User:Historically the first wheel to roll/Querubim Lapa

Querubim Lapa de Almeida (1925 – 2 May 2016) was a Portuguese plastic artist and teacher.

As a painter, draftsman, and engraver, and also known for his tapestry works, Querubim Lapa is most recognized as one of the most important Portuguese ceramicists, known for his innovative plastic and technical solutions, particularly in his numerous panels for public spaces (notably the panels for the Rectorate of the University of Lisbon, 1961, for Avenida 24 de Julho in Lisbon, 1994, and for the Bela Vista Station, Lisbon Metro, 1998).

Life and Work
Born in Portimão in 1925, Querubim Lapa had his first encounter with the multidisciplinary artistic world during his visit to the Portuguese World Exhibition in 1940. The following year, he attended painting classes taught by Trindade Chagas and, in 1942, enrolled in the António Arroio School of Decorative Arts, where he was a student of Lino António. That same year, he exhibited for the first time, presenting alongside colleagues Pedro Oom and Júlio Gil at the Italian Institute of Culture; this marked the beginning of many participations in group exhibitions in Portugal and abroad. During this period, he worked as an assistant to Jaime Martins Barata. After completing his studies at António Arroio in 1946, he attended the ESBAL Sculpture course from 1947 to 1950, where he was a student of Leopoldo de Almeida.

These early years of study "already reveal a clear authorial mark in his work, with a taste for clean lines and luminous work, and a predominant choice of peasant women as central figures. The neorealism of the years 45 and 46, with its series of beggars, corroborates his interest in everyday themes, be it in the Circus-inspired series of 1948, or in works like the painting 'Seamstresses' from 1949". His connection to neorealism was temporary and his work later diverged, taking more decorative paths (in terms of ceramic production), with great ingenuity in abstract or surrealistic forms.

In 1948, he collaborated on a documentary by Manuel Guimarães about the work of Soares dos Reis (for which he molded a series of sculptures of the honoree). He began an intense period of drawn, painted, and engraved production, sharing a studio on Rua Garrett with António Ayres and Lagoa Henriques. In 1950, he transferred to the Porto School (ESBAP), attending for two years and where he was a student of sculptor Barata Feyo. Returning to Lisbon, in 1953 he completed the Special Sculpture Course at ESBAL (in 1978 he would finish the Painting course), thus beginning his career as a secondary school teacher.

In parallel with teaching, in 1954 he began working as a ceramist at the Viúva Lamego Ceramic Factory, Lisbon, where he was given studio space; he developed panels that were integrated into architectural works by Raúl Chorão Ramalho (Restelo Shopping Center) and Francisco da Conceição Silva (Minho Warehouses, Moçamedes, Angola).

In 1955, he collaborated with painter Lino António and, at his invitation, began teaching that same year at the António Arroio Secondary School, where he directed the workshops. Involved from the beginning in the project of the Gravura – Cooperative Society of Portuguese Engravers, he held his first solo exhibition there in 1960, displaying painting, engraving, and ceramics. He decorated the Loja das Meias (Lisbon), at the invitation of Architect Carlos Tojal. Following his intervention at the Hotel Ritz at the end of the 1950s, Jorge Ferreira Chaves invited him to create two polychrome ceramic panels for the Mexicana Pastry Shop (1961).

In the 1960s, he abandoned painting, only to return to it in the mid-1970s, simultaneously pausing his ceramic creation, an area in which he had developed extensive technical and formal experimentation, "taking further the abstract research he had started in painting at the end of the previous decade". If between 1956 and 1973, ceramics almost exclusively absorbed him, "in the 70s, a trip through museums and artists' studios in Europe, made him return to the desire to paint, stating then that ceramics seemed, at the time, limited. After creating a series of paintings in homage to the Water Lilies by Monet in 1974, a new highly politicized phase emerged in the last years of the decade (1974-78), showing a 'painter of intervention' — as he defines himself".

Over the last decades, he returned to a path more clearly dedicated to ceramics, which has been the subject of various studies and exhibitions, notably his participation in significant group exhibitions promoted by the National Tile Museum (1978; 1991) and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (1981; 1982), and his retrospective exhibition at the National Tile Museum (1994).

In 1986, Querubim Lapa won the Lisbon City Council Tile Prize with the panel at the south entrance of the Bank of Portugal.

On June 10, 2015, he was made a Grand Officer of the Military Order of Saint James of the Sword.

He died on May 2, 2016, in Lisbon, following respiratory complications from a stroke.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

 * 1960 – Gravura Art Gallery (inaugural exhibition), Lisbon.
 * 1994 – National Tile Museum, Lisbon.

Group exhibitions (selection)

 * 1942 – Italian Institute of Culture, Lisbon.
 * 1948 – 12th Modern Art Exhibition, S.N.I., Lisbon.

Collections
His works are represented in public and private collections, including: Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Chiado Museum; National Museum of Soares dos Reis; National Tile Museum; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Ceramic Panels
Querubim Lapa executed numerous ceramic works, among which the following can be highlighted:


 * Patterned tiles of the lower galleries of Restelo Shopping Center, Lisbon (1954).