António Pires de Matos

Research Unit VICARTE - Glass and Ceramics for the Arts, FCT/NOVA, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal

Degree in Chemical Engineering, Technical University of Lisbon 1962. PhD in chemistry, Cambridge, U.K., 1970 and fellow of the Society of Glass Technology since 2009. In 2016 received from the Portuguese Chemical Society the award Alberto Romão Dias for his career in chemistry. 
After 40 years of research in radiochemistry at the Portuguese Nuclear Institute, where he was Coordinator Researcher, was invited to teach Methods of Instrumental Analysis in the course of Conservation and Restoration at the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa.
In 2002, with colleagues of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Universidade de Lisboa, founded the research unit “Glass and Ceramics for the Arts”, VICARTE. He is Emeritus Invited Full Professor at the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa and now is working at the Research Unit VICARTE in the FCT campus of this university.

His current research activities are divided in provenance studies of Portuguese glass and new techniques to colour glass applied to contemporary art. He has been studying several batch books, namely from Portugal, from the Rakow Library of the Corning Museum of Glass, from Venice and from the Dudley Archives in England. Concerning the development of the application of luminescent glasses to glass objects, and with the collaboration of two colleagues of VICARTE, it was possible for the first time to make objects with luminescent murrino. Canes with two luminescent colours were prepared for the first time under his supervision in the Novotny Studio at Novy Bor, Check Republic.