Portuguese painter who later adopted French nationality. She moved to Paris in 1928 and studied Sculpture with Emile-Antoine Bourdelle and, later, with Charles Despiau. In 1929, she began engraving at S. W. Hayter's Atelier 17 and designed carpets for the Art Deco interiors of Dolly Chareau. The influence of Joaquin Torres Garcia, whose work was exhibited at the Pierre Loeb Gallery in 1932, was also significant. She exhibited at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery in 1933 and 1937, a period in which she acquired her distinctive style, a system of criss-crossings with a spatial character inspired by urban architecture which she treated in subtle tones. During and after the Second World War, the theme of her work became increasingly political, as in Flags, Disaster, and Liberation of Paris. She lived in Portugal and in Rio de Janeiro, returning to Paris to exhibit her works in 1947, 1949 and 1951 at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery. Her palette in tones of grey and her choice of theme, which deliberately reverberate with French Impressionism, bring her work close to the paysagisme abstrait of Jean Bazaine and Alfred Manessier. Vieira da Silva was one of the most reputed painters in post war Paris and, in 1952, painted a stage curtain for La Parodie by Arthur Adamov. She worked regularly with the poet, René Char and the sculptor, Germaine Richier. In 1954 she took part in the Venice Biennale and, between 1955 and 1964, in documenta 1 and 3 in Kassel. The retrospective exhibition on her work held at the Paris Museum of Modern Art in 1969-70, which travelled to Rotterdam, Oslo, Basel and Lisbon, marked one of the highest points of her artistic rise. Her later work developed structural games and more abstract lyrical colours. After 1970, some of her creations were produced in tapestry.
