The present virtual exhibition is a result of the adaptation of a temporary exhibition shown during the years 2021 and 2022 at the Founder’s Chapel of the Batalha Monastery, curated by Simão Palmeirim.
As well as the full-size reconstitution of an altarpiece imagined by Almada Negreiros - an installation more than ten metres high - the works by Almada exhibited in the Chapel testify to the artist’s long and intense research process.
Drawings, photographs, study notebooks, and even three-dimensional maquettes made by Almada were shown, many of them for the first time.
The fifteen works that make up the altarpiece imagined by Almada include several primitive paintings (from the 15th and 16th centuries, namely the iconic Painéis de S. Vicente. Since their discovery, and throughout the 20th century, these panels have generated intense public interest. Almada Negreiros also devoted himself to this work, albeit from a completely original angle: that of geometry.
Starting with a study of the panels’ perspective, Almada continuously complexified his geometrical analysis. Over time, he added increasingly more paintings until he defined an altarpiece with fifteen works. After visiting the Batalha Monastery he became convinced that the grouping was meant for the North wall of the Founder’s Chapel of the Batalha Monastery.
This exhibition aims to celebrate Almada’s creative process and make his works accessible, clarifying that which, for decades, motivated him to a continual investigation resulting in the altarpiece he had imagined.
video: Rafael Reigota