Background
Fernando Calhau was born in 1948 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Fernando Calhau was born in 1948 in Lisbon, Portugal.
In 1973 Fernando graduated in Painting at the Superior School of Fine Arts in Lisbon. He also studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London as a fellow of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, where he studied engraving with Bartolomeu Cid dos Santos.
Fernando Calhau began his artistic activity in 1966 when he began attending the engraving course of the Cooperative Society of Portuguese Writers. He had already held his first exhibitions of engraving in 1968 and painting in 1970. During his further living in the British capital, the artist prepared the bases for Super 8mm films that he performed after return to Portugal in 1974. Fernando Calhau also had a long career in the staff of the Secretary of State for Culture, having directed the Institute of Contemporary Art between 1997 and 2000. In 2001 he held two exhibitions at the José de Azeredo Perdigão Modern Art Center and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon. Fernando Calhau died on June 12, 2002, in Lisbon, after prolonged illness.
Fernando explored the formal and conceptual aspects that were decisive in all his work, including reproducibility and seriality, monochromatism, respect for manufactures, and interest in romanticism.