Porto
to enroll in the School of Fine Arts for the art (painting) degree. However, at the registration desk, he took the advice of the clerk, who told him that his high school diploma allowed him to enroll in Architecture
, which was then a more promising career. As he later admitted, he made a mistake by listening to that man.
Still, Nadir Afonso took on the challenge and completed the graduation in Architecture, but he had to flunk the third year because some of his professors could not accept Nadir Afonso's artistic style. Settled in Porto, he started to design houses and industrial buildings, while at the same time painting the city around him under his other surname, Rodrigues. As a member of the artist collective Independents
, he took part in all their art exhibitions until 1946 and became a favorite with the national critics. His oil A Ribeira was purchased by the Contemporary Art Museum of Lisbon
(the country capital) in 1944, when he was only 24 years old.
with a number of unfinished works from his iris period, and changed his signature with the surname Afonso. There, a Brazilian painter Candido Portinari
helped him secure a scholarship from the French Government to study art and painting at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
. He resided at the Hôtel des Mines in the Latin Quarter
and spent his time regularly at students hangouts. Nadir Afonso recalls this period of his life as the first time that he was in contact with the great world of Art. Because his scholarship lasted only one year, Nadir Afonso worked until 1948 (and again in 1951) with the architect Le Corbusier
who, knowing his passion for painting, gave him the mornings off without cutting his salary. He also worked for a while, with the artist Fernand Léger
.
While working under Le Corbusier in Paris, Nadir Afonso gradually developed his own style of geometric abstractionism
. His new fundamentals of aesthetics
reoriented his concepts of the origin and essence of art that resulted in his 1948 research thesis
controversial to his architectural work, Architecture Is Not an Art. "Architecture
is a science
, a team elaboration", and therefore a means of expression that cannot satisfy a solitary soul like him. In 1949, Nadir Afonso leaves Paris and for a while immerses himself fully in his paintings. He goes through a period of inspiration in the Portuguese Baroque
, followed by an Egyptian
period.
From December 1951 to 1954, Nadir Afonso crosses the Atlantic to answer an invitation to work with the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer
; it was three years of "necessary architecture and obsessive painting." That obsession forces him to return to Paris, looking for artists researching Kinetic art
. He joins the group of the Denise René Gallery, connecting with French-Hungarian painter Victor Vasarely
(father of the Op-art), Danish painter Richard Mortensen, French painter Auguste Herbin
, and French architect André Bloc
, culminating in 1958 in the public showing, at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, of his animated painting Espacillimité (now on display at the Chiado Museum
in Lisbon). His first book, La Sensibilité Plastique, is published the same year with the support of art critic Michel Gaüzes, patron Madame Vaugel and Victor Vasarely. In 1959, his first anthology exhibition takes place at the Maison des Beaux-Arts in Paris, while initial exhibitions of his new style in his native country fail initially to raise as much interest as in the early expressionist years.
and little by little takes refuge in isolation and accentuates the orientation of his life towards the creation of his art. He terminates the architecture practice and pursues his aesthetics
studies based on geometry
, which he considers the essence of art. Once in a while, he leaves his hideout to return to Paris and meet with friends author Roger Garaudy
, painter Victor Vasarely
, and critic Michel Gaüzes. By indication of Garaudy, he travels to Toulouse to meet aestheticist Pierre Bru, with whom he reviews the syntactic form of his studies, before publishing Les Mécanismes de la Création Artistique (The Mechanisms of Artistic Creation), the book where he introduces his original theory of art as an exact science.
In 1974, he makes a solo exhibition
at the Selected Artists Galleries, in New York. U.S. critics acclaim him as "one of the first proponents of geometric abstraction in Portugal [and] one of the new generation European artists."
Living in reclusion, Nadir Afonso defined himself in 2006 as "Portuguese and a son of the inner country. I learned from tradition to be humble, to praise the masters, and to live these eighty-six years with the simplicity that my lowly status has always guaranteed me. To do a balance of my existence and of my work now is absurd." He has spent the last three decades painting, exhibiting, and writing with regular and growing comfort. He is twice married, with five children, born between 1948 and 1989.
Nadir Afonso exhibits regularly in Lisbon, Porto, Paris, New York, and all over the world, and is still active at work. He is represented in museums in Lisbon and Porto (Portugal), Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (Brazil), Budapest (Hungary), Paris (Pompidou Center
), Wurzburg and Berlim (Germany), among others. He has formed a foundation bearing his name, to which he donated his personal artwork collection, and has engaged Pritzker Prize
-winner architect Alvaro Siza
to design its headquarters in his hometown of Chaves.
. By the age of 50, he was well known and regularly exhibited in New York and Paris.
However, his reclusive personality and the memory of his first attempt in 1946 to show his paintings to an art gallery in Paris, which was snubbed and left him humiliated, have since meant that he shies from publicity and no exhibition has ever been promoted by himself. Victor Vasarely
, the father of op art
, had already noticed it in 1968:
is usually conceived as subjective
, but for Nadir Afonso it is purely objective
and ruled by law
s. "Art is a show of exactitude", "a game of laws in spaces but not of significations in objects". From these axioms, his own personal theory of geometry
-based "rational aesthetics within an intuitive art" evolved, which he published in book form, alongside his philosophical thoughts on the Universe and its laws. These works are the key to understand the artist and his art, and are summarized by himself in a few words:
Because of his rationalism
, Nadir Afonso confronted Kandinsky
, the father of abstract art, and criticized him for subduing geometry to the human spirit instead of making it the essence of art. This "geometry of art" is not however the "geometry of geometrists", as it is not about symbols nor anything in particular; rather, it is the spatial law itself, with the four qualities of perfection, harmony, evocation, and originality.
His work is methodical, because "an artwork is not an act of 'imagination' (...) but of observation, perception, form manipulation." "I start with shapes, still arbitrary. I put ten shapes on the frame; I look at it and suddenly a sort of spark ignites. Then the form appears. Color is secondary, used to accentuate the intensity of the form." Nadir Afonso does not renege on his early expressionist and surrealist works: "An individual initially does not see the true nature of things, he starts by representing the real, because he is convinced therein lies the essence of the artwork. I thought that too. But, as I kept working, the underlying laws of art, which are the laws of geometry, slowly revealed themselves in front of my eyes. There was no effort on my part, it was just the daily work what led me to that result, guided by intuition." The illustrations of this article are a chronological representation of the evolution of Nadir Afonso's style and thought towards the original geometric alphabet with which he creates his artworks, as explained in his books and seen most prominently in his Cities series.
. His current preferred materials are acrylic paint
on canvas
(bigger works), and gouache
on paper (smaller works, often studies for bigger works). His best-known and most distinctive work is the Cities series, each painting usually representing a city from anywhere in the world.
, approximate prices for his Cities works are €1,500 for a 35x50 cm serigraph (typical edition of 200), €18,000 for a 30x40 cm gouache on paper, and €55,000 for a 90x140 cm acrylic on canvas. In 2007, Nadir Afonso exhibited his first oversized (176x235 cm) canvases, Seville and Pouvoirs Surnaturels, at a price of €100,000 each. Other values are mentioned in the list of Nadir Afonso artworks
.
Only solo international and major exhibitions are shown.
An additional 54 solo exhibitions in Portugal were recorded between 1949 and 2007 (last one: Galeria Diário de Notícias, Porto). Additional international collective exhibitions include: 1967 Brussels, 1968 Paris, 1973 Barcelona, 1984 Dublin, 1986 Honolulu and Fall River, U.S.A.; 1993 Salamanca, Spain.
Theory and philosophy
Monographs
Geometric abstract art
Geometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective compositions...
painter. Formally trained in architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
ure, which he practiced early in his career with Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
and Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho is a Brazilian architect specializing in international modern architecture...
, Nadir Afonso later studied painting in Paris and became one of the pioneers in Kinetic art
Kinetic art
Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.-Kinetic sculpture:...
, working alongside Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art...
, Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
, Auguste Herbin
Auguste Herbin
Auguste Herbin was a French painter.-Biography:Born in Quiévy, Nord, he studied drawing at the École des Beaux-Arts de Lille, from 1898 to 1901, when he settled in Paris....
, and André Bloc
André Bloc
André Bloc was a French architect, sculptor, editor, and founder of several specialist journals. He founded the "Groupe Espace" in 1949....
.
As a theorist of his own geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
-based aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
, published in several books, Nadir Afonso defends that art is purely objective and ruled by laws that treat art not as an act of imagination but of observation, perception, and form manipulation.
Nadir Afonso achieved international recognition early on in his career and currently holds many of his works in museums. His most famous works are the Cities series, which depict places all around the world. and at 90 years of age, he is still actively painting.
Formative years
Nadir Afonso Rodrigues was born in the rural, remote town of ChavesChaves (Portugal)
Chaves is a municipality and municipal seat of an area 10 km south of the Spanish border and 22 km south of Verín in the north of Portugal. The municipality is the second most populous of the district of Vila Real...
, Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, on December 4, 1920. His parents were Palmira Rodrigues Afonso and poet Artur Maria Afonso. His very unusual first name was suggested by a gypsy to his father on his way to the Civil Registry, where he was due to be registered as Orlando.
By the age of four, he made his first "painting" on a wall at home: a perfect red circle, which anticipated his life as under the signs of rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
and geometric
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
precision. His teen years were dedicated to painting, earning him his first national prize at age 17. It was only natural that he was sent to the bigger city of Porto
Porto
Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
to enroll in the School of Fine Arts for the art (painting) degree. However, at the registration desk, he took the advice of the clerk, who told him that his high school diploma allowed him to enroll in Architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, which was then a more promising career. As he later admitted, he made a mistake by listening to that man.
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Still, Nadir Afonso took on the challenge and completed the graduation in Architecture, but he had to flunk the third year because some of his professors could not accept Nadir Afonso's artistic style. Settled in Porto, he started to design houses and industrial buildings, while at the same time painting the city around him under his other surname, Rodrigues. As a member of the artist collective Independents
Independents (Oporto artist group)
The abstract art is historically linked to the Portuguese Independents exhibitions, its main organizer and coordinator, Fernando Lanhas, coincidentally is the central figure of abstractionism....
, he took part in all their art exhibitions until 1946 and became a favorite with the national critics. His oil A Ribeira was purchased by the Contemporary Art Museum of Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
(the country capital) in 1944, when he was only 24 years old.
Art and architecture
In 1946, Nadir Afonso left Porto for ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
with a number of unfinished works from his iris period, and changed his signature with the surname Afonso. There, a Brazilian painter Candido Portinari
Cândido Portinari
Candido Portinari was one of the most important Brazilian painters and also a prominent and influential practitioner of the neo-realism style in painting....
helped him secure a scholarship from the French Government to study art and painting at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
The École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts is the distinguished National School of Fine Arts in Paris, France.The École des Beaux-arts is made up of a vast complex of buildings located at 14 rue Bonaparte, between the quai Malaquais and the rue Bonaparte, in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Près,...
. He resided at the Hôtel des Mines in the Latin Quarter
Latin Quarter
Latin Quarter is a part of the 5th arrondissement in Paris.Latin Quarter may also refer to:* Latin Quarter , a British pop/rock band* Latin Quarter , a 1945 British film*Latin Quarter, Aarhus, part of Midtbyen, Aarhus C, Denmark...
and spent his time regularly at students hangouts. Nadir Afonso recalls this period of his life as the first time that he was in contact with the great world of Art. Because his scholarship lasted only one year, Nadir Afonso worked until 1948 (and again in 1951) with the architect Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
who, knowing his passion for painting, gave him the mornings off without cutting his salary. He also worked for a while, with the artist Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
.
While working under Le Corbusier in Paris, Nadir Afonso gradually developed his own style of geometric abstractionism
Geometric abstract art
Geometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective compositions...
. His new fundamentals of aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
reoriented his concepts of the origin and essence of art that resulted in his 1948 research thesis
Thesis
A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...
controversial to his architectural work, Architecture Is Not an Art. "Architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
is a science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, a team elaboration", and therefore a means of expression that cannot satisfy a solitary soul like him. In 1949, Nadir Afonso leaves Paris and for a while immerses himself fully in his paintings. He goes through a period of inspiration in the Portuguese Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
, followed by an Egyptian
Art of Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptian art is the painting, sculpture, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization in the lower Nile Valley from 5000 BC to 300 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a high level in painting and sculpture, and was both highly stylized and symbolic...
period.
From December 1951 to 1954, Nadir Afonso crosses the Atlantic to answer an invitation to work with the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho is a Brazilian architect specializing in international modern architecture...
; it was three years of "necessary architecture and obsessive painting." That obsession forces him to return to Paris, looking for artists researching Kinetic art
Kinetic art
Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.-Kinetic sculpture:...
. He joins the group of the Denise René Gallery, connecting with French-Hungarian painter Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art...
(father of the Op-art), Danish painter Richard Mortensen, French painter Auguste Herbin
Auguste Herbin
Auguste Herbin was a French painter.-Biography:Born in Quiévy, Nord, he studied drawing at the École des Beaux-Arts de Lille, from 1898 to 1901, when he settled in Paris....
, and French architect André Bloc
André Bloc
André Bloc was a French architect, sculptor, editor, and founder of several specialist journals. He founded the "Groupe Espace" in 1949....
, culminating in 1958 in the public showing, at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, of his animated painting Espacillimité (now on display at the Chiado Museum
Chiado Museum
The Chiado Museum is an art museum located in Lisbon, in the Chiado neighbourhood. It was created in 1911 and re-inaugurated, in new installations, in 1994....
in Lisbon). His first book, La Sensibilité Plastique, is published the same year with the support of art critic Michel Gaüzes, patron Madame Vaugel and Victor Vasarely. In 1959, his first anthology exhibition takes place at the Maison des Beaux-Arts in Paris, while initial exhibitions of his new style in his native country fail initially to raise as much interest as in the early expressionist years.
Full-time painter
Paris is the world center of the arts but the fierce competition between artists proves too much for Nadir Afonso. In 1965, conscious of his social inadaptation, he moves back to his hometown of ChavesChaves (Portugal)
Chaves is a municipality and municipal seat of an area 10 km south of the Spanish border and 22 km south of Verín in the north of Portugal. The municipality is the second most populous of the district of Vila Real...
and little by little takes refuge in isolation and accentuates the orientation of his life towards the creation of his art. He terminates the architecture practice and pursues his aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
studies based on geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
, which he considers the essence of art. Once in a while, he leaves his hideout to return to Paris and meet with friends author Roger Garaudy
Roger Garaudy
Roger Garaudy or Ragaa Garaudy is a French philosopher. Formerly a prominent communist author, he has converted to Islam and written several books which have been controversial due to his anti-Zionist positions and denial of the Holocaust.-Early life, politics and religion:Born to Catholic and...
, painter Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art...
, and critic Michel Gaüzes. By indication of Garaudy, he travels to Toulouse to meet aestheticist Pierre Bru, with whom he reviews the syntactic form of his studies, before publishing Les Mécanismes de la Création Artistique (The Mechanisms of Artistic Creation), the book where he introduces his original theory of art as an exact science.
In 1974, he makes a solo exhibition
Solo show (art exhibition)
A solo show or solo exhibition is an exhibition of the work of only one artist. The artwork may be paintings, drawings, etchings, collage, sculpture, or photography. The creator of any artistic technique may be the subject of a solo show. Other skills and crafts have similar types of shows for the...
at the Selected Artists Galleries, in New York. U.S. critics acclaim him as "one of the first proponents of geometric abstraction in Portugal [and] one of the new generation European artists."
Living in reclusion, Nadir Afonso defined himself in 2006 as "Portuguese and a son of the inner country. I learned from tradition to be humble, to praise the masters, and to live these eighty-six years with the simplicity that my lowly status has always guaranteed me. To do a balance of my existence and of my work now is absurd." He has spent the last three decades painting, exhibiting, and writing with regular and growing comfort. He is twice married, with five children, born between 1948 and 1989.
Nadir Afonso exhibits regularly in Lisbon, Porto, Paris, New York, and all over the world, and is still active at work. He is represented in museums in Lisbon and Porto (Portugal), Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (Brazil), Budapest (Hungary), Paris (Pompidou Center
Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...
), Wurzburg and Berlim (Germany), among others. He has formed a foundation bearing his name, to which he donated his personal artwork collection, and has engaged Pritzker Prize
Pritzker Prize
The Pritzker Architecture Prize is awarded annually by the Hyatt Foundation to honour "a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built...
-winner architect Alvaro Siza
Álvaro Siza Vieira
Álvaro Joaquim de Melo Siza Vieira, GOSE, GCIH, is a Portuguese architect, born 25 June 1933 in Matosinhos a small coastal town by Porto. He is internationally known as Álvaro Siza .-Life and career:...
to design its headquarters in his hometown of Chaves.
International recognition
The recognition of Nadir Afonso's talent came early in his career, both in his home country and internationally. Aged 24, an oil of his, A Ribeira, had already been purchased by the Contemporary Art Museum of Lisbon and the Portuguese government invited him twice to represent Portugal at the São Paulo Art BiennialSão Paulo Art Biennial
The São Paulo Art Biennial was founded in 1951 and has been held every two years since. It is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennial , which serves as its role model....
. By the age of 50, he was well known and regularly exhibited in New York and Paris.
However, his reclusive personality and the memory of his first attempt in 1946 to show his paintings to an art gallery in Paris, which was snubbed and left him humiliated, have since meant that he shies from publicity and no exhibition has ever been promoted by himself. Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely
Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art...
, the father of op art
Op art
Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
, had already noticed it in 1968:
- "This artist I have known for over 20 years is undoubtedly the most important Portuguese contemporary painter and his work is unjustly little known across the world."
Personal aesthetics theory
ArtArt
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
is usually conceived as subjective
Subjectivity
Subjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...
, but for Nadir Afonso it is purely objective
Objectivity (science)
Objectivity in science is a value that informs how science is practiced and how scientific truths are created. It is the idea that scientists, in attempting to uncover truths about the natural world, must aspire to eliminate personal biases, a priori commitments, emotional involvement, etc...
and ruled by law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
s. "Art is a show of exactitude", "a game of laws in spaces but not of significations in objects". From these axioms, his own personal theory of geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
-based "rational aesthetics within an intuitive art" evolved, which he published in book form, alongside his philosophical thoughts on the Universe and its laws. These works are the key to understand the artist and his art, and are summarized by himself in a few words:
- "Searching for the absolute, for an art language in which shapes possess a mathematical rigorousness, where nothing needs to be added nor removed. The feeling of total exactitude."
Because of his rationalism
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
, Nadir Afonso confronted Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
, the father of abstract art, and criticized him for subduing geometry to the human spirit instead of making it the essence of art. This "geometry of art" is not however the "geometry of geometrists", as it is not about symbols nor anything in particular; rather, it is the spatial law itself, with the four qualities of perfection, harmony, evocation, and originality.
His work is methodical, because "an artwork is not an act of 'imagination' (...) but of observation, perception, form manipulation." "I start with shapes, still arbitrary. I put ten shapes on the frame; I look at it and suddenly a sort of spark ignites. Then the form appears. Color is secondary, used to accentuate the intensity of the form." Nadir Afonso does not renege on his early expressionist and surrealist works: "An individual initially does not see the true nature of things, he starts by representing the real, because he is convinced therein lies the essence of the artwork. I thought that too. But, as I kept working, the underlying laws of art, which are the laws of geometry, slowly revealed themselves in front of my eyes. There was no effort on my part, it was just the daily work what led me to that result, guided by intuition." The illustrations of this article are a chronological representation of the evolution of Nadir Afonso's style and thought towards the original geometric alphabet with which he creates his artworks, as explained in his books and seen most prominently in his Cities series.
Artworks
Nadir Afonso has produced mainly paintings and serigraphsScreen-printing
Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate...
. His current preferred materials are acrylic paint
Acrylic paint
Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry...
on canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
(bigger works), and gouache
Gouache
Gouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...
on paper (smaller works, often studies for bigger works). His best-known and most distinctive work is the Cities series, each painting usually representing a city from anywhere in the world.
, approximate prices for his Cities works are €1,500 for a 35x50 cm serigraph (typical edition of 200), €18,000 for a 30x40 cm gouache on paper, and €55,000 for a 90x140 cm acrylic on canvas. In 2007, Nadir Afonso exhibited his first oversized (176x235 cm) canvases, Seville and Pouvoirs Surnaturels, at a price of €100,000 each. Other values are mentioned in the list of Nadir Afonso artworks
Nadir Afonso artworks
This is a list of Nadir Afonso artworks: paintings, engravings, and architecture.All data was sourced from websites and from the books and catalogues listed in the main Nadir Afonso article.-Paintings:...
.
Exhibitions
- 1940 First exhibitions as a student and (until 1946) as a member of artist collective IndependentsIndependents (Oporto artist group)The abstract art is historically linked to the Portuguese Independents exhibitions, its main organizer and coordinator, Fernando Lanhas, coincidentally is the central figure of abstractionism....
- 1944 (collective) 9th Exhibition of Modern Art of the SNI-National Information Secretariat, Lisbon
- 1956, 1957 Gallerie Denise René, Paris
- 1958 (collective) Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Paris
- 1959 Maison des Beaux-Arts, Paris
- 1961, 1969 São Paulo Art BiennialSão Paulo Art BiennialThe São Paulo Art Biennial was founded in 1951 and has been held every two years since. It is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennial , which serves as its role model....
- 1970 (anthological) Centre Culturel Portugais, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris, then at the Foundation's premises in LisbonMuseu Calouste GulbenkianMuseu Calouste Gulbenkian is a museum in Lisbon, Portugal, containing a collection of ancient, and some modern art...
- 1970 Centre de Culture TPN, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
- 1974 Selected Artists Galleries, New York
- 1976, 1978, 1988, 1991, 1994, 1996 Art-Service Gallerie, Paris
- 1979 Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris
- 1985 La Madraza, Granada, Spain
- 1986 Embassy of Portugal, Brasilia
- 1995 Cooperativa Árvore, Porto. Catalog: Síntese Estética (Po/Fr) features two texts by Nadir Afonso and an interview; no ISBN; print run: 500
- 2001 Cultural Center of Cascais, Portugal. Catalog features an interview; no ISBN; print run: 300
- 2003 Cultural Center of Orense, Spain (catalog: ISBN 8496011437)
- 2003 (anthological) 25th International Biennial of Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal
An additional 54 solo exhibitions in Portugal were recorded between 1949 and 2007 (last one: Galeria Diário de Notícias, Porto). Additional international collective exhibitions include: 1967 Brussels, 1968 Paris, 1973 Barcelona, 1984 Dublin, 1986 Honolulu and Fall River, U.S.A.; 1993 Salamanca, Spain.
Written works
The following books were written by Nadir Afonso in Portuguese, unless otherwise stated. Additional written works appear in exhibition catalogs and are noted in the list of Nadir Afonso exhibitions.Theory and philosophy
- 1958 La Sensibilité Plastique (Fr), Presses du Temps Présent, Paris
- 1970 Les Mécanismes de la Création Artistique (Fr/En/Ge), Éditions du Griffon, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
- 1974 Aesthetic Synthesis (En), Ed. Galeria Alvarez, Porto, Collab. Selected Artists Galleries, New York. No ISBN
- 1983 Le Sens de l´Art (Fr), Imprensa Nacional, Lisbon. Print run: 2,750 + 250 with a numbered and signed serigraph. No ISBN. Translated in 1999 as O Sentido da Arte, Livros Horizonte, Lisbon. ISBN 9789722410547
- 2000 Universo e o Pensamento, Colecção Obras Clássicas da Literatura Portuguesa, Livros Horizonte, Lisbon. ISBN 9789722410946
- 2002 Sobre a Vida e Sobre a Obra de Van Gogh, Chaves Ferreira Publicações, Lisbon. Print run: 980, numbered and signed. Best art book of the 2003 Frankfurt Book Fair. ISBN 9789729402814
- 2003 O Fascínio das Cidades, Câmara Municipal de Cascais, Cascais. ISBN 9789729815356
- 2003 Da Intuição Artística ao Raciocínio Estético, Chaves Ferreira Publicações, Lisbon. Print run: 980, numbered and signed by the author. ISBN 9789729402920
- 2005 As Artes: Erradas Crenças e Falsas Críticas/The Arts: Erroneous Beliefs and False Criticisms (Po/En), Chaves Ferreira Publicações, Lisbon. Numbered and signed by the author. ISBN 9789729402999
- 2008 Nadir Face a Face com Einstein/ Nadir Face to Face with Einstein,Chaves Ferreira Publicações, Lisbon. ISBN 9789728987114
- 2010 Manifesto: O Tempo Não Existe (Po/En), Dinalivro, Lisbon. ISBN 9789725765678
- 2010 Universo e Pensamento, Edições Afrontamento, Lisbon. ISBN 9789723610857
Monographs
- 1968 Guedes, Fernando. Nadir Afonso, Editorial Verbo, Lisbon
- 1986 Nadir Afonso (Po/En/Fr), Colecção Arte Contemporânea, Livraria Bertrand, Lisbon. Print run included 200 numbered and signed copies, with a serigraph. ISBN 9789722500623
- 1990 Da Vida à Obra de Nadir Afonso, Livraria Bertrand, Lisbon. Print run included 250 numbered and signed copies, with a serigraph. ISBN 9789722505416
- 1994 Nadir Afonso, Bial, Porto. No ISBN
- 1998 Nadir Afonso, Livros Horizonte, Lisbon. ISBN 9789722410415
- 1999 Obra Gravada, Edições Coelho Dias. ISBN 9789729744416
- 2000 O Porto de Nadir, Edições Coelho Dias, Porto. ISBN 9789729744440
- 2008 Nadir Afonso: O Futuro Renascimento, Dinalivro, Lisbon. ISBN 9789725765012
- 2008 Nadir Afonso: Itinerário (Com)Sentido, Edições Afrontamento, Porto. ISBN 9789723610093