Luanda - Angola’s Vice President Bornito de Sousa received Friday in Luanda assurances on the preservation of the mural painted by artist Neves e Sousa at Luanda’s 4 de Fevereiro International Airport.
Speaking to journalists, Bornito de Sousa expressed satisfaction with the attention the Minister of Transport and the authorities are paying to the preservation of the mural”.
Bornito de Sousa said that in view of the planned facelift of airport he decided to interact with the airport and transport authorities on the need to preserve the work of art by Neves e Sousa.
The work and author
Painted by Neves e Sousa, from 1954 to 1972, the mural occupies an extension of 342 square meters inside the 4 de Fevereiro Airport.
The work portrays the peoples and ethnic groups from Angola, Cabo Verde and Guinea Bissau.
Poet and painter, Albano Silvino Gama de Carvalho das Neves e Sousa was born in 1921, in Matosinhos, and died in 1995, in São Salvador da Bahia (Brazil).
Neves e Sousa published poetry books, such as Motivos Angolanos (1946), Mahamba. Poesias 1943-1949 (1949), Muênho (1968), and is included in some anthologies, such as Antologia Poética Angolana (1963), among other works.
In 1963, he received the Commendation of the Order of Infante D. Henrique by the Government of Portugal, in 1970, the Honorary Mention - International Design Exhibition, in Rijeka (then Yugoslavia), in 1974, in Naples, Italy, the gold medal for Designers of the Ponzen Academy and, in 1993, again by the Portuguese government, the Commendation of the Order of Merit.
Pictorial art inventory
In turn, the minister of Culture, Tourism and Environment, Jomo Fortunato, said he corroborated the need to preserve the work of Neves e Sousa, as well as the inventory of Angolan pictorial art.
He stated that Neves e Sousa should be visited by tourists and that his work needs a catalog translated into several languages.
