Buying art in Portugal can be a great experience. This is because the Portuguese have a great tradition of art. The Algarve region has a long history of art, going back to the time when it was under Islamic rule. During that time, many Muslim artists came to the Algarve and worked on many buildings. They still have an influence on today’s architecture and culture of the region.

In Portugal – and in the Algarve – you can find an astounding number of artists who present themselves through their art in multiple styles, colours and themes.

Finding artists in the Algarve

To find a good artist, you can start by looking for someone who has been making art regionally, through their websites, social media accounts and even private or public galleries. You can also get recommendations from friends and family who may know of an artist that they like.

The Algarve has a great variety of artists from many different countries, including Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and the United States. There are also many artists who are from the Algarve. One of the main reasons why there are so many artists here is because this area is very popular with tourists.

One of the biggest artists in the region is Karl Heinz Stock – a German artist that has also ventured into winemaking in the Algarve. Most of his art pieces were already part of wandering exhibitions, in display across Europe. These included the installations of Graces, the Elephant Tree, Reunion of the Bulls, Dance of the Bears and Passion (all of which can be found in the website of  Quinta dos Vales  – the Wine Estate that he also  established, in a perfect combination of wine, art  and real-estate).

Quinta dos Vales’ sculptures

As art and wine have always formed a close symbiosis it was obvious for Karl Heinz Stock that these cultural aspects had to be brought together. This artist, owner and developer of  Quinta dos Vales, has long been an adventurous entrepreneur but as a side interest always been active in sculpturing. He found the Estate to be a perfect combination for exhibiting his extraordinary and sometimes provoking art pieces, while simultaneously creating attention for his wine venture.

Besides the sculptures, Karl Heinz Stock also ventured in making sculpture-paintings. He created mostly similar looking but still unique sculptures of unique creatures and invited 26 talented painters and mosaic artists from several countries with different nationalities and backgrounds to make their own interpretation of the theme “Evolução” The transformation of two dimensional paintings and mosaics into three dimensional sculpture-paintings has been an exciting new experience for all participants and several artists decided during the process to do more than one or two bears!

You can visit the Estate and the open-air art gallery all year-round and learn all about the art available for sale in their website.

This article was originally published in: Portugal Resident