Google Doodle is celebrating today, June 1, José de Almada Negreiros (1893-1970) considered one of the most relevant Portuguese and European artists of the 20th century.
On this day in 1911, Almada Negreiros made his artistic debut at the age of 18 when he published a cartoon entitled “Uma Razão de Peso” in the 4th issue of A Sátira, a Lisbon magazine.
A writer, poet, and painter, he also dedicated his life to ballet choreographies, and worked on tapestry, engraving, murals, caricature, mosaic, and azulejo.
A prolific artist, who was a dancer and a theater performer himself, was born in the former Portuguese colony of São Tomé and Príncipe, to a Portuguese father and a Santomean mother.
Almada Negreiros with self-portrait
Following his first individual exhibition, in 1913, showing 90 drawings, along with Fernando Pessoa and Mário de Sá-Carneiro, he published poems and texts in the Orpheu (1915) and Portugal Futurista (1917) the arts and letters magazines, which introduced Modernism and Futurism in Portugal.
He always called himself a futurist artist, inspired by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and other modern artists.
José Sobral de Almada Negreiros, also lived in Paris and Madrid where he contributed to several Spanish publications. He wrote novels, poems, playwrights, essays and manifestos published in books, magazines, newspapers, booklets and flyers. In 1934 he married painter Sarah Afonso (1899 -1983).
Since 1998, doodles are known as the decorative changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists and scientists.
When doodles were first created, nobody had anticipated how popular and integral they would become to the Google search experience. Nowadays, many users excitedly anticipate the release of each new doodle and some even collect them.
Almada Negreiro by Melissa Crowton Google Doodle
PAJ/Staff
