Ant?nio Agostinho Costa Pinheiro

(b Moura, 8 Jan 1932). Portuguese painter and printmaker. In 1957 the artist emigrated to Munich where he studied at the Akademie der Bildenden K?nste. On a scholarship in Paris (1960-62), he collaborated with his compatriots Ren? Bertholo and Lourdes Castro in the magazine and exhibitions of the KWY group of Portuguese emigr? artists. The crispness of his painting technique demonstrates his predilection for drawing and graphics. His early works were gestural and calligraphic, but in the 1960s he adopted a playful figuration, paralleling the work of Bertholo and Joaquim Rodrigo, in which caricatural figures combine with imaginary objects to relate absurd and humorous narratives. In the series of paintings of Portuguese kings (mid-1960s), for example Peter I (1966; Mannheim, Kurt Egger priv. col.), and in the series dealing obsessively with the poet Fernando Pessoa (1970s to 1980s) the artist investigated his cultural roots. He also made theatre sets and masks and illustrated several books.

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