Catarina Lassi

BIOGRAPHY ... SHORT VERSION

Selfman, Rogerio de Freitas, son of actor Eduardo de Freitas, was born in Lisbon on February 16 of 1910. Fiction writers, playwright and painter, also devoted himself to journalism and publishing, creating with Leon Penedo the Publisher 'Artis' that reported Portuguese artists since the Gregory Vieira Lopes da Silva. He was also Director, with the architects Costa Martins, Victor Palla and Bento de Almeida, of "Prisma 73" Art Gallery .
He is included in several collections Italian, Russian and Brazilian. He was in Lisbon, a student of Frederico Ayres and in Paris where he lived since 1928 to 1939, of Lothe Andrew , making his first exhibition there in the Casa de Portugal. Worked as a Journalist in several newspapers and magazines, having been Head of the Drafting of 'Eva', Editor of "Vida Mundial Ilustrada" and Director of "Século Ilustrado". He was part of Portuguese Representation at Encounters International in Geneva, with Lion of Castro, Mario Dionisio and Jose Augusto França, intervened in the discussions. In 1976 was appointed by David Mourão Ferreira, Director General of Shows which launched the National Ballet Company, and later responsible for Almada Negreiros Gallery. He´s represented in several collections of artforeign and nationals. He left us shortly thereafter to see the birth of this New Millennium ... Bibliographic references Biographic Universal Dictionary of Authors, Artis Bompiani, Encyclopedia Verbo, Portuguese 20 Th. Century Artists, Dictionary of Painters and Sculptors Portuguese, Portuguese-Brazilian Grand Encyclopedia, Library Theater D. Maria II in Lisbon.

.... The Intellectual, be he left or right, must give themselve totally to his work and in defense of authenticity .... Rogério de Freitas, Geneva 1967

THE exhibitions...SOME

1938 - 2000 Individual Exhibition Casa de Portugal, Paris - Galeria Ana Isabel, Lis boa - Junta de Turismo, Faro - Mercado dos Escravos Lagos - Galeria Astolfi, Cascais - Casino do Luso - Galeria Inteni, Lisboa - Espaço A Club 50, Lisboa - Galeria Augusto Gomes, Porto - Galeria Roca, Marinha Grande - Galeria Belo-Belo, Braga - Galeria Diário de Noticias, Lisboa - Galeria de Arte do Casino do Estoril - Galeria Potthoff, Lisboa - Galeria LCR, Sintra - Atrium Saldanha, Lisboa - DRAC, Funchal

















1929 -1999 Collective Exhibition Salon d'Art Mural, Paris - Galeria Prisma, Lisboa - «Escritores Pintores», Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian - Galeria das Olaias, Lisboa - DITE C, Espaço Arte, Lisboa - Casino Estoril Galeria Palma, Lisboa - «Um Ano Depois» Galeria G, Lisboa - Galeria Astolfi, Cascais - «Pequeno Formato», Junta de Turismo da Costa do Sol- DITEC, Espaço Arte, Lisboa - Galeria Penta, Lisboa -Galeria Príncipe Real, Lisboa - Hotel Diplomático, Lisboa - Galeria da Cervejaria Trindade, Lisboa -«Homenagem a Carlos Botelho», Lisboa - Galeria Da Vinci, Lisboa - I Bienal de Arte, Sintra Museu Goya, Castres, França - Mostra de Arte Contemporânea, Albufeira - DITEC, Espaço Arte, Lisboa -Galeria Liberdade, Lisboa - «Homenagem a Femando Namora», Casino do Estoril Galeria G, Lisboa -111 Exposição Nacional Pequeno Formato, Cascais (Menção Honrosa) Galeria Roca, Marinha Grande - Galeria A, Almada - Colectiva de Artes Plásticas, Casino do Estoril - II Exposição Nacional Pequeno Formato, Porto - «Homenagem a Soares dos Reis e Diogo de Macedo», Vila Nova de Gaia - Colectiva de Verão, Casino do Estoril Colectiva DITEC, Espaço Arte, Lisboa - Exposição «O Vinho e a Vinha», S.N.B.A. - Salão de Outono, Descobrimentos, Casino do Estoril - «Viragem», Cascais - Prémio de Artes Plásticas «João Hogan», S.N.B.A., Lisboa - Exposição - Homenagem a Luís Dourdil, Casino do Estoril - Galeria Diário de Noticias, Lisboa - Colectiva DITEC, Espaço Arte, Lisboa - Galeria Ant6nio Clara, Lisboa - EXPONOR, Matosinhos - 11 +1 Artistas da Viragem, Cascais - Galeria Municipal da Amadora - «Os Limites da Abstração», Viragem, Galeria Artebruta, Lisboa - Colectiva de Verão, Galeria Casino do Estoril Colectiva Galeria Belo-Belo, Braga - Feira de Arte de Portimão - I Bienal do Sabugal. 1993 Espaço Arte Livraria G, Lisboa - Colectiva «Porto de Lisboa», Museu Porto de Lisboa - Colectiva de Natal, Galeria de Arte do Casino do Estoril - Galeria Roca, Marinha Grande - Espaço Arte Livraria G, Lisboa - Galeria Atrium, Casa da Imprensa, Lisboa - XIII Salão de Outono, Galeria de Arte do Casino Estoril III, IV, V, Vi Exposição Internacional de Artes Plásticas de Vendas Novas -Galleria Artistudio, Milão - I Exposição Internacional de Artes Plásticas da Moita - Bienal do Alentejo - Galeria Atrium Saldanha, Lisboa

















THE DRAWINGS...SOME







THe PAINTINGS...few of the many













SAID ABOUT HIM...HERE TOO FEW OF MANY

(Fernando Namora) «One day the painter, a writer on another day, in another one, the reporter or the man of cinema - and in all them what identifying and makes one, is this intensity curiousity, for all that is life and urgency to express it in Art.» (Manuel Faliero Lassi) At skeptical about the life, I suggest to visit an exhibition of Rogério de Freitas. If you are lucky, you may have the opportunity to find it around there! You can see why with him exorcise the fears and anxieties arising from waging battles that we fight every day, it takes a straigh tforward exercise. If the lines that create the chaotic situation of our Universe and our Life, they do not provide this moment ... do not despair yet ... you may use two solutions: The first is to know who knows him! You will see the power of man, by the influence and mark it leaves into those, whose intelligence and soul he touches. The second requires a little more work ... and a desire to accomplish it. You get out in front of a painting of Rogério de Freitas! Are you looking at it? Do not forget that painting is like a mirror. Looking at the reflection animals, unlike the men, flee! Do not be afraid to look in the "mirror" and for your reflection, as it has been accustomed to living with your image. Look through this open door and begin to see that "unlike World!" The "composition" of this Universe, the "color" ... Well, it is not my job to explain everything! Did you understand the exercise? Do you realize what I suggested? Do you realize why it is so important that "unlike World"? I have absolute certainty that yes! Rogério de Freitas is not of my generation, has not a political ideology close to mine, is not a fan of a football team as I and he dosen´t connect to the temptations of culinary art! While I wait to convert him! He is intransigent, tolerant, cultured, curious, adventurous, true. He doesn´t support the mental inactivity and narrow. Some of his virtues which I am proud! Why? Because I have the honor to be friend of this man of Arts and Letters, not only a genius reference but also as human . (António Ramos Rosa) We can say that Rogério de Freitas paint away from you, beyond the subjectivity of of the sentimental expansion. What he seeks is an intimate and transcendent center that is also the elemental world, the fullness of the earth. The world is abolished by the silence but it is in this space that opens the silence. Thus, the artist is lost without being lost. The silence makes it more profound, the gap shows the primary fund, the space offers itself in its longevity. We are far, far away, but close to the source. The distance becomes the body of all lost, undefined, we see no signs or things, but the suspension of the real quiet, its empty, the mystery of their presence away. Thus, the painter promotes an opening of the invisible look at the underlying, the virtual unlimited. Without any metaphorical excess of imagination, Rogério de Freitas opens us a path in their bereavement, that is a true metamorphosis of the vacuum in which it is being hidden and is in its irreducible distance. (José Eduardo de Almeida e Silva) Obviously this is not the space to speak about the man who, under the name of Rogério de Freitas , at the age of eighty eight years old, still persists watching us with a careful and tender look peculiar to those who saw the world and was one of its protagonists, but always hopeful that something forgoten will be reveal. Neither is the time to examine the work which he left to us, started in the remote year of 1938, in Paris and subject upon which great names of the portuguese culture as Vergílio Ferreira, Fernando Namora, among others have writen. The moment that I’m writing of, is about the oil on canvas paitings now in exibition at the Art Gallery Potthoff. Here we find a consestent set of paintings, cromatically dominate by the blue shapes and the vertical composition. However if the tecnique quality are unquestionable what the observer sensibillity induces, without be able to express at a first sight, is the reason of his unconditional approval. In fact, the painting which is given doesn’t remains in the harmony where it builds and grows, on the contrary, that is the consequence of a deep thought about the being and its various conjugations. Consequently the blue change from the dark blue (the colour of the night, of the dream and the colour of the inconscient) to the open blue (the colour of inspiration, of the transcendence, in a word the colour of the supra-human). Althoug sometimes we find the green sugesting Rogerio de Freitas reality and that colour here is the true catalyst of the creative gesture. As a storyteller Rogério de Freitas, throught the plastic narrative, amuses us with portraits of the soul, some inspired in is own ego, others picked from pure observation of the reality, but all of them hiding a strange cosmopolitan fascination, where bucolic romantism have no place, and incresed by the diversity of human existance when approached in all complexity of urban life. Without conformism and with a total rejaction to the sentimentality Rogério de Freitas paintings lead us to an unreal atmosphere where reality and imagination join hands, through a delicate choregraphy, to show the man behiond the author. Hard without cruelty, poet without the need of using words, Rogério de Freitas paints the world without forget the futur of the being which borns in the dark blue of the night to walks to the open uranian blue. In this context it doesn’t mean a scape, but the natural way of someone who doesn’t remains in a single moment, carrie on upwards time, always faithful to a kind of teenager look which saw everything of live but still waits everything from it. (Edgardo Xavier) Like Picasso, Rogério de Freitas selvedge advanced in ways that, once and for another, returning to sources, by way of returns for reference, as part of those who have known for the discovery of the mystery that is urgent devassar, after all only a means to extol the magic that impregnates them. And this flow and reflux that Rogério de Freitas takes over the interior painting of leaving the eyes enjoy shapes and colors, light and shadow, opacity and transparency. The emphasis is on nature, composition and harmony plastic. Will be essential, however, how the use Painter making their arrangements to support a statement full of nuances, to knit free of brush strokes, amalgam of colors that are well lit to burn and be very much the language of this man different that the exercise of a return virtually useful. Beyond the themes is that situate the importance of the work in terms of authenticity and consistency. This proved even when Morandi, espartilhando your psyche on the border of objects comezinhos, transcended the purely physical to impose as archetype that, among other things, the Bienal de Sao Paulo would confirm the end of the fifties. Natures dead or alive, as the Brits like to say, can be and are the reason, justification, the starting point for the adventure of the table, disturbing the journey and that brings us closer deviates from the serenity to the emotion to vibrate fullness of doing. Rogério de Freitas hides itself and reveals itself. Portrays himself and mirrors us in this series of works that are a poetic dimension of the possible. (Ana Lima-Netto) It is the soul who said the painting of the Master, transforms the nightmare in the materialistic spirit of Art. Rogério de Freitas clearly favors the law of the ways and means purely pictorial, using thick patches of colors juxtaposed in a relatively loose. Sit freedom in the representation of the elements, harmony and serenity of colors held in tension by means of clear dark contrasts - concentration of spots that give a psychological effect leads the viewer to wander by the table forcing him to dissolve itself in it. Many others wrote about hIm ... the friend Vergílio Ferreira, Victor Palla, Lima de Carvalho, Catarina Aguiar Lassi, João Murillo, João Silveiro Pires, Maria Alzira Barahona, Costa Martins, Afonso Brandão, Gabriel Bossy, Lima de Carvalho and a cast that no longer fits in these pages...!!!

TH BOOKS...also speak the pictures

Of the published works are referred to in 1952 "A Porta Fechada", 1955 "Um resto de esperança", 1958 "Tempo de Angústia", 1960 .Sangue na Madrugada", 1968 "Os mortos chegam mais tarde" (play in two acts, whose text was seized by the Police), 1970 "Memória destruída".