Sarah Affonso

Abstract

A pioneer of the Portuguese Modernist movement, Sarah Affonso (1899-1983) encountered powerful concrete and unconscious obstacles along the path that defined her fate as a Woman and as an artist. The wife of the avant-garde artist, Almada Negreiros (1893-1970), hers was a story of enduring an eclipsed identity, her husband had the spotlight, and instead she transmuted her artistic career to the task of managing family life. Through the consciousness of the artist herself, we will present to the Brazilian reader the history of a woman who unfurled the banner of freedom in an extraordinary manner, but who was soon to be deprived of it to a certain degree. We will also contextualise her place in the history of Portuguese Modern Art, referencing the figures of speech and terminology used by contemporary critics to define her work, employing a series of stereotypes that are more closely associated with her gender than with her painting.