Margarida Tengarrinha, anti-fascist resistance, prominent member of the Communist Party and visual artist, died this Thursday, October 26th, at the age of 95, according to the news Sul Informação with a source linked to the family. She was admitted to the hospital in Faro, where he died.
Born in Portimão on May 7, 1928, Margarida Tengarrinha was an artist, writer, teacher, revolutionary, member of the Assembly of the Republic, activist and leader of the Portuguese Communist Party. She was also an Arts professor at the Senior University of Portimão, as well as a founding member and leader of the Group of Friends of the Portimão Museum.
Coming from a family of the petty bourgeoisie of Portimão (her father was the director of the Bank of Portugal in the city), from a young age Margarida spent time with artists, namely Samora Barros or her own father. It was he who, against his mother's wishes, supported her when she expressed her desire to go and study at the School of Fine Arts, in Lisbon.
There, Margarida Tengarrinha would meet her future partner and father of her two daughters – Teresa and Margarida -, having also started her contacts with the world of resistance to the dictatorship.
It was in Fine Arts that, in 1948, she began her political activity, as coordinator of the students of that school in the Youth Democratic Unity Movement (MUD), in opposition to the Estado Novo. Later, she campaigned for Portugal's exit from NATO, participating in demonstrations in February 1952, in Lisbon, during that organization's summit in the capital of Lisbon.
This was what led to his expulsion from the School of Fine Arts (along with 81 other students and teachers, namely José Dias Coelho). She was also banned from teaching at Escola Preparatória Paula Vicente, where she was a teacher, as well as from enrolling in another public education establishment.
With no means of subsistence, it was another great opposition woman, Maria Lamas, who gave him work at the magazine «Modas & Bordados», where he wrote under a pseudonym.
During Salazar's dictatorship, he lived in hiding, with his partner José Dias Coelho, from 1955 onwards. The couple's artistic skills were used by the PCP to falsify documents, as Margarida Tengarrinha said in her book “Memoirs of a Forger”, published in 2018.
During this period, living in various parts of the country, always in hiding, with a false name and identity, Margarida Tengarrinha was also a writer for the newspapers A Voz das Camaradas and Avante!.
Her companion José Dias Coelho was shot dead by PIDE, a few days before Christmas, on December 19, 1961. Margarida only found out about the death a few days later, through a PCP comrade. Since then, Christmas, which meant little to him, became a time of sadness.
Following this sad episode, Margarida came out of hiding to go to the Soviet Union, to Moscow, where she worked (from 1962 to 1964) directly with Álvaro Cunhal, then general secretary of the PCP, in exile. She helped Cunhal in writing his book «Towards Victory – The tasks of the Party in the Democratic and National Revolution».
She then went to Bucharest, in Romania, where she was editor of Rádio Portugal Livre, which was broadcast clandestinely to Portugal.
As he always wanted to return to Portugal, he returned in 1968, going underground again, in Lisbon, Porto and Vila Real. He also returned to work in the party's newspapers, namely in A Terra, a publication aimed at peasants, and in Avante!
After the revolution of April 25, 1974, she returned to Lisbon, working on defining the PCP's policy for Agrarian Reform and becoming a member of the party's Central Committee, where she fought for the inclusion of more women in management bodies and in lists of deputies.
She was herself elected deputy for the Algarve, between 1979 and 1983. Dissatisfied with her work as a parliamentarian, she returned to the Algarve in 1986, living since then in Praia da Rocha, in an apartment facing the sea, in a building built on the site where her father had a holiday home.
In 2016, was the first to be awarded the Maria Veleda award, created by the Regional Directorate of Culture of the Algarve, to highlight and recognize the cultural activity of Algarve personalities, protagonists of particularly relevant and innovative interventions in the region.
Over the years, he has published several books: Samora Barros: Painter of the Algarve (1990), From the memory of the people: collection of popular literature of oral tradition from the municipality of Portimão (1999), Quadros da Memória (2204), Memoirs of a Forger (2018).
He also created illustrations for two books: Another Algarve, told by word of mouth: stories, sayings, tricks, riddles and more, text by Glória Marreiros (1999) and Leonor Leonoreta: tenderness essay: poetic novel, text by Filipe Chinita (2015).
In the field of plastic arts, he held several exhibitions, after the 25th of April 1974. In May 2009, at the inauguration of the Portimão Museum, it was with his exhibition, called «Matamorfoses», that opened the temporary exhibition room of that museum structure.
Margarida Tengarrinha would become a founding member and a great enthusiast of the Group of Friends of the Portimão Museum, of which she was currently vice-president of the General Assembly. She was also a volunteer in many of GAMP's activities, namely on the Prehistory Days, at the Megalithic Monuments of Portimão.
Always a fearless woman, she received as gift for your 90th birthday um paragliding flight. He never fulfilled his dream of skydiving.
In May and June last year, in her last exhibition, called «Raízes», which took place at the Portimão Museum, the artist took a guided tour of the Sul Informação, recounting some episodes linked to the works on display, as you can see in this video report, by clicking here.
On the same occasion, Margarida Tengarrinha had a long autobiographical conversation with our newspaper, in what she herself classified as her “last interview”. Watch the video interview here.
A source linked to the family reported that Margarida Tengarrinha's funeral is scheduled for October 31st. Her body will be in the mortuary next to the Colégio Church, in Portimão, from 9:30 am, followed by 12:30 pm to the Albufeira crematorium.
Updated at 17:20 pm, adding information about the funeral ceremonies.
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