"People of Words - Calligraphic Portraits of Portuguese Language Poets"

By Daniel Dias, this collection features 26 portraits of authors such as Fernando Pessoa, Zeca Afonso, Natália Correia, among others. Admission is free.

In 2015, Daniel Dias started a collection of portraits of Lusophone poets with the intention of paying homage to deceased poets he had always admired. It was a pretext to revisit poets he already knew - some of them personally - and to get to know others in more depth. At the same time, he wanted, through this work, to praise the great Portuguese language that he had always felt, like Pessoa, to be his true homeland.

The project began timidly: The method adopted - which involved multiple rehearsals and hesitations - was to draw a portrait of each of the poets from their own poems. The author first immersed himself in the poets' work and then, concentrating on their images, "calligraphed" their portraits. Each line or stain that defined the poets' faces was made up of his own verses. In this way, the author experienced a kind of "sensation of diving" into the heart of each poet and "absorbing" all their content, reality and drama.

The first edition of "Gente de Palavras" consisted of twenty portraits. The collection grew and there was a second with thirty, and finally a third - the current one - with forty. The various editions were exhibited in various places, in Lisbon and the Algarve. Each edition was always meant to be the last, but the poets who appear always seem to be crying out for new companions: At this point there are already a few new ones who are waiting for the chance to show themselves...

Author's note

"My homeland is the Portuguese language," says Pessoa. And that's how I feel too. It always has been. Language is made up of words that make up the filigree of emotions, ideas, memories, myths and realities that constitute the idiosyncrasy of a people or a country.

“People of words” is my tribute to Portuguese-speaking poets from all eras and corners of the world. The idea of portraying them in their own words, shaping them and enveloping them in their own poetry seemed to me to be a simple but affectionate way of remembering our finest “People of words.”

Daniel Dias

 About the author

Daniel Dias was born in 1945. He attended various courses and levels of education, always with a special focus on the arts and communication. Early on, however - for reasons of both his life path and his character - he positioned himself as "intellectually non-aligned", openly self-taught and entrepreneurial.

He considers himself a free spirit, eclectic, progressive, self-determined, a lover of knowledge and truth, averse to illusions - like many of the poets he portrays - and always fascinated by life.