Selection of photos from the ‘60s and ‘70s of the Algarve region will be on display until August 16
There is still a chance to rediscover the Algarve’s first steps as a tourism destination through the works of the Almeida D’Eça couple, the first professional photographers to portray the Algarve as such.
Photographers Asta and Luís de Almeida d’Eça became renowned for their promotional photographs, shaping the tourism imagery in Portuguese minds to this day.
On display at the Casa do Real Compromisso Marítimo in Ferragudo until August 16, the exhibition is part of the research by professor and photography researcher Nuno de Santos Loureiro, from the University of Algarve (UAlg), who has been delving into the archives of the couple since 2019.
Entitled ‘As Praias e o Povo – Asta e Luís de Almeida d’Eça’ (The Beaches and the People – Asta and Luís de Almeida d’Eça), the exhibition underwent a long selection process. Loureiro’s interest in the couple began with their 11-edition book series “Algarve, Portugal. Holidays in All Seasons of the Year,” published between 1969 and 1987. And in 2011, the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar acquired their vast photographic archive, containing about 50,000 colour slides, where Nuno discovered their work, during his visits to Tomar.
The historic photos were focused on promoting the Algarve as a new and attractive tourism destination at a time when tourism was still in its infancy in the region.
Researcher Nuno de Santos Loureiro selected 30 photographs for the exhibition, which he says was “very challenging because the collection is extremely interesting, rich, and diverse”. Describing the collection as a “lost and now found treasure”, the photographs feature charming hotels, local people, and traditional scenes of past times.
Photographs of beaches, the sea, fishermen, folk groups, and blooming almond trees were taken specifically for tourism promotion. These scenes we recognise today were created by the couple, and later on, other photographers followed in their footsteps. However, they were the pioneers.
The couple’s work was focused on the Algarve’s transitional period from when beaches were mainly used for fishing and were starting to be used for leisure.
The images created were then even used in TAP Airline posters, and are “still in our imagination when we think of the Algarve: the chimney, the almond tree, the paradise beaches, the fisherman, the donkey”, shared Loureiro.
According to the researcher, the couple were at the forefront of the golden years of the Algarve’s growing tourism sector between 1960 and 1970, and “they liked the Algarve so much that they bought a house in Armação de Pêra”.
Who were the photographers?
Asta Ella Føge Almeida d’Eça, was born in 1929, in Denmark, and was the eldest daughter of a couple of photographers.
Asta worked as a photographer in many European countries, and later moved to South Africa at the start of the 1950s at the invitation of a businessman linked to Kehlet Foto, intending to train new photographers and run their network of commercial establishments.
She met her future husband during a holiday in Maputo, Mozambique, in 1954, and the two were wed in 1956.
Her husband, Luís de Moura Coutinho Almeida d’Eça was born in Mozambique in 1924 and spent part of his youth studying in Lisbon. After holding an important position in the Sena Sugar Estates Lda (sugar production company), he moved with his wife to Lisbon where they both focused on photography as their main activity.
The couple worked as a team, and apart from their work in the Algarve, they also worked for big airlines such as British Airways and South African Airlines, as well as the tourism boards in the Algarve and Cape Verde.
The couple continued to photograph the Algarve until the 1980s. After Luís’ death in the early 1990s, Asta abandoned photography almost completely, and she passed away in the Algarve in 2015.
The exhibition can be seen at the Casa do Real Compromisso Marítimo in Ferragudo daily from 4pm to 8pm.
After Ferragudo, the exhibition will move to Faro, then Lisbon in November, and Porto in January 2025, with images to potentially be on permanent display at regional tourist offices.
Original article by Bruno Filipe Pires for Barlavento.
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