Graca Carmona e Costa’s funeral will take place on Friday at the Basilica da Estrela.

The funeral of art collector Maria da Graça Carmona e Costa, who died on Monday at the age of 90, will take place on Friday at the Basilica da Estrela in Lisbon, a source at the philanthropist’s foundation told Lusa.

Funeral services for the gallerist, one of the country’s largest private patrons, will begin on Thursday at 19:00 in the mortuary chapel of the Basilica da Estrela, followed by a mass at 20:30.

On Friday, a funeral mass is also scheduled for 10 a.m., with burial beginning at 11 a.m. at the Alto de Sao Joao cemetery, also in Lisbon.

Maria da Graça Carmona e Costa was born in Lisbon on July 28, 1932 and fell in love with plastic art when she attended the first Initiation to Contemporary Art course organized by the National Society of Fine Arts in the 1970s.

Founder of the Carmona e Costa Foundation with her husband Vitor Carmona e Costa in 1997. She has combined more than half a century of promoting Portuguese contemporary art with ongoing charitable activities and the creation of her own collection with one of the largest collections in the country.

In the late 1980s, he founded the Giefarte office, a space where he published works by artists and creators such as Ana Vieira, António Palolo, Cristina Ataide, Helena Almeida, Hugo Canoilas, Ilda David, Jorge Martins, João Vieira, Nikias Skapinakis. , Pedro Portugal, Pedro Proença and others.

Gifarte’s art collection includes many works and creations by authors whose careers he followed, such as Álvaro Lapa, Ana Giotta, Antonio Júlio Duarte, Daniel Blaufuchs, João Penalva, Jorge Molder, Jorge Queiroz, José Luis Neto or Pedro Cabrita Reis presented in your collection.

In 2018, the Ministry of Culture awarded him the Medal of Merit for Culture in recognition of his “invaluable life’s work dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts, the promotion and constant dissemination of contemporary artists”, over the decades he has emphasized the protection of culture.

On Monday, Culture Minister Pedro Adán e Silva expressed regret over the gallery owner’s disappearance, calling her “an incomparable personality of art in the country,” while the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, recalled her commitment to peace. arts in “exhibitions, publications or grants.”

The EDP Foundation also considered the death of gallerist and philanthropist Maria da Graça Carmona e Costa “a great loss for Portuguese art”, recalling the decisive actions she had developed over decades.

“Her activities as a collector, gallerist, philanthropist and president of her foundation [Carmona e Costa] was of decisive importance for artists, curators, producers, designers and institutions,” wrote the EDP Foundation, owner of the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), in a statement in response to the death of Maria da Graça Carmona y Costa.

In October 2023, MAAT opened the exhibition “Family Album – Works from the Fundação Carmona e Costa Collection”, presented to the public for the first time “systematically”, curated by João Pinaranda, organized in three moments: the first part will be on display until April 1, and in the Fundação Carmona e Costa will present two consecutive exhibitions: the second will open in October 2023 and will be on display until the end of January, and the third from January to March 2020. this year.