Miguel Branco studied at the University of Fine Arts of Lisbon and since 1994 has directed the Department of Painting of the Center of Art and Visual Communication in Lisbon, Ar.Co.

Whether in his paintings or his sculptures, Miguel Branco has always worked from images drawn from art history. The artist is dedicated to having varied geographic or temporal spaces cohabit in each of his works. With an awareness and an infinite distance, he hypertrophies his painting in order to make us relive the grandeur of his masters (Watteau, Chardin, Fragonard, Goya, Velázquez, Bellini, Stubbs, Hogarth, and Teniers, among others) just as he makes us travel, in his sculptures, to the heart of civilizations or countries such as Egypt or India, thus creating a dramaturgy where the sensation of the work is to reincarnate an essence at once present and absent, an invisible that overtakes us, but is also an intrinsic process in the oeuvre itself.  Whether it is animal, humanoid, object, place, skull, scribe or again butterfly, his œuvre is characterized by the constant presence of a scenic apparatus: something impalpable or someone is the protagonist. Miguel Branco focuses on metamorphosis and strangeness as well as on the image and the different mecanisms it provokes.

In 2012, the gallery organized the first solo show of the artist, entitled “Deserto”. His work has been presented at international institutions such as MUDAM in Luxembourg, the CAM— Modern Art Center of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon and the Serralves Foundation in Porto. In 2015, a work by Miguel Branco is presented at the exhibition “Quinte-Essence”, which celebrates the gallery’s 90 years of activity, and at the Grand Palais for FIAC. The same year, the Schloss Ambrass Museum, Innsbruck in Austria, organized an important solo exhibition of his work. In 2016, the gallery organized  second solo exhibition entitled “SPECTRES – On Birds, Skulls and Drones”, in connection with the artist’s important solo show, entitled “Black Deer – Résonances, Enlèvements, Interférences” at Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris. That same year, the gallery presented the artist’s works at the art fairs : Art Dubaï, Drawing Now, FIAC.
In 2017, Miguel Branco’s sculptures are presented at the gallery at the exhibitions “Présences”, “Corps et Ames” and “Whispers from the Earth”. That same year, Miguel Branco’s sculpture piece Untitled (White Doe) is presented in the museum’s courtyard on the occasion of the exhibition “Passion de l’Art – Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger depuis 1925”, first retrospective devoted to the gallery’s history, at Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence, South of France.
In Lisbon, Portugal, a bronze doe with gold patina is presented at the exhibition “Artes e Letras : as edições da Galeria Jeanne Bucher Jaeger”, devoted to the significant publishing activity of the gallery since 1925 until today, at the Árpád Szenes-Vieira da Silva Foundation.
In 2018, the work Untitled (Licorne) is presented in the exhibition “Magiques Licornes” at the Musée de Cluny in Paris, followed in 2019 by the exhibition “Bêtes de Scène” at Villa Datris in l’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, where the sculpture Untitled (Dodo) was exhibited.

The artist will be highlighted by the Art History Festival at Château de Fontainebleau from June 3rd to September 18th 2022, as part of the France-Portugal Season 2022.

www.miguelbranco.com