João Hogan

Who was João Hogan?

João Manuel Navarro Hogan was a Portuguese painter and printmaker.

João Manuel Navarro Hogan attended the Academy of Fine Arts for one year and then the National Society of Fine Arts in Lisbon while becoming a wood carver. This job will lead to the production of many woodcuts. His first exhibition was in 1947, in the 7th Exhibition of Modern Art of the national cultural secretary of the time. Afterwards he participated in many national and international exhibitions including the second and fourth São Paulo Art Biennial and in the International Exhibitions of Brussels and Lausanne along with shows in other places such as Buenos Aires, Tokyo and Capri.

Mainly a landscape painter, his style can be considered as neo-figurative although his synthesis of forms lead a considerable abstract approach to nature depiction. His landscapes are always meditative and silent with an "earthy" feeling within it using for example in his preparatory studies close-up photographs of particular rocks that would later form mountains or rocky landscapes.

He was also an important printmaker, especially in woodcut, and giving along with other contemporary artists an impulse to the growth and teaching of this art form, almost forgotten in his time in Portugal. His prints often depict fantastic motifs rather than landscapes.