Maria Helena Vieira da Silva

Saskatchewan NAC Auction House Biography and Notes

Maria Helena Vieira da Silva was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1908. By the age of 11 she had begun studying drawing and painting at the Academia de Belas-Artes in Lisbon, and in her teens studied with such notable artists as Fernand Leger, Emilia dos Santos Braga, Antoine Bourdelle and Stanley William Hayter. In 1928 she moved to Paris, and by 1930 was exhibiting her work, receiving the nation's Grand Prix National des Arts in 1966. She was named to the Legion of Honour in 1979. Major exhibitions of her work were held at the Gulbenkain Museum (Lisbon) and the Grand Palais (Paris), and her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (Paris), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Tate Gallery (London), National Gallery of Canada, San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim Museum (New York). Maria Helena Vieira da Silva died in Paris in 1992.