Passage des miroirs (Passage of Mirrors) - Bilbao Fine Arts Museum

Buy image

Passage des miroirs (Passage of Mirrors)

Vieira da Silva, Maria Helena

Lisbon, 16/06/1908-Paris, 06/03/1992

Oil on canvas

100.3 x 81 cm

Vieira da Silva (bottom right hand corner)

1981

Last quarter of the 20th century

82/391

Acquired in 1982

The work of Vieira da Silva is characterised by obsessive constructions of linear grids that describe urban environments or long-perspective rooms. These are lonely places, such as corridors, libraries and labyrinths, into which viewers are invited yet about which they have scant information, for on the structure of the drawings, the almost monochrome light vibrations lead to a confusion between real and imaginary.

In her white paintings such as this Passage of Mirrors the sense of the loss of reality is heightened, as is the poetic vehemence conveyed by the fragile world depicted, in spite of its latent geometry. Like other contemporary artists, Vieira da Silva attempted to combine the proposals of spatialism and those of Lyrical Abstraction, yet without giving up representational references completely.

Vieira da Silva left Lisbon in 1928 to settle in Paris, where she developed her career. Following an initial period working in the field of sculpture she began to attend painting classes with Fernand Léger and other masters. At the onset of the Second World War she moved to Brazil, where she lived from 1940 until 1947 and came into contact with the Uruguayan painter Joaquín Torres García, whose work she found most inspiring. Vieira da Silva is now internationally acclaimed as the most outstanding Portuguese artist of the 20th century and a key member of the School of Paris. [Javier Viar]

Selected bibliography

  • Lassaigne, Jacques ; Weelen, Guy. Vieira Da Silva. Barcelona, Ediciones Polígrafa, 1979.
  • Vieira Da Silva : monographie = monografía. París, Skira, 1993-1994.
  • De Picasso a Bacon : arte contemporáneo en las colecciones del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Segovia, Museo de Arte Contemporánea Esteban Vicente, 1999. pp. 138-139.
  • Entre la figuración y la abstracción : arte contemporáneo en las colecciones del Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Pamplona, Museo de Navarra, 1999. pp. 110-111.
  • Vieira Da Silva [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Fundación Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa, 2000. pp. 74-75, lám.
  • Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 187.
  • Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 187.
  • Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2006. p. 187.
  • Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao : guía. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2011. p. 187, n° cat. 133.
  • Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa : gida. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2012. p. 187, n° cat. 133.
  • Musée des Beaux Arts de Bilbao : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. p. 187.
  • Bilbao Fine Arts Museum : guide. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2014. p. 187.
  • 110 Ans 110 Oeuvres [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 294-295, sin n° cat.
  • 110 Años 110 Obras [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 294-295, sin n° cat.
  • 110 Urte 110 Artelan [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 294-295, sin n° cat.
  • 110 Years 110 Works [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 294-295, sin n° cat.
  • Bilboko Museoaren alfabetoa = El alfabeto del Museo de Bilbao = The alphabet of the Bilbao Museum = L'alphabet du Musée de Bilbao [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. pp. 83, 85, n° cat. 41.
  • Después del 68 : arte y prácticas artísticas en el País Vasco, 1968-2018 [Cat. exp.]. Bilbao, Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa-Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2018. p. 340.