Filomena SerraFernando LemosThe more I desire / Quanto mais desejo, series Ph, vol. 4: Fernando Lemos

Abstract

Portuguese Studies vol. 37 no. 1 (2021), 120–34© Modern Humanities Research Association 2021 Reviews Filomena Serra (text) and Fernando Lemos (photographs), The more I desire / Quanto mais desejo, series Ph, vol. 4: Fernando Lemos (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional–Casa da Moeda, 2019). 136 pages. Print. Bilingual text, English and Portuguese. Reviewed by Bernardo Pinto de Almeida (Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto) Few Portuguese artists have experienced a personal and geographic destiny as particular and erratic as that of Fernando Lemos (1926–2019), even if others, who came later, were also travellers discovering the world. Born in Lisbon, Lemos left Portugal for Brazil in 1952, having already published his first book of poems, Teclado Universal [Universal Keyboard]. Frustrated by Salazarism and its misery, he built a new career in this Lusophone country, where he would later be naturalized. He is part of the cultural history of both lands, not only because of his strong attachment to them, but also because of certain acts and various kinds of recognition. As he himself once stated, ‘I am yet another Portuguese looking for something better’. This intelligent, cultured and self-made man started in Portugal as a kind of jack-of-all-trades (locksmith and upholsterer; lithograph and graphic printer) that helped sustain him, and his restless talent that could not earn him a living at the time. This was before he committed himself to photography and moved towards the surrealists — the few still active — and later, in Brazil, tried his hand as a museum director, journalist, curator, competition judge and teacher, besides being an artist. He found some recognition both as a fair and set designer, as well as a photographer and even a painter. This adventurous life made Lemos an exemplary Portuguese: an adventurer never satisfied with his lot. It also made him a daring man who adapted, wisely and good naturedly, to every circumstance, without making it a major problem or drama. Involved in so many activities and with so many desires arousing his curiosity, Lemos was able, once in Brazil, to meet other illustrious Portuguese who saw his multi-moded talent early on, and opened doors for him knowing he would never disappoint. That was how, six years after arriving there, the eminent historian Jaime Cortesão, who was preparing the Fourth Centenary Commemorations of the Foundation of São Paulo, invited him to participate and enabled Lemos to establish himself as a painter. Photography, however, had already gained him recognition in Portugal from the artistic and critical milieu. His lifelong friend, the critic and, later, historian José-Augusto França, for instance, had supported him from an early age. In Brazil, it would again Reviews 121 bring him some attention; in particular, from the poet Manuel Bandeira, who was immediately surprised by ‘the intense atmosphere of mystery, with its, one would say, fluorescent contours’. It was also in Brazil, in the ’50s, that Lemos met the poet Hilda Hilst, who was linked to the Brazilian avant-garde. Their intense year-long romance inspired one of his most beautiful series of photographs, which drew praise from René Girard and other critics and intellectuals, forming a bond between Lemos and the Brazilian intellectual milieu that lasted until the end of his days. This adventurous life, always shared between art and photography, in addition to the diverse other crafts that helped him survive, now with renewed dignity on a par with his culture and intelligence, would occupy the artist throughout the many years in which poetry continued to call him. His art was diversified into a multiplicity that suited his temperament, restless until the end, and always coherent, with a sense of experimentation (and remarkable humour) in its daring creativity. Recognition, however, came late in Portugal, where he remained forever remembered, and deservedly so, for his significant role in the brief shining moment of the Portuguese surrealist movement, in which his career had begun with particular originality.1 These images today are part of the history of this short but intensely lived movement, which was original despite arriving late on the scene; and in which Lemos had a prominent place. And so, after participating, in 1979, in an important...