2nd General Exhibition of Visual Arts​,​ SNBA 1947

The 2nd General Exhibition of Visual Arts (2ª Exposição Geral de Artes Plásticas) was held in 1947 at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes (National Society of Fine Arts) in Lisbon. Building on the success of the first edition, the second exhibition brought together 89 participants, and its catalogue expressed a desire to bring art closer to ordinary people — to share "the various languages of the visual arts" and deliver "a message of friendship and solidarity" to the public. The exhibition was organized under the auspices of the Democratic Unity Movement (MUD), and was notably a radical departure from the standard practices of the SNBA: there was no jury, no prizes, no favoritism, and no medals — the artists organized themselves and self-financed the event, with costs shared among the exhibitors. The 1947 edition proved to be politically explosive. The Salazar regime, finally awakened to the true significance of the initiative, reacted with force — first through an attack published in the Diário da Manhã (the organ of the ruling União Nacional party), and then by carrying out a police raid in which works by artists including Júlio Pomar, Maria Keil, Rui Pimentel, Manuel Ribeiro de Pavia, Arnaldo Louro de Almeida, Nuno Tavares, and José Viana were seized. This crackdown marked a turning point: from the 3rd exhibition onward, in May 1948, the shows became subject to prior censorship. Despite — or because of — this repression, the exhibitions remained a vital platform for emerging Portuguese artists throughout the postwar period.