Portugal – Books, Livros, Livres

Ó – it’s a gallery!

Walking on a cobbled street in Porto, Portugal I wandered into the Ó Galeria – a light and airy room filled with the art of Portuguese illustrators.

They were featuring the art of Mariana Malhão. So free and playful!

She just illustrated her first book – poems by Antonio Jose Forte.

In Lisbon, the shop It’s A Book   was chock full of exciting books from Portugal and around the world. If Lisbon is too far, you can visit online here.

A feast!
I bought several books and hungered for more.

Sombras by Marta Monteira shows curious interactions between people, shadows and objects. The shadows have a life of their own. Things happen, sort of.

ABC do CINEMA by Editora Triciclo (Ana Braga, Ines Machado and Tiago Guerreiro is a graphic delight – handprinted (risografia).  Each page features trivia about famous movie directors, made even more intriguing because it is in Portuguese. 

La Visite by Junko Nakamura is a wordless book – subtle and moody. It tells a loose story of cats and christmas and people. Things happen, but the narrative is winding. The story could be interpreted in many ways.

L’Orchestre by Chloe Perarnau is an oversized book. Each page is a postcard from a city somewhere in the world with a member of the orchestra somewhere on the page.

Each page has many stories, plots and subplots. Can you find Lola playing the harp in Porto?

Traveling fills me up with images, ideas, sounds and flavors. Portugal is a visually rich country. The illustration that I saw there is exciting and strong, and grows out of that rich visual history.

This image from 1956 was at the Gulbenkian Museum.

and this is newly published by Planeta Tangerina.

The specific books I bought are filled with evocative imagery and are relatively plotless – a good description of my recent trip and possibly of life.