Apresentação: Artista mulher em 1900

The conference ‘Aurélia de Souza. Women artists at the turn of the 20th century’ took place on 13, 14 and 15 April 2023, as part of the celebrations for the centenary of Aurélia de Souza’s death and following a proposal put forward by the Art History Institute (School of Social Sciences and Humanities – NOVA University) to the Soares dos Reis National Museum and the Matosinhos City Council, who were generous partners in this initiative.
After a long process that fulfilled all the requirements of a scientific congress, a Call for Chapters for an open access eBook with DOI was launched.
This publication presents the texts selected by the scientific committee, with double-blind peer review, reviewed by the respective authors and organised by the editors into five sections: ‘Aurélia by Aurélia’, ‘Après Aurélia de Souza: revisitations and developments in contemporary times’, ‘Self-representation’, ‘Women artists: counter-canonisation’ and ‘Interarts: poetry and music’. In this way, and as was our intention, Aurélia is treated in some aspects of her immense particularity, opens up the field to other artists (and also a photographer) and is put in relation with other areas of cultural studies, namely literature and music. On the other hand, the fact that Aurélia de Souza has come to interest some contemporary artists has made it possible to extend the chronological scope of this publication to contemporary times, including the ‘derivative arts’.
In the same year that the Catalogue Raisonné dedicated to Aurélia de Souza was presented, this publication aims to make a further contribution to the study and dissemination of the work of one of the most significant artists in Portuguese art, who has recently gained international recognition.