Manuel Cargaleiro

Working with Viúva Lamego since 1949, Manuel Cargaleiro is one of the artists with artistic residence in the factory.

A Portuguese painter and potter, Manuel Cargaleiro is a native of Beira Baixa, where he was born in 1927. He enrolled in the Lisbon Faculty of Sciences and worked as a banker, attending free classes at the Academy of Fine Arts and the pottery studio by José Trindade. In 1949 he participated in the 1st Ceramic Fair of SNI, receiving the National Prize of Ceramics in 1954, after which he was invited to teach at the Antonio Arroio School. As a fellow of the Italian Government, he studied pottery in Faenza, Rome and Florence. He later worked at the Gien Faience Factory in France, with the sponsorship of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

He leaves for Paris, also exhibiting in Tokyo, Turin, Milan, Rio de Janeiro, Lourenço Marques, Luanda, etc. In his paintings, one can distinguish an ornamental and decorative meaning, the option for two-dimensionality and the negation of depth, in such a way that the work in the canvas is intertwined with that of the tiles, in the repetition of the square, in the blues, in its need for a particular setting.

In his tiles, the spontaneity of the brushstroke reigns. His tiles are works of art, dated and signed. The work of Cargaleiro represents the extroversion, the luminosity, the optimism and the sensuality of the Mediterranean character.