Raúl Perez

Born in Lovelhe, Minho, in 1944. Renowned painter and illustrator, he has preserved in his art, until to our days, the spirit of Surrealism.

In 1972 he held his first solo exhibition, at Galeria São Mamede in Lisbon, where he presented images from his Diário Onírico. He joined the “Phases” group in Paris in 1973, and the following year the group exhibited at the Van Esene Museum, Brussels. From this date onwards he regularly held solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions in Portugal and abroad. We highlight his involvement in these important exhibitions: 1975, “The Weird Corpse, his exaltation”, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the surrealist movement in Paris, held at Galeria Ottolini, Lisbon; 1976, integrated into the group “Phases”, in the international surrealist exhibition “Marvelous Freedom - Vigilance of Desire”, organized by the North American surrealist magazine Arsenal, Black Swan Gallery, Chicago ; 1977, exhibition organized by the surrealist magazine Brumes Blondes, at the invitation of its editor, the poet Laurens Van Krevel, Amsterdam; 1978, “Imagination lnternationale Ausstelung Bildnerischer Poesia”, held at the Bochum Museum, (RFA) and exhibition in homage to the poet António Maria Lisboa, organized by Cruzeiro Seixas, in Gallery of the Costa do Sol Tourism Board, Estoril; 1981 in the icono-biographical exhibition “Three Poets of Surrealism: António Maria Lisboa, Pedro Oom and Mário Henrique-Leiria”, organized by Má Cesariny river, at the National Library, Lisbon; 1986, “The Fantastic in Contemporary Portuguese Art” which took place at the Modern Art Center of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; 1992, exhibition organized by the Madrid surrealist group, Salamandra, at Estúncora Âncora, Madrid; 2003 with Cruzeiro Seixas in the exhibition: “Hands are the landscape that looks at us”, at Galeria São Mamede, Lisbon.

In 2006, the Cupertino de Miranda Foundation organized a retrospective of his plastic work, in 2009; the Berardo Museum – CCB exhibited an exhibition of his works and in 2015, the Fundação D. Luis I, in Cascais, opened the exhibition «Fragmentos, Painting and Drawing by Raúl Perez».

As an illustrator he created the covers of several books, including Julien Gracq's novel Le Chatêau d’Argol, the first Dutch edition of The Anarchist Banker< /em> by Fernando Pessoa and Julien Gracq's novel Les Rivages des Syrtes (Editora Meulenhoff, Amsterdam).