Henrique Medina

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Henrique Medina de Barros was a Portuguese painter born on August 18, 1901, in Porto, and he died on November 30, 1988, in Porto. He was best known for his portraits. In 1919 he left the Fine Arts School of Porto to study in Paris, where he was taught by artists like Cormon and Bérard. He was an academic painter within Modernism, and his portrait work gained international fame. He lived in London for ten years, then moved to Rome, where he painted Mussolini’s portrait. He traveled to São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Paris and Stockholm before moving to the United States. He spent six years in Hollywood painting portraits of actresses and contributed the portrait of Dorian Gray for the 1945 MGM film The Picture of Dorian Gray. In his youth he spent vacations at his family’s house near Marinhas, Esposende. In 1974, at the age of 73, he returned to Esposende to live and paint rural life. The secondary school in Esposende is named Escola Secundária Henrique Medina in his honor. The Medina Museum in Braga has the largest collection of his works, about 50 oil paintings and drawings.