The Diplomat
Portugal was this year’s guest country at the International Festival of Engraving and Art on Paper (FIG Bilbao), which was held at the Euskalduna Palace from Thursday to Sunday, according to Cultura Portugal.
In the event, the work of the Portuguese artist Paula Rego ‘Nursery Rhymes’, 18 engravings inspired by the oral tradition of English poems and nursery rhymes, with which the author was closely linked during her childhood and which the Portuguese Embassy and Camões Madrid, in collaboration with the Casa das Histórias Paula Rego, have now brought to Bilbao.
Likewise, from 12 November, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum is hosting an exhibition by Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, one of the most internationally recognised names in Portuguese painting and graphic art. Organised by the FIG, it presents a selection of prints created by Viera da Silva between the late 1960s and 1991, a year before her death, which show the artist’s wealth of styles and influences. From spatialism to lyrical abstraction, the wealth of styles and influences take on new importance in the work of this artist, who was one of the key figures of the School of Paris.
In addition, six Portuguese galleries have exhibited different perspectives of the country’s graphic art, offering a heterogeneous vision in techniques and sensibilities: the Portuguese Serigraphy Centre CPS, Galeria Carrasco, Galeria Bessa Pereira, Galeria Nave, Galeria Trema and Perve Gallery.
On Friday and Saturday, visitors could enjoy the activity “Cups of Poetry and Engraving”. 7 wines, 7 poets and 7 engravings, an initiative of Visit Portugal. It is an event that associates the wines of seven Portuguese regions with different poets so that, while the wine tasting takes place, a poem that takes us to Portugal is listened to. The journalist Sandra Nobre was in charge of talking about the poets while André Pinguel, from Wine Post and a great connoisseur of Portuguese wines, explained each of the wines. This edition also featured the engravings of the Lisbon artist Manuela Crespo, to illustrate the regions and landscapes of Portugal.
Finally, two Portuguese universities also took part in FIG Bilbao in the Cubes of Temptations programme: the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria (Higher School of Art and Design) and the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto.
