Augusto Barros Ferreira, known as Augusto Barros or simply Barros, was a Portuguese painter. He was born on August 7, 1929, in Lisbon, Portugal, and he died on February 10, 1998, also in Lisbon. He became known as an abstractionist painter. Barros was an important and well-known figure in the Paris district of Saint-Germain-des-Prés during the 1970s. Augusto Barros began painting at age 10 after being encouraged by a painter neighbor. As a teenager he spent time by the port of Lisbon, dreaming of going to the American continent, and he taught himself English through books and conversations with travelers—skills that later helped him with studies in Germany. In 1952 he studied painting and drawing in Portugal under Raimundo Machado da Luz, then worked as a model maker. He married Helena Ferreira, and they had two children, before he exhibited his work publicly in 1959 and received a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to study in Germany, since he felt he could not fully develop as an artist in Portugal at the time. In 1961, Augusto Barros moved to Hamburg, Germany, to study at the University of Fine Arts, while his wife and children stayed in Portugal. He spent almost three years there, studying under master Hans Thiemann, and his work was later compared to the style of Paul Klee. In 1962, he held his first solo exhibition in Germany, which was very successful and praised by major newspapers for its “rigor, austerity” and “sensuality.” In 1963, Augusto Barros moved from Germany to Paris’s Saint-Germain-des-Prés, drawn by its artistic energy and “bohemian” freedom. He quickly built lasting friendships with artists such as Serge Poliakoff, Vieira da Silva, and Árpád Szenes, held his first solo exhibition in 1963, and began receiving attention in major French newspapers and magazines. Over the following years, he met key cultural figures including the critic Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, worked with well-known artists, and continued to publish and exhibit, while finally bringing his wife and children to Paris in 1969. Despite his flourishing career, his bohemian lifestyle led to his divorce in 1976, and he never remarried. In the 1980s, Augusto Barros splits his time between France and Portugal, living in Porto Salvo when he is in Portugal to be closer to his daughter Virginia and sister Helena. However, his health quickly worsens as his bohemian lifestyle catches up with him, including heavy daily smoking. He continues to work and be recognized through exhibitions, media interviews, and honors such as representing Portugal in Seoul in 1988, and he finally returns to Portugal in the early 1990s. Barros dies in Lisbon on February 10, 1998, aged 68, after holding 24 solo exhibitions and taking part in 38 group shows.

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