Background
René Bértholo was born in 1935 in Alhandra, Portugal.
René Bértholo was born in 1935 in Alhandra, Portugal.
Rene studied at the António Arroio School of Decorative Arts in 1947 - 1951. Then he graduated in Painting from the Superior School of Fine Arts in Lisbon between 1951 and 1957.
In 1953 Rene founded, together with José Escada and Lourdes Castro, Ver magazine, and the 1st Salon d'Art Abstracta in 1954, and became one of the animators of the Portico Gallery during 1955 - 1957. His desire to develop a more experimental course took him in 1957 to Munich. In 1958 Rene settled in Paris and, between 1959 - 1960, he obtained a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
In the French capital he formed the group KWY and began the publication of the magazine with the same name. His early work revealed a strong abstract matrix, gradually opening up to an ironic neo-figurativism that from the 1960s marked his work. Around 1966 questions about the objectual and procedural condition of the work of art led him to conceive of mechanical objects which he called "reduced models." Following those experiments he left for Berlin in 1972, where for a year he studied electronic Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst.
In 1974 René resumed the painting, now marked by a more narrative expression and inhabited by fragmental images of strong memorialist sense. He returned to Portugal in 1981 and settled in the Algarve. In 2000 he was the part of the Making Choices exhibition held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. That same year the Museum of Contemporary Art of Serralves organized an important retrospective of his work. The artist died in 2005.
Carta do Líbano
Deux Nuages
Projet conçu
Infografismo E21
Composition
Voyage sur l'Intrépide
Indiferença
Formations Jeune et Rose
Sculptures dans la chambre
Azulejo
Memórias dum circo
Infografismo E16
Nuage Azagury
Untitled
O Diabo, a Paraquedista, Etc
Intérieurs
Untitled composition
Pássaros
Arc-en-Ciel
Palmiers
Fragments
Untitled
René Bertholo's painting began by equating the relationship between figuration and abstraction in a very personal way and articulated with the universes of pop art and the French Nouveau réalisme.
Rene was married to Lourdes Castro.
