Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


João Cutileiro artist

João Cutileiro was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1937. A pioneering sculptor, he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London (1955–59), where he embraced modernist experimentation, influenced by figures such as Reg Butler, Henry Moore, and David Sylvester, exploring new sculptural techniques, including welded iron and fragmented figuration. His time in London allowed him to develop a distinct sculptural language, departing from the academic traditions of Portuguese statuary, before returning to Portugal in 1970.

Born: 1938 Lisbon, Portugal

Died: 2021 Lisbon, Portugal

Year of Migration to the UK: 1955


Biography

Sculptor João Cutileiro was born on 26 June 1937 in Lisbon, Portugal, into a middle-class family with anti-fascist sympathies. Between 1949 and 1951, he worked in Jorge Barradas’s studio, where he experimented with ceramics, painting, and glazing. Finding this unfulfilling, he moved to António Duarte’s studio (1951–53) as a voluntary apprentice, where he learned stone carving, assisting in translating plaster models into marble. This period cemented his lifelong commitment to direct carving. At just 14 years old, in 1951, he held his first solo exhibition in Reguengos de Monsaraz, displaying sculpture, ceramics, watercolours, and paintings. A pivotal moment came the same year when, while en route to Kabul, he stopped in Florence and encountered Michelangelo’s sculptures. This experience reinforced his certainty that he would dedicate his life to sculpture. Upon returning, he enrolled at the Escola Superior de Belas-Artes de Lisboa (1953–54) but left after two years, frustrated by its conservative approach, particularly its exclusive focus on bronze as the only ‘dignified’ material for sculpture (Galeria Sete website). Feeling stifled by Portugal’s artistic climate, he decided to leave the country and, encouraged by fellow Portuguese emigre painter, Paula Rego, moved to London.

In 1955, Cutileiro enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art, where he studied sculpture under Reg Butler. Under William Coldstream’s directorship, the Slade encouraged both rigorous spatial analysis and artistic experimentation, exposing students to contemporary postwar debates. Cutileiro was part of a generation of Portuguese artists—including Jorge Vieira, Bartolomeu Cid dos Santos, and Paula Rego—who sought training in London as an alternative to Portugal’s restrictive academic system. While primarily motivated by professional aspirations, their time abroad also contributed to a more critical perspective on the Estado Novo regime. London, an increasingly vital centre for postwar artistic innovation, provided them with greater creative freedom. The Slade’s teaching philosophy focused on direct engagement with the human figure, particularly through life drawing and observational study, but also encouraged experimentation with new materials and forms. Cutileiro was introduced to a network of artists and intellectuals engaged in debates on realism and existentialism and was influenced by figures such as David Sylvester, Henry Moore, and Herbert Read, whose Geometry of Fear movement, marked by skeletal, distressed forms, resonated with his own exploration of bodily fragmentation. He also encountered Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, whose psychologically charged figuration left an impact on his sculptural sensibility.

Art historian Leonor de Oliveira argues that the existentialist and experimental tendencies at the Slade, shaped by figures like Bacon and Sylvester’s concept of modern realism, resonated deeply with Portuguese artists, whose homeland was experiencing political repression. This influence, she suggests, contributed to the way Cutileiro later engaged with historical and figurative themes. Similarly, she contends that his fragmented, disjointed sculptural forms from this period, particularly A Queda de Ícaro (The Fall of Icarus, 1960), can be read not only as an existential reflection but also as an indirect response to Portugal’s colonial crisis, anticipating the tensions that would soon erupt into the country’s colonial wars (Oliveira 2019, p. 201). Cutileiro remained at the Slade until 1959, receiving three prizes: composition, figure, and head sculpture. Though he experimented with welded iron, a material favoured by British modernists, his preference for direct carving in stone remained central to his artistic identity.

Throughout the 1960s, Cutileiro exhibited frequently in Portugal, holding five solo shows in Lisbon and one in Porto between 1961 and 1971, but he continued working abroad. In 1970, he returned to Portugal permanently and settled in Lagos on the Algarve, where he remained for 15 years. That same year, he created one of his most controversial works, the statue of D. Sebastião, which challenged the Estado Novo’s academic sculptural traditions and sparked significant debate. Following the fall of the Estado Novo in 1974, Cutileiro became a central figure in redefining public sculpture in Portugal. His Monumento ao 25 de Abril (Monument to 25 April), inaugurated in Lisbon’s Parque Eduardo VII in 1997, is one of his most emblematic works. His sculptures of historical figures, including D. Afonso Henriques in Guimarães and Luís de Camões in Cascais, continued this tendency to humanise and demystify national icons. In the 1980s, Cutileiro moved to Évora, where he played a major role in local sculpture initiatives, establishing a workshop and mentoring younger artists. He also founded the Simpósio da Escultura em Pedra, bringing international sculptors to Portugal and further promoting direct carving. In 2018, he donated his studio and estate to the Portuguese state, ensuring his legacy would continue through future generations of artists. João Cutileiro died in Lisbon, Portugal on 5 January 2021. His work is not currently represented in UK public collections. In Portugal his work is held in the Berado Collection, which also hosts the works of several Europeans emigres, including Erich Kahn.

Related books

  • Leonor de Oliveira, Portuguese Artists in London Shaping Identities in Post-War Europe (London: Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2020)
  • Leonor de Oliveira, ‘Iconografias de resistência: O caso de quatro artistas portugueses em Londres nos anos 1950 / Iconographies of Resistance: The Case of Four Portuguese Artists in London in the 1950s’, Ler História No. 74, 2019, pp. 187-212
  • Joaquim Oliveira Caetano, 'As Públicas Virtudes: Maquetas e Esculturas de João Cutileiro para o Espaço Urbano', in J. O. Caetano, A. C. Pais eds., A Pedra Não Espera: Maquetas e Escultura para o Espaço Urbano (Évora: Museu Nacional Frei Manuel do Cenáculo, 2018), pp. 9-11
  • Shakil Yussuf Rahim and Ana Leonor Madeira Rodrigues, ‘A Identidade da Mão e as Anatomias do Nu no Desenho e no Desenhar de João Cutileiro / The Hand Identity and the Nude Anatomies in Drawing and in to Draw of João Cutileiro’, Estúdio, No. 13, January/March 2016), pp. 47-59
  • Rita Mega, ‘Conversas com Escultores... João Cutileiro’, Arte Teoria, No. 11, 2008, pp. 279-285
  • José Sommer Ribeiro and Nazaré Tojal, João Cutileiro: Exposição Antológica (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1990)
  • Bernardo Pinto de Almeida, João Cutileiro, 50 Desenhos (St Tirso: Galeria de Arte A5, 1988)
  • Sílvia Chicó, João Cutileiro (Lisboa: Imprensa nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1982)

Related organisations

  • Escola Superior de Belas-Artes, Lisbon (student)
  • Slade School of Fine Art (student)

Related web links

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Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [João Cutileiro ]

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Publications related to [João Cutileiro ] in the Ben Uri Library