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Fernando Lemos, the Multiple Artist
It is a great honor for the Instituto Moreira Salles to present an exhibition drawn from Fernando Lemos’s collection, held and preserved by this institution. Lemos was a singular artist in his plurality, in which he himself recognized a distinctly Pessoan heteronymy. Born in Lisbon in 1926, he emigrated to Brazil in 1953, fleeing from the Salazar dictatorship, in search of the freedom he needed to breathe and work in the countless pursuits to which he devoted himself over the course of his life, later experiencing another dictatorship in the country that had welcomed him, one he would resist alongside his Brazilian friends. In a documentary dedicated to him, Fernando Lemos confesses: "I was a student, locksmith, joiner, upholsterer, lithographic printer, designer, publicist, teacher, painter, photographer, harmonica player, emigrant, exile, museum director, advisor to ministers, researcher, journalist, poet, competition juror, advisor to art museums, commissioner of international events, industrial fair designer, set designer, father of children, scholarship holder, and I have two homelands, one that made me and another that I help make. As you can see, I am another Portuguese looking for something better."
When he arrived in Brazil, Lemos was the only photographer associated with Portuguese Surrealism and also the first artist in Portugal to use photography as a medium for constructing complex images, in an artistic program that subverted the nature of the photographic genre, allowing him to venture into the visual layout of the world, which he would also explore through his work in Brazil as a graphic designer and editor. A son of proletarians, the artist proudly embraced his condition as a "visual worker", in the multiple tasks to which he dedicated himself, expressing in this plurality the nature of an ideal, of a life and art project. That is why the title, chosen by Thyago Nogueira, curator of the exhibition and coordinator of the Contemporary Art collection of the Instituto Moreira Salles, from verses by Lemos himself, is so fitting: "The more I desire, the more I invent what I see." We express our gratitude to him. Our thanks also extend to everyone who, across the various areas of IMS, contributed decisively to the project now being presented. We owe to the exhibition’s curatorial team the valuable demonstration of the importance of the relationship between concealment and disclosure across the artist’s imagery and working methods, a relationship made particularly explicit through the incessant additions, juxtapositions, and overlaps that we find not only in his photography, but also in his poetry, drawing, painting, and multiple forms of life.
We offer special recognition to Beatrix Overmeer, Fernando Lemos’s partner, for her close and sensitive involvement throughout the project. We likewise acknowledge the invaluable contribution of Fernando Lemos’s sons and daughters – Anamaria, José Augusto, Maria Teresa, Paola, and Rodrigo – which makes this exhibition the outcome of a grammar of affections that Lemos always knew how to foster through his enthusiasm for life.
In the present context of this exhibition, it is impossible to disguise the sense of longing that Fernando Lemos leaves us with on both sides of the Atlantic. Proof of this is the fact that the exhibition forms part of the celebration of the centenary of the artist’s birth, led in Brazil by IMS and in Portugal by the Cupertino de Miranda Foundation, which we salute while expressing our gratitude to all its directors and curators. In his own words, Lemos was aware that "the emigrant only finds fulfillment if he finds his new territory. And I realized this was my new territory. I felt among free people." This exhibition bears witness to that unceasing search for freedom and offers food for thought to all those who can now visit it.
Board of Directors of Instituto Moreira Salles
The More I Desire,
The More I Invent
What I See
Thyago Nogueira, curator and coordinator of the Contemporary Art area at Instituto Moreira Salles
Fernando Lemos was an artist of many talents, which he explored through photography, poetry, drawing, and graphic design, among other forms of expression.
Lemos was born in Lisbon in 1926 into a family of modest means. His father, a carpenter and sailor, and his mother, a lacemaker and domestic worker, were at the root of his interest in manual arts. As an infant, Lemos contracted polio, which led him to face a tough routine of treatments, with lifelong effects. "Despite my disability, I had to do something, not to be better than anyone, but to show that I was also capable of doing it," he said.
During his youth, he became close to a revolutionary generation that found in Surrealist and Communist manifestos a path to confront bourgeois art, the post-war depression and the repression of the Portuguese Estado Novo (1933-1974). From an early age, he became interested in exploring dreams and the unconscious, automatic writing and chance, which he pursued with humor and irreverence in an effort to disclose meanings that transcended reality. But the ideals of communion and freedom of those young people did not come true, and the artist went into exile in Brazil in 1953. Settled in São Paulo, he became a naturalized Brazilian in 1960. "Brazil gave me everything that was stolen from me and not returned," he said.
This exhibition celebrates the centenary of Fernando Lemos’s birth and presents for the first time his archive, deposited at Instituto Moreira Salles in 2019, just before the artist’s death. This intimate collection, together with the material preserved by the family, reveals the artist’s thinking in sketches and finished works, without the need to establish boundaries.
Over more than 70 years of his career, Lemos was a worker of art. His simple and direct gestures brought transparency to artistic languages in the search for autonomy and freedom. In photography, in drawing and in poetry, he developed a common syntax, which allowed him to counterpose, juxtapose and multiply elements until he found new meanings – as in the poem that lends its title to the exhibition. Lemos made desire his magnifying glass and fuel.
As the decades passed, however, he renewed his interest in diffuse and opaque forms, which helped him face fears and nightmares, physical limitations and advancing age. "Loneliness is a trench, it is perhaps the only language capable of facing death itself," he wrote.
Lemos was also active in the political resistance and in the organization of cultural institutions, which he considered fundamental pillars of democracy.
"If you are an artist, you are doing something that is for all. It is for the other. If the other is not also free to receive, neither are you free to do. Freedom is not a badge. Freedom is something that binds us, that makes us breathe and becomes mandatory; it is collective," he said.
Imbued with surrealist freedom, Fernando Lemos explored several languages. Throughout his life, however, drawing and poetry were central practices.
In the early 1950s, Lemos produced many drawings in parallel with paintings, poems and photographs. "On white paper/ the promise hurts/ open," he wrote in an untitled poem. In a series of drawings from 1951, creatures with long-necked bodies and walking phalluses exhibit humorous eroticism and reveal an artist who faced the realism of the art academies.
Under the nose of the Portuguese Estado Novo, working with figuration was a risk, since certain themes were read as adherence to the values of the regime, while others were seen as an affront to the conservatism promoted by the government. "The world was a coin turning towards the precipice," he noted in another poem.
In 1953, the fear of repression, commanded by the dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, made Lemos go into exile in Brazil in search of work. "Life is meant exactly to be broadened, since they try to narrow it more and more," he wrote. His arrival in Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of a democratic society, coincided with the resumption of figurative drawing, embodied in exuberant freedom.
A bearded head is supported by legs with lit wicks; spectacle temples are transformed into arms, and eyelids, into umbrellas; faces appear from the front and from the side at the same time, as in cubist experiments and in multiple photographic exposures. Lemos makes the body a free territory and adds to reality what it lacks, in search of an expression closer to the lived experience.
The first years in Brazil took a toll on the artist. "I didn't sleep because hunger wouldn't let me, and neither would the cockroaches in the room where I lived," he said. Fernando Lemos worked as an illustrator for magazines such as Manchete and newspapers such as O Estado de S. Paulo. In 1954, he moved from Rio to São Paulo to work on the city's Quadricentennial celebrations.
In a 1955 drawing, Lemos abandons the sensuality of bodies to fit faces into cubist squares and rectangles, watched over by bunches of eyes. In the same period, bodies dissolve in brushstrokes, as if exposing their skeletal and joint structures.
Gradually, Lemos left figuration aside and produced dozens of drawings in which he explores the agility of the strokes and the alternation of concave and convex, full and empty. The drawing gains rhythm and melody, in an approximation to musical notation. "Seeing is a form of listening," he wrote.
"Drawing is in everything. Writing is made of words, words and letters are made of drawings. Drawing writes; it invented letters to express itself," Fernando Lemos stated.
Beginning in the 1950s, Lemos became interested in the border between drawing and writing, which led him to study Japanese calligraphy and work with symbols and signs.
In small sketches of continuous strokes, the line twirls on itself to build three-dimensional forms on the flat surface of the paper. Titles such as O morcego pacato [The Peaceful Bat], O brinquedo mortífero [The Deadly Toy], and O chapéu abandonado [The Abandoned Hat] add humor and mystery to the graphic syntheses. The word, an abstract sign, gives concreteness to the drawing, in a fruitful dialogue between text and image, which will accompany the artist throughout his life.
Are what we see things or traces? It doesn't matter. Drawing enables imagination to disclose desires and reveal intrinsic truths. Lemos studied the quantum nature of the line, in search of its fundamental atoms.
"How to baptise drawing/ destroyer of new fire/ artery and raw material," he wrote in the poem "Bico de pena inventado" [Invented Pen Nib]. His faith in drawing remained unshaken: "With drawing a revolution is made, because drawing has precision, as in an electrocardiogram, it has no retouching," he commented, comparing the incisiveness of drawing to the distended time of painting.
Over the years, Fernando Lemos moved away from the graphic clarity and analytical construction of previous decades to resume his interest in diffuse stains and opaque layers, hiding what he had disclosed. He was haunted by dreams and nightmares, which overlaid episodes of his life: "When I wake up, I realize that the image had already been with me for a long time. I have some control over it, but these moments are still very brief, lasting only a few seconds, and they condense more than 60 years of my history. This is terrible, even psychologically. That's why I'm prepared for everything, including madness," he revealed.
Human figures dissolve into abstract forms. In Desenho só, desenho a sós [Drawing Alone, Drawing in Solitude] (2013), Lemos creates nocturnal scenes on the white of the paper, as if glimpsing the silhouettes of the Platonic caves. In Sono/dormires/despertares [Sleep/Sleepings/Awakenings] (2015), he elaborates visual enigmas around spiders, horses, fishermen and chained figures, as if daydreaming. "The drawings, executed early in the morning, are free and automatic, arising from the dreams of the previous night. Each scene gives the impression of being able to be explained, but reveals itself to be surprising and inexplicable," he declared.
In Cor do vento [Color of the Wind], Saudades do automóvel [Longing for the Automobile] and Passagem a limpo [Clean Copy], made in 2019, Lemos creates visions in which vibrant colors emanate from a dense black mass. "No one saw the fallen shadow that crossed the light," he wrote in the poem "Eclipse sem data" [Undated Eclipse].
In the 1940s, living in Lisbon, Fernando Lemos studied lithography, graphic design and watercolor. On a trip to the Berlengas Islands, to the northwest of the city, he had his epiphanic encounter with photography. "There I realized that the sea and the water worked like a lens; they were an accumulation of transparencies, and I had an insight into the nature of photography and its potential transparency. Just like painting, automatic writing and dreams, photography is a form of transparency of the unconscious, of revelation," he explained. Lemos bought a Flexaret camera for medium-format film and photographed friends and acquaintances.
From 1949 to 1952, he produced one of the most important bodies of photographic work in Portuguese Surrealism, manipulating the camera, light, and photographic silver. In some of the photographs, it is the unexpected framing that makes the snapshot surprising; in others, it is the photographer who elicits the performance of his friends. Hands, heads, legs and daggers, so dear to the surrealists, are transformed into characters in photographs. Bringing strange objects closer together or juxtaposing images were surrealist strategies to go beyond objective reality and disclose meanings. They were also shrewd strategies for dealing with subjects forbidden by the dictatorship due to moral or political restrictions.
In 1945, the creation of the Portuguese Estado Novo police – known as PIDE – which investigated, arrested and killed opponents of the regime, made the streets an increasingly risky space, forcing artists and writers to retreat to the studios.
"My experience in Portugal was linked to the Communist Party, which I never joined. There, I was always confined to the offices, never on the street, as I would have liked. I could not put up posters, hand out leaflets, face the police, because I had some difficulty due to polio, which I had as a child. I was lame, and many friends were killed in these activities. In the face of this adversity, I wanted to go further, without wanting to be better than the other comrades," he said.
In 1962, Fernando Lemos founded the children's publishing house Giroflé in São Paulo, in partnership with the writer Sidónio Muralha. The small publishing house played a pioneering role in bringing together renowned writers and artists to produce books, educational materials, and supplementary ressources for children.
"We set up a cooperative system of participation, and we had the support of many intellectuals and businessmen linked to culture," he recalled. "The collaborators were artists and writers, such as Fanny Abramovich, Willys de Castro, Aldemir Martins. Darcy Ribeiro was so enthusiastic about the project that he placed an order for the Book Institute, in Brasília, that was never fulfilled. We even produced a collection of postcards with children’s drawings that we selected from public schools in the city, and the resulting proceeds were returned to the school itself," he said.
"They were idealized projects, great ideas that were short-lived. After the military coup of 1964, the projects were abandoned. Two years later, the dream ended before it was consolidated," he concluded.
Fernando Lemos was part of the team of the newspaper Portugal Democrático [Democratic Portugal], founded in 1956. The newspaper, run by Portuguese exiles living in Brazil, was an organ of political resistance, which brought together artists and thinkers to confront the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar.
In Lemos's caricatures published in 1959, Salazar appears as a huge black rat, which shares the cheese of death or dives into the sewer of a toilet.
Lemos returned to cartoons and caricatures shortly after the Carnation Revolution, which overthrew the Portuguese dictatorship on April 25, 1974. His drawings directly criticized the PIDE, Portugal's domestic and foreign policy and the uncertainties of the democratic process. "I, who did violence to myself so that I would no longer even miss Portugal, and no longer counted on it, now have to do violence to myself again to believe that I can bring it, at least, into my professional life. Because it would be difficult for me to adapt to Portugal again," he declared.
The figure of the rat became a metaphor for authoritarian leaders and groups, as in the patrol that flies with Nazi propellers or in the manuscript of an unpublished book created in collaboration with the Portuguese writer Sidónio Muralha. "How many rats there were in this nation! Expensive rats, cheap rats, rats in the living room or lobby," says the manuscript. "They all danced paw in paw and the country's cheese was shared. Between bites and between kicks, because the more rats, the more they ate," he continues.
The news of the Carnation Revolution also gave rise to a set of daily drawings known as 25 de Abril, promessa de figuras [April 25, Promise of Figures]. With a thick and firm line, Lemos gave life to walking legs, giant heads and other disjointed creatures, with menacing eyes and claws. The overlapping of strokes conveys the euphoria and nervousness that swept through Portugal with the overthrow of the dictatorship and the struggles for democratic stability.
Angelo Manjabosco, Carolina Natividade da Cruz, Laura Sapucaia, Rosely Nakagawa, and Thyago Nogueira
1926
José Fernandes de Lemos is born in Lisbon on May 3, 1926, the only son of José de Lemos, a carpenter and amateur musician, and Palmira da Conceição Fernandes de Lemos, lacemaker and domestic worker. Subsequently, he would adopt Fernando Lemos as his name. On May 28, 1926, a military coup establishes a dictatorship in Portugal. António de Oliveira Salazar takes on the presidency of the Council of Ministers in 1932 and, in the following year, establishes the Estado Novo, an authoritarian, conservative, and nationalist regime. In 1938, Lemos enters the graphic arts course at António Arroio School of Decorative Arts, which he attends until 1943. In 1947, he studies watercolor at the National Society of Fine Arts, where he participates in the 2a Exposição Geral de Artes Plásticas [2nd General Exhibition of Visual Arts].
1949
He works as a graphic designer and attends a studio on Avenida da Liberdade, where he meets with members of the Portuguese surrealist group. After a trip to the Berlengas Islands with painter Marcelino Vespeira, he begins to photograph with a Flexaret 6x6 camera. He starts a series of surrealist photographs, in which he records friends and acquaintances. In 1952, he exhibits with Fernando de Azevedo and Marcelino Vespeira at Casa Jalco, a furniture store in the Chiado neighborhood. He collaborates with the magazine Unicórnio, founded by historian José-Augusto França, with whom he creates the March Gallery, where he holds the exhibition Fotografias de várias coisas [Photographs of Various Things] (1952) and participates in the collective exhibition 20 pintores portugueses contemporâneos [20 Contemporary Portuguese Painters] (1952). He publishes Teclado universal [Universal Keyboard] (1953) in the collection Cadernos de Poesia [Poetry Booklets], directed by França and the poet Jorge de Sena.
1953
To escape repression, Lemos emigrates to Brazil in 1953. He settles in Rio de Janeiro, where he exhibits photographs at the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio, 1953) and collaborates with magazines Sombra and Manchete. He exhibits at the II São Paulo Biennial (1953). In 1954 he moves to São Paulo, invited by Professor Jaime Cortesão, to work on the organization of the City Quadricentennial, where he designs a mural about the growth of the city, collaborates with a panel by Manuel Lapa, and assists in the exhibition design. He exhibits drawings at March Gallery (1954) and at Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM-SP, 1954). In 1954, he obtains definitive permission to reside in Brazil.
1955
He participates in the III, IV, and V São Paulo Biennial. In the V Biennial, he receives the Acquisition Award for one of his drawings. He is a member of the team of the newspaper Portugal Democrático [Democratic Portugal], composed of Portuguese political exiles. He marries Claudia Thereza Guimarães de Lemos. He holds drawing exhibitions at MAM-SP (1956) and at the Association of Friends of MAM-SP (1959). He receives the MAM-SP Contemporary Art Award in the Drawing category (1956). From 1956 to 1963, contributes illustrations to the Suplemento Literário de O Estado de S. Paulo. He launches the book Recado [Message] (1960), coauthored with Claus Bergner and Li-Kioko, at São Luís Art Gallery.
He becomes a naturalized Brazilian citizen in 1960.
1961
In partnership with architect Cyro Marx, he designs the exhibition layout for Barroco no Brasil [Baroque in Brazil], the inaugural exhibition of the Museum of Brazilian Art (1961). He participates in the VI São Paulo Biennial (1961). In 1962, he founds the children's publishing house Giroflé, in partnership with Sidónio Muralha and Fernando Correia da Silva. He illustrates A televisão da bicharada [The Animals’ Television] (1962), the first of five publications of the publishing house. In 1962, invited by Professor Lourival Gomes Machado, director of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at USP (FAU-USP), he works as an assistant at the university. In 1963, he receives a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon) to travel to Japan. He stays six months in the country, where he attends calligraphers’ studios, collaborates with art and architecture magazines, and participates in the decoration of the Brazilian Pavilion at the 5th Tokyo Fair.
1964
On April 1, 1964, a civil-military coup deposes President João Goulart and establishes a dictatorship in Brazil. He wins the TAP (Portuguese Air Transport) competition in 1964 to create tapestries for stores in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In the same year, Giroflé closes its activities, and Lemos steps down from his position at FAU-USP. He participates as a juror and artist at the VIII São Paulo Biennial (1965). In the same year, he becomes a partner of Maitiry Creation Studio, invited by writer Audálio Dantas and photographer George Torok. Artist Aldemir Martins, photojournalist Paulo Namorado, photographer Luis Autuori, filmmaker Jorge Bodanzky, and Décio Pignatari collaborate with the studio.
He takes part in the foundation of the Brazilian Association of Industrial Design (ABDI) in 1966, of which he becomes president (1968-1969). Between 1964 and 1968, he collaborates with prints for Rhodia collections. In 1968, the Institutional Act No. 5 (AI-5) intensifies the repression of the regime. He and Jorge Bodanzky act as directors of photography on the film Compasso de espera [Waiting Period] (1969), by Antunes Filho. He organizes the 1st International Biennial of Industrial Design, held at MAM Rio (1968). He marries for the second time in 1970, to Beatrix Overmeer.
1973
He works as technical director of MAM-SP (1973), in the information center of the Secretariat of Culture of the Municipality of São Paulo (1973) and in the visual programming of the new building code (1973). In 1975, he takes over the supervision of the Graphic Arts area of IDART (Department of Artistic Information and Documentation), where he produces the first research published by the department: A vinheta: da iluminura à carroçaria de caminhão, 1976-1980 [The Vignette: From the Illumination to the Truck Body]. He works as a graphic design consultant for the Arte Global Gallery, where he exhibits the series TV/75 (1975). He participates in the XV International Biennial of São Paulo (1979) and in the exhibition A fotografia na arte moderna portuguesa [Photography in Portuguese Modern Art], at the Porto Contemporary Art Center (1977), where he revisits his surrealist photographs.
On April 25, 1974, the Carnation Revolution inaugurates the process of democratic transition in Portugal, after 48 years of dictatorship. Fernando Lemos visits Portugal in 1975, after 22 years in exile. In Brazil, the process of political opening begins. In 1978, the government revokes AI-5 and, in 1979, the Amnesty Law is enacted.
1982
In 1982, the IDART collection begins to be managed by the São Paulo Cultural Center (CCSP). Fernando Lemos takes over the direction of the CCSP from March to August 1983, succeeding architect Ricardo Ohtake. He exhibits the series Desenho/memórias [Drawing/Memories]. The Diretas Já movement begins in 1983. In 1985, he joins artists in Fernando Henrique Cardoso's campaign for mayor of São Paulo. He publishes the book of poetry Cá & lá [Here & There] (1985), in which he reflects on his emigration to Brazil. He works as a visual programmer on the construction of the Latin America Memorial, in 1987. In 1988, Brazil promulgates its democratic Constitution.
1991
He participates in the group exhibition Cidadania: 200 anos da Declaração dos Direitos do Homem e do Cidadão [Citizenship: 200 Years of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen] (1991). He creates the ceramic panel Des-aceleração [De-acceleration], at Brigadeiro Metro station in São Paulo (1991). He presents the exhibition Fernando Lemos. Le Mois de la Photo à Paris: novembre 1992 at the Calouste Gulbenkian Cultural Center in Paris. Two years later, the exhibition À sombra da luz [In the Shadow of Light] resumes his surrealist photographic production (1949-1952), at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, and his photographic work will be exhibited in 1998 in Germany, Spain, and Morocco. He participates in the exhibition Greenpeace: 50 anos de bomba atômica [Greenpeace: 50 Years of the Atomic Bomb] (1995) and in the project Contato [Contact] (1995), an initiative to raise awareness about the AIDS epidemic promoted by SESC São Paulo. In 1997, together with Luso-Brazilian artists and personalities, he organizes the April 25 Movement for the Liberation of East Timor.
2000
He publishes the book Retratos de quem [Portraits of Whom] (2000). He receives the National Photography Award of the Portuguese Photography Center (2001), the Porto Seguro Special Photography Award (2004) and the Banif Consagração Painting Award (2008). He organizes the book A missão portuguesa [The Portuguese Mission] (2003), with architect Rui Moreira Leite, and publishes Na casca do ovo, o princípio do design industrial [In the Eggshell, the Principle of Industrial Design] (2003). He holds the photography exhibitions À sombra da luz, à luz da sombra [In the Shadow of Light, in the Light of Shadow], at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo (2004); Preto e branco [Black and White] (2008), at Olido Gallery, organized by CCSP; Fernando Lemos e o surrealismo [Fernando Lemos and Surrealism], at the Sintra Museum of Modern Art (2005); and Fernando Lemos: alguns amigos, 1949-1951 [Fernando Lemos: Some Friends], at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2004). He publishes the monograph Percurso [Trajectory] (2010). He exhibits the series Ex-fotos [Ex-Photos] (2001-2009) and Isto é isto [This Is This] (2007-2008), at the Arpad Szenes Foundation in 2010. The documentaries Fernando Lemos: atrás da imagem [Fernando Lemos: Behind the Image] (2006), by Guilherme Coelho, and Luz teimosa [Stubborn Light] (2010), by Luís Alves de Matos, are released.
2011
He holds the exhibitions Eu sou fotografia [I Am Photography] (2011), at the Cupertino de Miranda Foundation; Lá e cá [There and Here] (2011), at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; Desenho diacrónico [Diachronic Drawing] (2011), with poetry by Adolfo Luxúria Canibal, in Lisbon; Medo-a-medo [Fear by Fear] (2013), at Fass Gallery; and O real como enigma [The Real as Enigma] (2015), at Millan Gallery. He releases the book Meu gráfico binário [My Binary Graphic] (2014), on the occasion of an exhibition at the Consulate General of Portugal in São Paulo. He receives the APCA Grand Critics Award in Visual Arts (2016). He illustrates A desumanização [The Dehumanization] (2017), by Valter Hugo Mãe. He publishes Fernando Lemos: Hilda Hilst (2018), organized by Augusto Massi, with his photographs of the writer. The documentaries Fernando Lemos: como, não é um retrato? [Fernando Lemos: What, Isn’t It a Portrait?], by Jorge Silva Melo (2018), and Mais a mais ou menos [More and More or Less], by Ana Angélica Costa and Fernando Petermann (2019), are released.
2019
In 2019, the Instituto Moreira Salles acquires his archive with photographs, drawings and documents. The exhibitions Fernando Lemos: designer at the Museum of Design and Fashion in Lisbon, and Fernando Lemos – Mais a mais ou menos [Fernando Lemos – More and More or Less], at SESC Bom Retiro, are held. The book Fernando Lemos: poesia [Fernando Lemos: Poetry] is published under the coordination of Valter Hugo Mãe. He remains active until his death in 2019. After his death, his work is the subject of exhibitions O calígrafo ocidental: Fernando Lemos e o Japão [The Western Calligrapher: Fernando Lemos and Japan] (2024), at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and As imagens que nos olham: Fernando Lemos [The Images That Look at Us: Fernando Lemos] (2026), at the Cupertino de Miranda Foundation; and books Japão [Japan], organized by Rosely Nakagawa, Correspondência: Fernando Lemos e Jorge de Sena [Correspondence: Fernando Lemos and Jorge de Sena] (2022), organized by Isabel de Sena and Rui Moreira Leite, and Isto não é uma biografia – Fernando Lemos 1926-2019 [This Is Not a Biography – Fernando Lemos] (2026), by Tania Martuscelli.
2026
The exhibition Quanto mais desejo, mais invento o que vejo, Fernando Lemos [The More I Desire, the More I Invent What I See, Fernando Lemos] opens at the Instituto Moreira Salles in São Paulo.