José Augusto França interviewed by Ana Tostões

Abstract

On April 2016, Ana Tostões interviewed Professor José-Augusto França, the Portuguese modern art researcher of reference on the contemporary era, in order to discuss the key modern structure that made the shift towards a Modern Lisbon. José-Augusto França (b. 1922, Tomar) is historian, sociologist and critic of art. He has a graduation in Historical and Philosophical Sciences (1944, Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon), a PhD in History (1962, Paris-Sorbonne University, Une Ville des Lumères: la Lisbonne de Pombal), a diploma on Sociology of the Art (1963, L'Art et la Société Portugaise au XXè siècle) and a PhD in Letters (1969, Paris-Sorbonne University, Le Romantisme au Portugal). He is professor emeritus of the Nova University of Lisbon, where he created the first Art History masters of the country (1976). He was Director of the Portuguese Cultural Center of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Paris (1983), President of the National Academy of Fine Arts (1985) and member of the UNESCO Comité du Patrimoine Mondial. He is a reference author in the field of visual and cultural arts in Portugal, being the first one identifying and presenting modern architecture in Portugal in his Arte em Portugal no Século XX (1974). Among his works stand out studies on art in Portugal in the 19th and 20th centuries, as several volumes of essays on historical, sociological and aesthetic reflection on contemporary art issues. He has received the Medal of Honor of the City of Lisbon (1992), the Grand Officer (1991) and the Grand Cross (2006) of the Infante D. Henrique Order and the Grand Cross of the Order of Public Instruction (1992).