Maria Antónia Siza
Learn about the artist's universe through a text accompanied by a selection of works from the exhibition “All I want – Portuguese women artists from 1900 to 2020”
By Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Text by Lígia Afonso / Plano Nacional das Artes
While Maria Antónia Siza produced hundreds of works on paper, including drawings in Indian ink, watercolours, gouaches and prints, alongside embroidery and some paintings, her production remained unknown to the public until very recently, almost half a century after her tragic death at the age of 32.
Untitled, not dated
Embroidery124 x 40,5 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. 18TXP3
Untitled, not dated
Embroidery144 x 46,5 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. 18TXP9
Her drawings are mainly figurative, with linear expression and a calligraphic quality. She always began by drawing the feet of her subjects, which were then developed spontaneously on the paper in energetic, ascending and zigzagging lines. In this way, figures were revealed as surreal, grotesque, deformed and contorted beings, engaged in indiscernible but individualised actions and gestures, appearing variously standing, falling on the floor or lying in bed. These figures – aged, decrepit and agonising men and women – seem almost always to float.
Clustered in incorporeal constellations, they shift and find balance in dynamic melancholic choreographies of enormous complexity and compositional rigour, enacting shared and coordinated gestures. Others, in contrast, appear isolated, silent and enigmatic on the white and empty background of the page.
Untitled (1960s) by Maria Antónia Siza Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Untitled, 1960s
Indian ink and wash on paper27,7 x 21 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. 18DP4458
Untitled, 1960s
Indian ink and wash on paper27,7 x 21 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. 18DP4464
Disquieting and bizarre, delirious and fantastic, intimate and tragic: thus is Maria Antónia Siza's free and personal universe characterised, a violent and brutal manifesto on the frailty of the human condition.
Untitled, 1960s
Indian ink and wash on paper43 x 30,7 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. 18DP4467
Untitled (1960s) by Maria Antónia Siza Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Untitled, 1960s
Indian ink and wash on paper43 x 30,8 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. 18DP4466
Untitled (1960s) by Maria Antónia Siza Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Untitled, 1960s
Indian ink and wash on paper43 x 30,5 cm
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian – Centro de Arte Moderna, inv. 18DP4469
Learn more about the artist:
Maria Antónia Siza | Museu Calouste Gulbenkian
Selection of works presented at the exhibition All I want: Portuguese women artists from 1900 to 2020
, in its first moment at Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, within the scope of the cultural program that takes place in parallel to the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2021
.
Exhibition organized by the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage (DGPC) and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in co-production with the Center of Contemporary Creation Olivier Debré, Tours, and with the collaboration of the Plano Nacional das Artes (Portugal).
Curators:
Helena de Freitas
and Bruno Marchand
Text by Lígia Afonso
/ Plano Nacional das Artes
Selection of online resources Maria de Brito Matias
Learn more about Maria Antónia Siza's works presented in the context of this exhibition:
All I want: Feminine Plural
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