Vasco de Castro Retrospective Exhibition Opens in Portugal

The Museu Municipal de Arte Moderna Abel Manta in Gouveia, Portugal, will open the exhibition “O retrato como sismógrafo: Vasco de Castro revisitado” on 7 August 2026 at 5:00 PM, celebrating the work of Portuguese cartoonist and caricaturist Vasco de Castro (1935–2021). The exhibition will remain on view until 5 October 2026.  

Curated by Prof. Dr. Daniel Melo and Dr. Pedro Piedade Marques, the exhibition follows a previous presentation held last year at Lisbon’s Casa da Imprensa, which focused on Vasco de Castro’s revolutionary, post-revolutionary and Paris periods. The new exhibition expands this project by revisiting the artist’s work in a broader context.  

The exhibition brings together works on loan from institutional and private collections, including the Museu Bordalo Pinheiro, the collection of Portuguese cartoon historian Osvaldo de Sousa, and numerous former friends and collaborators of the artist.  

Another central theme of the exhibition is the intellectual friendship between Vasco de Castro and the Portuguese writer Vergílio Ferreira, who was born in the municipality of Gouveia. Drawing on Ferreira’s Conta-corrente diaries, the exhibition explores the discussions the two shared about caricature and painting, as well as the influence of those exchanges on Ferreira’s 1993 novel Na tua face.  

The opening ceremony will include a guided tour of the exhibition led by its curators. In connection with the exhibition, a round-table discussion on Vasco de Castro’s work is also scheduled to take place during the Festival Literário de Meloin October.  

Hosted at the Museu Municipal de Arte Moderna Abel Manta, “O retrato como sismógrafo: Vasco de Castro revisitado” offers visitors an opportunity to revisit the artistic legacy of Vasco de Castro through a carefully assembled selection of works and archival material that highlight both his visual language and his dialogue with one of Portugal’s leading literary figures.