What the walls have to tell
Almada, on the floor, prepares the cards for the mural paintings at the Alcântara Maritime Station (1945). CEDANSA - NOVA FCSH. © Herdeiros de Almada Negreiros.
Almada Negreiros completed the mural paintings at the Alcântara Marine Station in 1945, the year the Second World War ended, and those at the Rocha do Conde de Óbidos Marine Station in 1949.
The themes dealt with in the Alcântara murals had caused discomfort among the authorities, as Almada had decided to paint not the supposed heroes celebrated by the Estado Novo dictatorship, but the humblest sailors, common people and daily life on the city’s riverside.
On the walls of Alcântara, the 16th-century story of the Catrineta Ship is tragicomically retold as set in the 20th century, and, among the simple and modest figures that populate all the panels, the toil of the coal pedlars on the quayside stands out. In the Rocha do Conde de Óbidos Station, depictions of poverty, street artists (jugglers and acrobats) and departing emigrants, as well as a bold and vibrant visual language, unprecedented in official art commissions, required the intercession of third parties on behalf of the artist, to avoid a possible destruction of the paintings.