Laura costa – the sleeping beauty

From 16 May to 15 September, the Casa do Design in Matosinhos is hosting the exhibition Laura Costa - A Bela Adormecida (Laura Costa - The Sleeping Beauty), curated by Jorge Silva and dedicated to the work of the illustrator from Porto, who made a unique mark on children's fiction, school textbooks, illustrated postcards and newspaper illustrations throughout the 20th century.

In her youth, Laura Costa (1910-1993) was friends with the most emerging artists and shared the avant-garde daring of her time, but her works always denied the academicism that reigned in Porto.

It was at the end of the 1920s and during the following decade that we find the best of Laura Costa's illustrated work, in fiction for children and in school textbooks. Her favourite themes, children and traditional customs, and the abundance of illustrations linked to the Catholic religion could have made her a propagandist for the Estado Novo, but the sensuality (and even sexuality) of her characters was never viewed favourably by the regime's propaganda and António Ferro's "Politics of the Spirit". That's why she was left out of the regime's big official commissions, which also disadvantaged her because she was a woman and lived in Porto.

When there is no need to fulfil the narrative script in her works, Laura Costa eclipses the male presence of sacred and profane illustrations. This is very visible in her illustrated greetings cards for CTT and her special front pages for the newspaper "O Primeiro de Janeiro" about Christmas and St John's Day.

Also very important is her vast collaboration with Editorial Infantil Majora, on board games, colouring cards and a myriad of children's book collections, with simplistic texts but rich illustrations.

Laura Costa's entire graphic oeuvre is characterised by an in-depth study of traditional Portuguese costume, especially that of rural areas. This characteristic is recurrent in the work of contemporary artists from Porto, such as Alice Rey Colaço, Raquel Roque Gameiro, Sarah Afonso or Milly Possoz, but Laura sets out on a more alternative path when she draws inspiration from her many visits to villages and towns in the north of the country, through which she weaves her own inventory of arts, customs, colours and materials, all in line with her progressive culture and devoid of social prejudices, in a curious democratisation that blurs social differences and gaps.

Laura Costa is a Sleeping Beauty who didn't follow the frenzy of the aesthetic avant-garde from her student days onwards. In the history of Portuguese illustration, she has a unique journey, full of mysteries and misunderstandings.

The Laura Costa exhibition will run until 15 September and occupies the exhibition area on the ground floor of Casa do Design, where the exhibition To Be Eternal It Is Enough to Be a Book is also available to the public.