Alberto Caetano, an architect who donated 367 works to the State, died

“ Malberto Caetano, the architect and extraordinary collector who donated his collection to the state. Leaves a unique brand that we recognize with the Medal of Cultural Merit in March this year”, can be read in the official account of Minister Margarida Balseiro Lopes in the X network.

In social networks, the messages were multiplied to lament the death of the collector, by artists, galerists and institutions, as was the case of the Museum of Chiado, which said that Alberto Caetano’s generosity “marked forever” his history.

“ Over the decades it has gathered a unique collection, built with knowledge, dedication and deep proximity to artists. His donation to the [National Museum of Contemporary Art – Chiado Museum] was a gesture of extraordinary importance to the Portuguese cultural heritage, enriching in a lasting way the collections of the Museum and ensuring that this legacy can be studied, preserved and shared with all. His name will remain linked to the Museum and future generations that will find in these works a space of discovery, memory and inspiration”, reads in the message published by the institution.

On social network Instagram, in a message to inform of the death of Alberto Caetano, it is indicated that the wake will take place on Wednesday, from 9:30 am in the Basilica of the Star, in Lisbon, with celebration at 14:45 p.m.

In March of this year, the Government awarded him the Medal of Cultural Merit following the donation, “without counterparts”, to the Portuguese State, of its private collection, composed of 367 works of painting, drawing, engraving, sculpture and photography, as indicated at the time, a statement from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport.

This “philanthropic management, rare for its size and impact on the national cultural landscape, reinforces the country’s artistic heritage and says Alberto Caetano as a reference figure in Portuguese cultural life”, he adds.

Formation architect Alberto Caetano has built, over the past five decades, a particular collection of modern and contemporary art “of extraordinary coherence and diversity, the result of a close and continuous relationship with countless artists”.

Known for reflecting “a deeply personal and relational artistic vision”, Alberto Caetano’s art collection brings together works by artists such as Ana Jotta, Gaëtan, Miguel Ângelo Rocha, Luísa Correia Pereira, Rui Chafes, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Mário Cesariny, Joaquim Rodrigo, Manuel Lapa, Salette Tavares, Jorge Martins and Diogo Evangelista, among others.

Alberto Caetano was born in Lisbon in 1959, and graduated in architecture from the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University of Lisbon in 1983, where he would teach between 1992 and 2011, about two decades, developing in parallel design activity, plastic arts and project.

Since the mid-1980s he has worked in the areas of recovery, architecture and design, keeping his own studio in Lisbon since 1990, with special attention to the relationship between poetic experience of space, constructive rigor and precision of design, and also participated in collective and individual exhibitions of plastic arts between 1975 and 1991.