Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso was born in Manhufe (Amarante) and died in Espinho, north of Portugal. In 1906, he left for Paris where he began working as a draughtsman and caricaturist. He became acquainted with frontline artists such as Modigliani, Brancusi, Juan Gris, Max Jacob, Sónia and Robert Delaunay, among others.
In 1913 he integrated the famous exhibition Armory Show in New York and exhibited in Galeria Der Sturm, in Berlin. Amadeo was among the most commercially successful exhibitors at the Armory Show, as he sold seven of the eight works he showed there.
Amadeo met with Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona in 1914, and then left for Madrid, where the shock of World War I was already underway. He then returned to Portugal where he married Lucie Meynardi Peccetto. He maintained contact with many of the most prominent Portuguese artists and poets such as Almada Negreiros, Santa-Rita Pintor and Teixeira de Pascoaes.
Between 1915 and 1916 he became friends with the Sonia and Robert Delaunay who sought exile in Portugal and, by this time, he became an active member of the Portuguese avant-garde group Orpheu . During this period he exhibited in Lisbon and in Porto. In his oeuvre, there are evident influences of artistic movements emerging during this time, such as cubism, dadaism, abstractionism and expressionism.
On October 25, 1918, at the age of 30, he died in Espinho, of Spanish flu.
Even considering his very short life span, Souza-Cardoso was an artist who left an indelible milestone on the history of modern art in Portugal, thanks to his committed and prolific activity, as well as his embrace of the fresh ideas in the art scene of the time, having been inspired by many of the leading art movements of his time.