print gallery Exhibition
2025 4.12 Saturday to 5.19 Monday
Admission Free

😀 Open Days: Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and
the following Mondays (April 21, May 5, May 19)

😀 Spacial Open Days No.1:
April 29 Tuesday/National holiday

🥲 Closed Days: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and
the following Mondays (April 14, April 28, May 12)

Reception:
2025.4.12 Saturday, around 18:00 to 20:00

Paulo de Cantos was a Portuguese educator and amateur typographer who immersed himself in the educational reform movements of the early 20th century.
Between the 1920s and 1960s, he published a wide range of textbooks designed to support learning. His books combined structural experimentation with rich visual design: diagrams, typography, and especially the tactile possibilities of letterpress composition. He also intervened in the structure of language itself, proposing new systems of notation such as “PAK” and an alternative writing system for Portuguese. His educational approach blended rationalism with folklore, science with speculative thought, and visual form with linguistic innovation.
Even without understanding Portuguese, one is struck by his dense layouts and illustrations—peculiar, humorous, and full of enigmatic charm.

Despite his ingenuity, Cantos’s ideas were largely marginalized under Portugal’s fascist regime, distancing him from official educational circles. This exhibition traces his thinking and visual world, drawing on the long-standing research and collection efforts of design studio Barbara says…

We will have a small selection of items for sale: “A Cantos Compendium” (edit and design by António Silveira Gomes and Cláudia Castelo, published by Barbara says...), a petit leporello edition “The Curious Faces Created by Professor Paulo de Cantos on their Grand Journey around the world” (concept and designed by Hiro Abe and Ryota Kajiwara, published by Print Gallery) inspired by unique faces created by Cantos and “Cantos 8+1=1”patch

On the exhibition “Paulo de Cantos 8+1=1” in Tokyo
Barbara says...(António Silveira Gomes, Cláudia Castelo)

Paulo [de] Cantos [Paulo Diː ˈKæntəʊz ] (Lisbon, b. March 13,1892 - Lisbon †April 10, 1979) was a Portuguese high school principal, author of auxiliary educational books and avid book collector prominent as rector of a Public School located in a bustling coastal town of Póvoa de Varzim.

Influenced by progressive pedagogy movements of the early 20th century, he began self-publishing an array of auxiliary schoolbooks where he experimented, with different levels of mastery, educational methods through technical drawing diagrams, visual information, typography and book arts. Taking advantage of his closed school network where he would test his ideas in the classroom by day and print his outcomes by night.

Cantos is the protagonist of an "Other History" of Graphic Design that is not aligned with the dominant core of both local and western narratives. His style can be characterised by Portuguese Modernism, employing everyday language combined with an informed scientific discourse. Driven by a growing bibliography and an effusive imagination, combining rationalist ideas through a satirical vernacular style.

His ideas were not taken up very well with the Ministry of Education and the local community, at the time dominated by the Portuguese “New State” fascist regime. The unusual typographic and pedagogical language, composed a transgression(that was mildly tolerated) at a promising but troubled time for contemporary pedagogical movements and ultimately rendering his image as eccentric. Evidently, however, his heuristic methods seemed effective, as seen in a few surviving documents from students who kept his books and resulting exercises.

Interest in this micro-universe arose long after his death, at a time when practitioners, teachers and students of graphic design were debating issues of the institution alisation and heritage of Portuguese design, given the growth of this professional area in Portugal. After the euphoria of rediscovery and monographic reconstruction, in this exhibition we revisit Cantos’ biobibliography, looking for processes through which he designed his books, and to reflect upon what influenced his creation of Portuguese identity. Reflecting upon the ongoing research regarding this author to cogitate on the effects of the Portuguese dictatorial regime that reigned the country until 1974.