The plastic artist Maria Keil, born in Silves, died this Sunday, June 10, at the age of 97 years. The wake of the author of several tile panels from the first stations of the Lisbon Underground and other works, such as the tile panel on Silves, her birthplace, will take place from 18 pm at the church of São João de Deus, in Lisbon.
On Monday, at 15 pm, the funeral takes place in the same place, followed by the funeral at Cemitério da Apelação, in the municipality of Loures.
Maria Keil was an illustrator (in magazines such as “Seara Nova”, books for adults and children's books, such as those by Matilde Rosa Araújo), painter, designed furniture, sets and costumes for ballets, did publicity and created images for stamps, but it was in the innovative tile work, present in nine stations of the Lisbon Metro, which Maria Keil stood out the most and encountered the most opposition.
In the 50's and 60's, the Metropolitano de Lisboa, under construction, invited the artist to develop intense and arduous work as a creator of tile panels for the decoration of nine stations. With this work, the “Viúva Lamego” factory was reborn, then in economic crisis.
But his collaboration with Metropolitano de Lisboa did not end there. The renovation of the S. Sebastião da Pedreira station, in the capital, was one of the artist's last works, who in March 2008 was honored in Lisbon, at the Biblos bookstore, with the presentation of the work «A Árvore que dava Olhos», by João Paulo Cotrim, and his illustrations.
Maria Pires da Silva Keil do Amaral, born in Silves, the artist was the widow of architect Francisco Keil do Amaral.
For about a month, the 6th F students at Escola EB 2,3 Dr. Garcia Domingues, from Silves, they cleaned up the graffiti that unraveled, for months, the tile panel by the artist Maria Keil, in a square in the center of the city.
The panel, which represents Silves, with the castle and the cathedral, the steep streets, the orange groves and the river, was offered in 2000 by the plastic artist Maria Keil do Amaral, born in Silven.
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