It is with great sadness that Docomomo International has learned that Professor José-Augusto França, the most important Portuguese modern art researcher on the contemporary era, passed away today, 18 September 2021, at the age of 98 years near Angers (France). Docomomo International wishes to convey the most sincere condolences at his passing to his family and friends.
Born in Tomar (1922), José-Augusto França was a historian, sociologist and critic of art. He held a graduation in Historical and Philosophical Sciences (1944, Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon), a PhD in History (1962, Paris-Sorbonne University, Une Ville des Lumères: la Lisbonne de Pombal), a diploma on Sociology of the Art (1963, L’Art et la Société Portugaise au XXè siècle) and a PhD in Letters (1969, Paris-Sorbonne University, Le Romantisme au Portugal).
He was professor emeritus of the Nova University of Lisbon, where he created the first Art History masters of the country (1976), having oriented dozens of master’s and PhD thesis. He was Director of the Portuguese Cultural Center of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Paris (1983), President of the National Academy of Fine Arts (1985) and member of the UNESCO Comité du Patrimoine Mondial.
José Augusto França was, as well, a reference author in the field of visual and cultural arts in Portugal, being the first one identifying and presenting modern architecture in Portugal in his work Arte em Portugal no Século XX (1974). He was responsible for pioneering studies on the reconstruction of Baixa Pombalina after the Earthquake of 1755, or on figures such as Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Almada Negreiros or Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro. Among his works stand out studies on art in Portugal in the 19th and 20th centuries, as several volumes of essays on historical, sociological and aesthetic reflection on contemporary art issues. Interested not only in history, art history, architecture, but as well in poetry, cinema, painting or scultpture, his work exceeds a hundred books and hundreds of articles, divided between cultural history, art history, olyssipographic studies, monographs, essays and fiction.
He has received the Medal of Honor of the City of Lisbon (1992), the Grand Officer (1991) and the Grand Cross (2006) of the Infante D. Henrique Order and the Grand Cross of the Order of Public Instruction (1992).
As he self once admitted, “he never got tired of writing and living”.
In 2016, within the publication of the Docomomo Journal 55 – Modern Lisbon, Docomomo International’s chair professor Ana Tostões interviewed professor José Augusto França. Read the full article on this link.
The full article published in Público can be read here or as pdf [portuguese].
