The painter Armando Alves, who was part of the group Os Quatro Vintes, with Ângelo de Sousa, José Rodrigues and Jorge Pinheiro, died at the age of 90, the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto (FBAUP) announced today.
According to the note from FBAUP, which originates from the School of Fine Arts where Armando Alves was a student and teacher, the painter born on November 7, 1935, in Estremoz (Évora), graduated in Painting with “20 points”.
“He formed, with Ângelo de Sousa, José Rodrigues and Jorge Pinheiro, the group Os Quatro Vintes, which presented several national and international exhibitions at the end of that decade and beginning of the following”, highlights the note of condolence published by the institution, signed by its director, Miguel Carvalhais.
The group was called that precisely because of the final grade in the Fine Arts course, with the four of them having been teachers at the Escola de Belas Artes do Porto, later FBAUP — Armando Alves was “one of the pioneers of training in Graphic Arts”, remembers Miguel Carvalhais.
This course would give rise to the creation of the first Communication Design course in the city, and Alves dedicated himself to design professionally after leaving higher education, with “a long and illustrious career, with particular emphasis on his production in editorial and poster design”.
From the group Os Quatro Vintes, in fact, Jorge Pinheiro is the only member still alive, after the deaths of Ângelo de Sousa, in 2011, and José Rodrigues, in 2016.
Armando Alves was awarded the rank of Grand Officer of the Order of Merit in 2006 and, in 2009, he received the Casino da Póvoa Arts Prize, in a long career between work as a painter, teaching and the construction of a graphic memory of the cultural life of the city of Porto.
With Ângelo de Sousa (1938-2011), José Rodrigues (1936-2016) and Jorge Pinheiro (1931), all graduated with top marks, he presented several exhibitions at the end of the 1960s, namely at Galeria Domingues Alvarez (Porto, 1968), at Galeria Zen (Porto, 1969), at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes (Lisbon, 1970) and at the Jacques Desbrière Gallery (Paris, 1970).
In 2025, Cooperativa Árvore, in Porto, exhibited works by the artist from 1958 to the present, in an “artistic and affective” exhibition that aimed to mark the artist’s 90th birthday, on November 7th.
