This booklet was published to accompany the exhibition What is the power of art? May’ 68 – 50 Years On (15/05–29/09/2018), curated by Nuno Crespo and Hugo Dinis, which featured paintings from Júlio Pomar’s series The Beatles (1965), Futebol / Rugby (Football / Rugby) (1967) and Mai 68 (CRS-SS) (1968).

In the course of the research and study carried out by staff at the Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar into the artist’s work, it proved pertinent to map a genealogy for the paintings that Pomar created from the early part of his sojourn in Paris to the demonstrations of May 1968. In this vein, it traces the meandering, intermittent progress of a period of the artist’s work that reveals several possible directions, advancing towards a profound and marked change in the paintings of the Banhos Turcos (Turkish Baths) series, comprising erotic collages, and Les Amies, d’après Courbet and Portraits. This text essentially focuses on the series Tauromaquias (Bullfights) (1963), Étreinte (1963), Bataille (d’après Uccello) (1961–1964), Metro (1964), Luta (Fight) (1965), destroyed abstract paintings (1964–68), Catch (1965), Corridas (Races) (1965) and assemblages (1967), with the aim of identifying the existing changes and their impact on pictorial development in the artist’s work.