Catalogue for the exhibition ‘Tratado dos Olhos’ (Treatise on the Eyes), held at the Atelier-Museu from 28 February to 28 September 2014. This exhibition is a (self) portrait of Júlio Pomar: a presentation of his perspective which seeks to introduce the universe of references hidden behind his work.

The exhibition ‘Tratado dos Olhos’ was held at the Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar from 28 February to 28 September 2014 and aimed to uncover the painter’s universe of references, the conceptual and ideological material hidden behind his work. Although the underlying thought of the work is manifest in its physical materialisation (if not always explicitly), a new form of art as a new way of thinking, of living and above all of looking at things is constructed through the multiple sources that a creator traverses, problematises and becomes lost in. The exhibition arose from the need to demonstrate how the artist’s perspective came to create alternate versions of history through the paintings he produced. Understanding the painter’s gaze and the way his visual thinking developed over time required us to get to know his library, the friendships he made either in intimacy or in larger gatherings in cafés, in the solitary company of books and in his relationships with the works of his peers; in short, with the history of art itself.

[Sara Antónia Matos]

Júlio Pomar [Lisbon, 1926 – Lisbon 2018] lived and worked in Paris and Lisbon. He attended the António Arroio School of Decorative Arts and the Schools of Fine Arts in Lisbon and Porto. Early in his career, he was an exponent of the neorealist movement, developing a wide-ranging body of criticism in newspapers and magazines. Dedicated especially to painting, he also produced works of drawing, engraving, sculpture and assemblage, illustration, ceramics and glass, tapestry, set design for theatre and tiled murals. He was awarded several prizes, including the Print Prize (ex aequo) at the 1st Exhibition of Visual Arts in 1957; the Painting Prize (ex aequo) at the 2nd Exhibition of Visual Arts in 1961; the Montaigne Prize in 1993; the AICA-SEC Prize in 1995; the Celpa/Vieira da Silva Prize in 2000; and the Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Prize in 2003. In addition to publishing several texts on both other artists and his own work in magazines and catalogues, Pomar is the author of several books of essays on painting.