Armando Alves

Armando Alves was born in 1935 and he is a remarkable Portuguese illustrator, graphic artist, drawer and painter (who evolved from Neorealism to Abstractionism). He studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, having graduated with an average of 20, thus joining the group of the “Four Twenties” (all of them graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto with an average of 20). The end of the 60s constituted a turning point in Armando Alves’ work, until then marked by a “materic” informalism, characterised by a textural roughness and by a chromaticism based on ochres and warm tones. His artistic production of 1970s, influenced by the recreational sense of the British Pop Art, reflects the return to the issue of the object, exploring, through stylised shapes the combination of two and three-dimensional shapes. The polished and shinny surfaces of bright colours, resulting of a careful and sophisticated execution that the artist intends to make evident, characterise those sculpture-objects. His proficiency in design led him into developing an important activity in the field of the Graphic Arts, contributing to its renewal and appreciation.