Manuel Martins Barranha was the gardener of Günter Grass, the German writer and artist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999, at his house in Vale das Eiras, near Mexilhoeira Grande, in the rural interior of the municipality of Portimão. “I planted many of the trees that are still there. And it was my father who offered Mr. Grass that rabbit that is there”, he said, pointing to the watercolor in reddish tones that shows a dead rabbit, skinned and disemboweled, ready to go to the pot.
This watercolor is one of the many works that, until March 4, can be seen at the Portimão Museum, entitled «Encontros».
At the opening of the exhibition, on the afternoon of the December 8th holiday, Claudia Hahn-Raabe, from the Goethe-Institut Portugal, highlighted the «very happy circumstance that brought this exhibition to Portimão». From now on, the fact that Günter Grass has found in that corner of the Algarve his refuge from the much busier life in Germany.
Hilke Ohsoling, Director of the Museum of Günter Foundation and Ute Grass in Lübeck, stressed that «Encontros was the name we gave to this exhibition and I believe it was a motto of life» of the artist. In this case, a meeting “made with Portugal in mind and its debut in Portimão”. Because the exhibition, which remains at the Portimão Museum until March 4, should then be taken to other places in Portugal.
The idea of bringing this exhibition to Portimão, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the birth of the German artist (born in 1927 and died in 2015), came from a portimonense: Professor Damião Sequeira, who was a great Portuguese friend of Grass. “Damião dreamed and took that dream to my office, challenging me to have this meeting with Günter Grass here”, recalled Isilda Gomes, the mayor of Porto, at the opening.
Damião Sequeira, a former German teacher and resident for several years in that country, began by saying: “to my friend Günter, I owe a debt of gratitude that, even with this exhibition, it will not be fully paid”.
“I met him by chance and suddenly, after a short conversation, I was invited to his birthday party. But what a surprise! Gunter Grass? For me, a personality. From what I knew from books in the controversial press, somewhat enigmatic, controversial, biting, reserved and distant, I even had a certain prejudice against him being arrogant», recalled his friend.
But quickly, he added, the "prejudices disappeared", since the artist was "jovial, simple, sincere, almost childlike".
What was Gunter like in person? «Stripped of his fame, he was the true human person. I liked nature, Portugal after the 25th of April, the Algarve and its people», said Professor Damião. «He preferably bought the products of the land, in the farmers' market, the medronho, from the clandestine producer, homemade bread, goat's milk from his neighbor's shepherd, the mushrooms that he picked in the hills and knew how to cook so well».
The house where Günter lived, in the parish of Mexilhoeira Grande, was designed by him and his wife, Ute. “He named it Casa Rosmano, because the rosemary also grew wild in that place,” Damião Sequeira also recalled.
The Nobel Prize “disdained the manicured lawns and preferred, around the house, a forest of cactus trees, cigar trees and a thicket of cistus, rosemary and some stone pines. He loved pine nuts, which he himself took from the pine cones».
This entire universe of the German artist can be seen in the exhibition «Encontros» at the Museu de Portimão. On the walls, there are watercolors of fish, some whole, waiting for the grill, others just spines and still others, in a surreal allusion, flying through the skies. But there are also watercolors of landscapes, ancient and twisted trees, rabbits about to enter the pot. Or the same Algarvian motifs drawn in real sepia, or rather in cuttlefish ink, which Günter Grass himself prepared, based on those he bought in the square. Or engravings and sculptures, some writings, pages that he dedicated to this Algarve that he adored so much. And shells, beach stones, feathers, clothes pegs, which Grass found and incorporated into the works.
Born on October 18, 1927, in present-day Poland, Günter Grass developed a very rich and diversified relationship with Portugal in the 80s and specifically with the parish of Mexilhoeira Grande, a place he chose to serve as a retreat and inspiration.
It was in the isolation of the country planted by the sea that the artist found, in his Algarve home, the peace that was often lost in Germany. Here, he managed to work intensively on new texts, images or sculptures or simply “do nothing” and enjoy the sun, the countryside and the culinary specialties of Portugal.
The longest and most visible connection between Grass and the Algarve was through the Cultural Center of São Lourenço, in Almancil, where he presented books and exhibited several times. Marie Huber, one of the founders of this Cultural Center closed today, was present at the Museu de Portimão, at the opening of this new exhibition.
With dozens of exhibitions held in the Algarve, Günter Grass actively enriched Portuguese cultural life and maintained a lasting friendship with the Portuguese writer, José Saramago, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature a year earlier.
At the end of his life, Grass regretted not being able to travel to Portugal for health reasons, writing in his latest book, “Vonne Endlichkait”, “Ah, my lost Portugal, how I miss your southwest coast”.
His friend Damião Sequeira recalled his visit to him in Germany a fortnight before Grass died, in April 2015. «When I visited him in Behlenburg, already convalescing, after returning home from the clinic, I never thought that I would lose it two weeks later. He asked me if I had taken him with medronho. Certainly!".
The exhibition «Encontros» is a project of the Goethe-Institut Portugal and the Günter e Ute Grass Foundation, in collaboration with the Günter Grass Haus, the Museum and the Municipality of Portimão, and also has the support of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany , of the Associação São Bartolomeu dos Alemãs, in Lisbon, and of Niepoort.
The exhibition can be visited at the Museu de Portimão until March 4, on Tuesdays, from 14:30 pm to 18:00 pm, and from Wednesday to Sunday, from 10:00 am to 18:00 pm.
Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues|Sul Informação
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