In the exhibition ‘Problemas do Primitivismo - a partir de Portugal’, from 18 May to 17 November, 2024 - Centro Internacional das Artes José de Guimarães-CIAJG, curators Marta Mestre and Mariana Pinto dos Santos included, in one of the sections, extensive documentation from the three exhibitions organised in 1946, 1961 and 1964 by Ernesto de Sousa, as well as sculptures by naïf artists Rosa Ramalho, Franklim Vilas-Boas Neto and Quintino Vilas Boas Neto, artists featured in the latter exhibition.
This first exhibition of its kind in Portugal, by Ernesto de Sousa in collaboration with Diogo de Macedo in 1946, accompanied the Black Art Week at the Colonial College in Lisbon, and a text by E.S. denouncing colonialism was read out. Sculptures from Angola, Mozambique and Guinea were exhibited in a comparative perspective, as well as originals by Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Almada Negreiros and Modigliani, and reproductions by Matisse and Picasso. He met Almada Negreiros at this exhibition. The text of the conference ‘Black sculpture and the Paris school’ was read by Maria do Carmo Anta due to problems with censorship.
The second ‘African Art Exhibition’ took place in 1961, as part of the African Art and Folklore Week, at the University Jazz Club in Lisbon.
In 1964, Ernesto de Sousa curated the exhibition ‘4 Popular Artists from the North’, part of the Ethnology and Popular Culture cycle organised by the Cultural Sections of the Students' Associations. With works by Mistério, Rosa Ramalho, Quintino Vilas Boas Neto and Franklin Vilas Boas.
As part of this cycle, Ernesto de Sousa presented the text “Barristas e Imaginários”.
Na excellent review by Celso Martins was published in Expresso, giving this exhibition in Guimaraes five stars.
