Hélio Cunha

Hélio Domingues da Cunha was born in Penha de França borough in Lisbon, the 25th of May 1948.
In 1978 he lived in Great Britain where he had his first painting experiences. In the eighties he attended master sculptor Soares Branco workshop classes.
After 1982 he produced 30 Individual Exhibitions and e participated at about 100 Group ones.

He is represented in the art collections of Lisbon Museum of Contemporary Art (Chiado Museum), Condes de Castro Guimarães Museum (Cascais), Oriente Foundation (Lisbon), Eng. António de Almeida Foundation (Porto), Portugal Telecom Foundation (Lisbon), Cupertino de Miranda Foundation (Vila Nova de Famalicão), Martins Sarmento Society (Guimarães), Walsall Metropolitan Museum (England), Bloxwich Golf Club (England), Alfa Laval Art Association (Sweeden), Luanda National Museum (Angola), Recife State Museum (Brasil) and Macau Art Museum (Chinese Republic)

Mentioned in “Art in Portugal” (Adrian Publishers), “Criarte” (Universitária Publishers), “50 Years of Portuguese Painting and Sculpture” (Universitária Publishers) e “Portuguese Contemporary Artists” ()
He has been a jury member for Artur Bual Painting and Sculpture Award 2005.
A documentary about his work, directed by Álvaro Queirós, is kept at ANIM (Portuguese Motion Picture Archive)
Texts have been dedicated to his work by the following art critics and public personalities: António Valdemar, António Victorino de Almeida, Edgardo Xavier, Eduardo Nascimento, Eurico Gonçalves, Manuel Bontempo, Margarida Botelho e Rui Mário Gonçalves.

Individual Exhibitions at Amadora Town Hall Art Gallery, Estoril Coast Tourism Council Art Gallery, Diário de Notícias Art Gallery, Vendas Novas Town Hall Auditorium, LCR Art Gallery (Sintra), Bank of Portugal (Lisbon), Lund Alfa Laval (Sweden), S. José Convent (Lagoa), Amadora Contemporary Art Centre, UNESCO Centre (Porto) and the Modern Art Gallery at the Portuguese Fine-Arts Society.

Group Exhibitions participation at Artes Plásticas magazine Art Centre, Forum Portugal Telecom, Árvore Art Centre (Porto), Foz Palace (Lisbon), Amadora Art Collections Exhibition, Alfandega of Porto Main Hall, Iosephus Art Gallery (Lisbon), Viragem Art Gallery (Cascais), Estoril Casino Art Gallery, Rodrigues Lobo Art Gallery (Leiria), Water Museum (Lisbon), II Fair of Contemporary Art (Estoril Congresses Palace), Paço da Cultura (Guarda), MAC (Movement of Contemporary Art of Lisbon), Walsall Art Gallery (England) and Belém Cultural Centre Temporary Exhibitions Art Gallery (CCB).
He took part of Homage Art Exhibitions to Artur Bual, José Ruy and Cruzeiro Seixas.

“Telecommunications Centennial Celebrations” first prize award in painting.

The art of Hélio Cunha questions the being, the dimensions of existence, suggests different courses and restructures imageries.

Aida Sousa Dias
(Sculptress, previously director of Estoril Coast Tourism Council Art Gallery)



The realm of symbols dominates Hélio Cunha's art that reaches the mysteries of occult wisdom, the enigma of the being and in the connection and relation of the sacred with the ordinary. Nevertheless, Hélio Cunha expands the field of plastic investigation, in games of shapes, signs and chromatic energies that supported the ancient world but still remain, under covered by other shapes and conceptual systems, in consecutive models of culture and civilization.

António Valdemar
(Art critic and vice-president of Lisbon Academy of Fine-Arts)



Colour is manipulated by this artist in an esthetical criteria perfectly similar to the one used by certain composers to model the tone that most experts believe to be the sound equivalence for colour.
Reasoning that way, I have no doubts to believe that we are in the presence of remarkable artist, and story teller, whose acknowledgment will enrich us all.

António Victorino de Almeida
(Maestro and composer and television presenter and creator of cultural programs)



Experimenting new approaches, codifying the language or adjusting intensity and accuracy of significance, Hélio Cunha make use of symbolic surrealism to express, in wholeness, the strength and determination of his own authenticity.

Edgardo Xavier
(Art Critic and previously director of Tempo Art Gallery in Lisbon)



Hélio Cunha has a way of reaching the poets and the symbols from the great imprisonment up to infinity. From the sharpness of the brush stroke up to the vigorous storm of affections. From the rushing in of a solitude of stars up to the frenzy and remembrance of entwined bodies

Eduardo Nascimento
(Sculptor and director of Amadora Town Hall Art Gallery)



In sets of light and shadow, perspective defines and undefines differences of scale because, so many times, what is distant, being small, suddenly becomes huge, and what is near, being big, becomes small. In this game of ambiguities apparently contradictory, Hélio Cunha masterly defies the logic of proportion.

Eurico Gonçalves
(Art critic, painter and member of the Technical Board of the Portuguese Fine Arts Society)



Universes dwelled by enigmatic silhouettes. Enigmatic and silent spaces. Timeless and mystical landscapes. Worlds of the solitude and the occult. Paradises of enchantment and wonder. This is Hélio Cunha Painting. Creator of dreams, maker of visions.


José Man
(Painter and Director of Viragem Art Gallery at Cascais)



The form and content, the combination of elements, some extraordinary and bizarre, make the work of this painter a unique example in contemporary Portuguese art. Unreal and sensual paintings that complete themselves in an illuminated privilege.


Manuel Bontempo
(Art Critic)



The use of colour in his favour, a chromatic energy that enhances his own world, while a sphere, hermetic, were the primeval combines with the future, with the values of the imaginary, with the visible world and with what we can eventually to comprehend.
The artist centers his work in the undecipherable mystery of the cosmos, were the woman has a capitol role to decode the riddle of existence and his connections with the sacred and the profane, the sacred with the status-quo.

Margarida Botelho
(Art critic and art reporter for Diário de Notícias)



Hélio Cunha's work deserves a special mention in Portuguese artistic panorama, not only by the extension of his curriculum, but mainly because of the excellence of the achieved work.

Maria João Bual Salvado
(Amadora Culture Town Councillor)



Poetic endeavor must be total or not at all exist.
Living art is the code of codes, its living art that creates them and its living art that goes on more than code.
It is reassuring to penetrate in the magical process, to start not merely dreaming, but to make others dream.


Rui Mário Gonçalves
(Art Critic Gulbenkian prize)




The eternal rebirth of a proficuous imagination, well provided by techniques and sophistications developed in a constant and witty inner dialogue, overflows in an ever original end intimate painting.



Soares Branco
(Master sculptor and jubilated teacher at Lisbon Academy of Fine-Arts)