Manuel Casimiro


Manuel Casimiro is a Portuguese painter, sculptor, designer and film director. He was born in Porto, Portugal, where he is currently living. Manuel Casimiro has spent a large part of his life living abroad, especially in Nice, France where he went to live after he was wounded in Portuguese Angola during the Portuguese Colonial War.
Manuel Casimiro is the son of the late film director Manoel de Oliveira.

Life

Manuel Casimiro was born in a quite affluent family but only decided to devote himself entirely to his artistic pursuit after the Angolan war where he fought and was wounded. When he left Portugal to live abroad, mainly in Nice, France, he did not rely on family resources and lived in semi-poverty for many years. The generous friendships that he forged during that period helped him through his hardship and were to last for his whole life, particularly with people such as Vincent Descombes, Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Butor. The articles they published on Manuel Casimiro’s work account for their appreciation of the man and the artist.
In 1978 he lived for one year in New York where his first major collective exhibition took place. He managed to sell a few painting which enabled him to travel Northern European countries and Italy where he spent some time, especially in Venice. There he met and photographed Peggy Guggenheim in her foundations, only shortly before she died in 1979. This meeting was to have a lasting influence on Manuel Casimiro and the photography was to become the subject matter for an intervention.

Selected exhibitions

Manuel Casimiro has presented many individual and collective exhibitions and here are listed some of the major ones.
When considering Manuel Casimiro’s work it is necessary to bear in mind that he gives a paramount importance to the idea within the work of art, the “cosa mentale” in Leonardo da Vinci’s words. The ovoid, and its use in interventions and other works, provides a focal point around which the work of art is re-evaluated and reconsidered. The artists himself seldom talks about the ovoid leaving it to the spectator to supply meaning within that void form.