Nuno Oliveira’s Art of Riding & Life: Pureza Oliveira on Her Father, His Books, and Her Story

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So today I'm joined by Pureza Oliveira, Thank you so much for joining Inside the Manège for this episode.
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I'm very happy to be with you.
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So for people who don't know you yet, you are the daughter of the now somewhat legendary classical rider Nuno Oliveira from Portugal.
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Yes.
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And you continue to be a representative of his work by, for example, translating some of his writings into English for the first time.
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Yes, that was, not long ago I did that.
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I started many years ago and, if you don't mind me telling this at the beginning; When I decided to do this was, you know, my oldest brother was a fantastic rider.
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Actually, one week before my father died in Australia, he told me and we were alone, So this was the truth.
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“Your brother is the best rider I know…” and he knew a lot of riders,“…and he knows at his age more than I knew at his age.” And this was João? João Oliveira, yeah.
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He was a fantastic rider.
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Very different style.
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Very, very different.
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And it was very cruel that he died so young, at the time that he was having success and everything on his own, because he was always in the shadow of Nuno Oliveira, which is always a difficult position between artists, but this happens everywhere.
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It's very difficult, and they loved each other, but it was still difficult.
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And so after he died, I thought, you know, there had already been some translations in English.
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We had had some problems with them, but the translators were nice people, I'm not saying anything bad about anybody.
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For several reasons, and because there were no translations of Nuno's whole work.
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I said to myself, who's going to do it now?
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So I decided to do it myself.
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It took years at the beginning, I would cry.
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Because I didn't know the right terminology, I'm not a horse person.
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but little by little, I ended up doing it, and then I had help from other people.
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So Xenophon Press has all my father’s books, all the technical books, because there are three little ones of his memories, and in the French Edition, there are only excerpts of them.
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but not in the English edition — the full versions are what the English editions contain, so you have all his technical books.
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at Xenophon Press, and then I did the translation of 60, I think it's 62, articles that my father wrote, and I was quite moved by them, because this was after COVID, you know, I was there.
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and I almost died because I had been sick for months, and I was in a coma for a month and everything.
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I didn't know that.
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When I got out, I started to do the translations and I was very moved by these articles.
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I was still a little bit sick, but it was good for me to be doing something.
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And the first translation I did, I had been four months old when he wrote it.
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Oh my gosh.
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So I was quite moved, and I loved it.
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I loved doing that.
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So, Xenophon Press also has that.
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Wow.
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Of course there are other languages, available as well you know, he has books all over.
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No, for me it was really special when I saw that it came out, because I had seen the German version, seen the French version, and I was thinking, why is there no English?
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And so I'm so thankful that you helped make it available in English.
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Yes, I thought it was so important.
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I said to myself, no, I can do it, I'm okay, and because English is what we say in Latin is the lingua franca (common shared language) of today.
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One day it'll be another language.
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No, thank you so much for that work.
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I think it means a lot to a lot of classical riders today, because now they actually have access to his ideas and his philosophy, and his work.
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Yes.
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Of course at the end, at Xenophon Press, I was helped by several people, because it's not my native language, but you know why I am happy I did that, and I am happy that it was me.
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Because very often, and I've noticed this because for the Classical Principles of the Art of Training Horses, I was helped by a friend of mine, and we had five books around us in Italian, in German because she speaks German, and in French.
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in Italian, in German because she speaks German, and in French.
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sometimes we see that people either — something happens and they miss a line.
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which happens, that's human — or, sometimes if they don't understand, Things get lost in translation.
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Yeah, you said what I wanted to say.
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In Italian, they say “traduttore traditore” (translation involves interpretation).
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So, what is important for me and important for the project is that I stayed very, very close, like a policeman to what he said.
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You know? Because I knew him.
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And although I'm not a rider, I was there very often and I rode with him.
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I don't say it's the best translation.
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I did my best, that's what I say.
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Well, for me it's really an honour to be able to speak with you, and to share your story with everyone.
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On this podcast, the focus is really on classical riding but also on the culture around classical riding, and I feel like you're a big part of that.
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So, here we are now, we are in Portugal, at Quinta do Brejo, and this is where your father was working, and you were growing up as well.
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No. No? No, no.
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He bought this place, which now is quite different from how it was when he owned it in the 1970’s.
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So, I don't know when it was, but now I'm 74.
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I was 17 when he bought this place.
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And it's very funny, because he bought a little piece of land down there where there was a little shack with a goat and a donkey.
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Very humble.
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So, he made his kitchen there, so that he could come here every day, and have somebody cook for him.
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Little by little, he started, and of course he started to build the school and the riding arena.
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Little by little, he bought a little bit more, upwards and upwards, buying a little bit more land.
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He built his house, he built everything for the horses, and finally he moved here after, I don't know, two, three years, or something like that.
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I don't remember.
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So, before, most of his life he was not here, he was in several places, but not here.
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He was in Lisbon before?
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When he was young, He was on the other side of the Tagus river.
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He was at Quinta dos Arcos near Azeitão.
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He was giving lessons there, working at a very beautiful place there for somebody else.
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He also worked before for, what would you call it — it's not the police, I don't know the translation, but they have horses and they are a type of police… the Guarda Nacional Republicana (National Republican Guard).
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So they have horses, and he trained horses there.
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Then, when I was 6… so, I can't remember the dates, but all these things in his life, are in the Xenophon Press edition.
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There's a little book inside called Reminiscences of a Portuguese Rider. He tells all of this much better than I can say, and many, many memories.
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And what was it like for you growing up with him, doing his work, and for you, it sounds like you were moving around a lot?
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Yes, we were on the other side of the river, but then I was not aware of that.
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So, then we were living in Lisbon until I was 6, By that time he was working in a place that was not his, but he was working in several places.
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He would go to the houses of these people who had their own horses and they had their own arenas and all that.
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And then when I was 6, I remember one day we were in Lisbon, and in the morning he took me, and we went to have some cake outside, and then we went by tram, and then by bus, and we went outside of Lisbon to visit his new place, which was with some friends on the outskirts of Lisbon.
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It was a commercial place, next to it they had a big thing where they would cut marble and all that.
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And he arranged this very well, and then this was the first time he had his own place.
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It was at Quinta do Chafariz, about 20km away from Lisbon, and that's where the most important things happened.
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What was it like for you watching him work?
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He's now so well known, he is probably one of, if not the most well-respected classical rider of the 20th century.
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But I mean, as you were his daughter, and you were watching him work, what was it really like?
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What do you think set him apart from everyone else?
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First of all, he belongs to a family, especially on his mother's side  — they were from Galicia, aristocratic, and they were very… my father was a little bit like that, you know, so I always — although we were very close, and I understood him very well, we did many things alone together, listening to music, talking, and since I was little — I had a lot of respect for him.
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Really a lot you know, It was not only because of the person he developed inside himself, but because they were like that.
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His mother, his grandmother, they were like that.
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Um.
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Tell me your question again?
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What was it like to really watch him work, and what do you think really set him apart from so many great horsemen at the time?
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I didn't know that, I wasn't interested in that.
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I didn't realize that! For me, that's what I knew since I was born.
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You know? And in that riding school that I'm talking to you about, Quinta do Chafariz, there were was many beautiful riders there, classical riders, also pupils and friends and, how do you say it in English — bullfighting riders, the best were there, like João Núncio for instance.
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 And there I met, and I knew since I was very little, almost since I was born, Do you know Diogo de Bragança?
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Yes.
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He came to my father's place, to the other place before, the day I was born.
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So, I grew up... I used to go when I left school, not every day, but quite often, I would take the bus because we were living outside of Lisbon, and I had been studying in Lisbon since I was 6 years old.
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So, I would take the bus and go to my father's school.
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So, I was next to Guilherme Borba Dom Diogo de Bragança, and many, many great riders that were always discussing classical riding, and who were born inside of it, you know?
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Portuguese culture — fantastic.
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Just for people who are listening for a little bit of context, Guilherme Borba ended up co-founding the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art.
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Yes.
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And also, Dom Diogo de Bragança was a very good rider.
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You know, Miguel Tavora was… also a wonderful rider, João Filipe Figueiredo Graciosa, who was also the director (of the Portuguese School).
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I grew up with all these people, these and more which I can't remember, all fantastic riders, all people with lot of classical education.
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And I think people know Nuno obviously more for his work with horses as a rider and trainer, but as his daughter, I can imagine you understand him much more as a whole person, and could see, you know, parts of him that maybe other people weren't able to see.
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How would you describe really who he is, what he was like as a person, and if you saw anything that maybe other people didn't get a chance to see about him.
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Well, I don't know if I saw anything different, because when you would see my father, you could see the whole picture immediately.
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Immediately, I think.
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He was a man with strong, extremely strong emotions, and the spectrum was extremely wide.
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In one of his books, I think it's the Classical Principles of the Art of Training Horses, I cannot recall the whole sentence, but there's a sentence by Verdi.
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He was very important for Nuno.
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Very important for for him, where he says, everything has to be true.
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I'm paraphrasing, if it's love, it has to be real love, everything has to be true, and that's why he put that sentence there...
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but never mediocre.
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That was my father.
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Never small, never mediocre, always with high standards.
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When he was mad, you really had to run away from him.
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But then it would go, it was like a tempest, you know, it came immediately like “VOOM!” and then disappeared, and then he was happy again.
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But he was extremely sensitive, so he was very sensitive with people, if people betrayed him or weren't honest, because he never betrayed people.
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I also heard, for example, there were some riders, or some time when someone came to watch him ride, and criticized him in some way, and he got very angry, because he felt like they just didn't see the artistry underneath what he was doing.
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Maybe technically it didn't look perfect in this one moment, but that wasn't the point of the ride.
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Of course, you cannot see just one thing, or one piece, you have to see, to be aware of the whole work (training process), and what point the horse is at, you know?
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 And my father was not always the same, he evolved.
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He was not born Nuno Oliveira the greatest rider.
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He evolved.
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And he worked like hell.
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So, what would a typical day have been like for him?
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My father, for all my life.
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 until just at the end of his life, he got up at a quarter past 4 every day.
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 Sometimes — most of the time — he would go to bed quite late.
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 Especially at Christmas time in that arena, that school, all the men I talked to you about, the riders, they and my father used to organize a huge two day event, where people rode, and did very beautiful things, and the money from that was given to the poor people of the village.
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So, at that time, sometimes we would go to bed at 1 o'clock, or sometimes sleep for only 3 hours.
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But all his life, I knew he was getting up at that hour.
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But yes, a typical day?
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So, he used to vary it.
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So, he went to the school, used to work his horses in the morning, if I'm recalling correctly, hw would give some lessons at the end of the morning, come home for lunch, always in a taxi, because my father didn't drive.
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He had a carriage driving license, but didn't drive cars.
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Then, he would go immediately.
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One hour, one hour and a bit, he would go for lunch, very quickly.
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Go to to ride his horses again, then give lessons, and when I was young, most of his money was made at that time.
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Of course the horses he rode wer not only his, they were horses that he was training for selling or for the lessons.
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There were quite a lot of horses in the lessons.
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All them trained to do everything.
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Then at that time, when I was a kid and until a teenager, there were these schools, they were boys-only schools in Lisbon.
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two or three schools, and at the end of the day they would come in big buses with lots of them, and then he would give lessons.
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This was bread and butter, giving lessons to all these young people, and some of them became riders later on.
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He must have had so many students.
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Thousands! Even today, some say"Oh, my mother was a student of your father." I say, "Who wasn't?" Yes, I have the same feeling, so many people say that they learned from Nuno and I guess this is why, but who do you think were really his closest students?
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But I must tell you something important, which is that had thousands of students, but one day I was with Miguel Tavora, who came to Lisbon and for something in honour of my father, and he was speaking there.
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Miguel Tavora, who started with my father when he was a young boy, said,"Nuno Oliveira had thousands of students, especially 30 years after he was dead.
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He has more and more students than before." But he said that in a more elegant way, which is true.
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This is why I wanna ask you; who do you think were really his closest students, and also of the people who are still alive today, who do you think truly trained with him most closely?
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Of today I will not tell you, because — no, it's preferable this way, and I don't know all of them.
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You know, for years I was not here.
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So, I was in Belgium, I was in the Unites States, I was here and there and doing other things.
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So, I might be unfair.
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You know, of course everybody knows for many reasons that Bettina Drummond was one, but she had trained with him since she was a very young kid.
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And Catherine Laurenty, there were many, there were several that were very good.
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But, I prefer not to say, because I was not here, I might miss somebody, and I know the horse world.
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You know?
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Yes.
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People start to say things, "All these ones, this one, that one..." So, all the names I told you are some of them, and he trained incredible people.
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I mean, you were lucky enough to also ride with your father.
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Yeah, since I was very young — not like my brother; my father used to take him on his horse and ride to where he was going to give lessons, and my brother was two and a half.
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Wow.
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But me, I started there, and we had someone who helped my father, and I did, how do you say...
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Vaulting or longeing?
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Yes.
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Where you have to run and then get up on the horse, and do all these exercises, and you get a really good position.
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And then I started to have lessons with all the young kids.
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What were lessons with your father like especially?
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What was he like when he was teaching?
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He was a respectful person.
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He was just watching a lot, and telling you things at the right moment.
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But I don't know, because he's the only person I rode with.
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Not the only one, that's not true, but the main one.
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One thing that I remember from when I was 6 or 7 years old, I would never get on a horse without asking in Portuguese,"Mestre dá licença?" How would you say that in English?
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You would say, "Master, may I get on now?" Yes, and I was his daughter.
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but I was behaving like anybody else.
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He was very attentive.
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He could be, you know — I remember after lunch sometimes, but after lunch I was not there.
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But sometimes he was so tired, because he worked so much, and he slept so little, so sometimes he would doze off a little bit in the corner, and then people would say,"Nuno Oliveira is sleeping.""...The horse; the the left leg is a little bit behind." He was seeing through his eyelids.
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No! He was listening.
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Ah, wow.
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Are there a lot of things that he used to say to students, or advice he used to give all the time, that you can think of?
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Oh, that's a difficult question now.
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It'll come to me maybe, but, you know, about the hands, to give and take, give and take, give and take.
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His students would be better to speak about that than me.
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One thing I know, I wanted to ask; he really emphasized in his work, how he used his back...
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It's so important, the back, and underneath your seat, your waist.
00:23:43.337 --> 00:23:47.759
But I'm not going to tell you things, I'm not a rider — it's all in his books.
00:23:47.759 --> 00:23:59.895
Alright. Yeah, because people were wondering since he has a very specific posture, and he also talks when he is teaching, saying"Look, look at my back, look how I'm using it." and so it's a very specific way.
00:23:59.980 --> 00:24:02.315
Yes, the back is very important, yes.
00:24:02.315 --> 00:24:04.025
But it's in his books.
00:24:04.025 --> 00:24:08.320
Alright, well people can look at his books then to find out.
00:24:08.320 --> 00:24:09.865
Can tell you something about the books?
00:24:10.531 --> 00:24:17.497
All my life I saw my father going to the classics, and reading until the end of his life.
00:24:17.497 --> 00:24:46.859
My father was very lucky, because he had not only his cousin, Master Miranda, who had a big library and taught him lots of classical principles, but he worked for somebody who used to come, at first when he was 23 or 24, he used to go to Paris, bring lots of old books and also buy them here, and he had a huge library.
00:24:46.859 --> 00:24:53.450
 And he said to my father,"You can use the library whenever you want." Was it only horse books, or he had books about everything?
00:24:53.450 --> 00:25:01.165
No, no, no, we are talking about the horse library, the dressage library, how do you say it in English?
00:25:01.374 --> 00:25:28.567
My father came from a family where they read a lot, they were very cultured (well educated), it was in his blood to be like that, but he had a thirst for knowledge, and finding a solution for problems, which as you know, as he says, it's never that there is one method — each horse is different.
00:25:28.567 --> 00:25:44.584
And he would try to find a solution, and I saw him until the end of his life, at 7 o'clock in the morning in his office up there reading, and that's one thing that he says in his book, Classical Principles of the Art of Training Horses.
00:25:44.584 --> 00:25:54.426
For instance, he says, people have to read what the masters said in the old times, so you get the line (of knowledge).
00:25:54.426 --> 00:26:03.560
Agree, this is something I've also talked about a little bit in previous podcasts, is it's become sort of out of fashion for people, for dressage riders to read.
00:26:04.019 --> 00:26:09.817
But you learn so much by looking at the old masters, just to hear how they solved problems.
00:26:09.984 --> 00:26:25.625
There's a really interesting story, I think it was Bettina Drummond who said she would often see him; he had like a little library in the arena, and if he had a problem, occasionally he would ride over to the library, take a book down, open it on the horse, and check a passage and put it back, and then ride the horse.
00:26:26.375 --> 00:26:39.972
Yes, in the old picadeiro (riding arena) in the old riding school, you had the arena, and then the spectator's gallery, and there you had the books, so he could, he could go, leave the horse for two minutes and go up there, yes.
00:26:40.807 --> 00:26:42.392
Was he staying up late reading?
00:26:42.433 --> 00:26:45.936
You said he didn't sleep so much, but what was he doing so late, or was he riding?
00:26:46.645 --> 00:26:49.941
No, he would come home
00:26:49.941 --> 00:27:01.411
30pm we had dinner quite late for young people, and no, not because his books I don't think.
00:27:01.827 --> 00:27:07.125
I don't remember, because I would go to bed at night when I was young.
00:27:07.791 --> 00:27:25.184
But, like I told you, very, very often what happened is that he would stay with Guilherme Borba, José de Ataíde, and Dom Diogo de Bragança, Jaime Celestino da Costa, and all these big legends.
00:27:25.352 --> 00:27:41.451
They would go out for dinner and discuss, and they would stay for hours, talking about lightness and the rassembler (collection), and then impulsion, and it was a passion.
00:27:41.451 --> 00:27:42.701
It was a passion.
00:27:42.701 --> 00:27:46.998
I heard so many of those discussions, and I was young and I would fall sleep.
00:27:46.998 --> 00:27:49.709
And then hear again, they'd be talking about impulsion.
00:27:51.169 --> 00:27:54.130
It was passion, they were passionate, they were really passionate.
00:27:54.588 --> 00:27:56.173
They lived the passion.
00:27:56.215 --> 00:27:58.759
It would've been amazing to sit in on those meetings.
00:27:58.801 --> 00:28:00.095
Oh yes.
00:28:00.095 --> 00:28:05.682
For people who really wanted to, it was like you were drinking from the source.
00:28:05.767 --> 00:28:11.230
I wanted to also ask about his role model or his teacher, Mr. Miranda.
00:28:11.230 --> 00:28:17.862
Could you talk a little bit about if Nuno mentioned how he talked about him, and what his experience was like?
00:28:17.862 --> 00:28:18.946
He loved, he really loved him.
00:28:18.946 --> 00:28:29.249
He lived in an more or less the same old part of Lisbon, quite beautiful, where my father lived, my grandparents as well.
00:28:29.790 --> 00:28:54.898
As soon as he left school, he would run up there and try to spend most of his free time there, and sometimes miss school to go there and sit with him and it started like that, because the reason why he knew him was that my grandfather, his father, used to ride, but was doing jumping.
00:28:54.898 --> 00:29:02.824
So, he used to ride with Miranda because he was a distant cousin, my third cousin, or something like that.
00:29:03.115 --> 00:29:09.497
So my father, as I said, had this passion in him.
00:29:09.497 --> 00:29:20.842
He describes that also in his writings, I think maybe in the book about his memories, the Reminiscences of a Portuguese Rider, and he spent many, many hours there.
00:29:20.884 --> 00:29:33.104
And Mr. Miranda was teaching him, always talking to him about classical riding, and of course he respected him immensely.
00:29:34.646 --> 00:29:46.159
 And I still I have some — not me, but it's in my brother's house — there are letters from Mr. Miranda to my father.
00:29:46.492 --> 00:29:52.707
 There are writings from Mr. Miranda, strict rules, even for the way you dressed.
00:29:53.583 --> 00:30:00.131
For people who aren't familiar, who was Mr. Miranda? Where did he work, and what were the rules for example, that he had?
00:30:00.214 --> 00:30:20.484
 Oh, that I cannot tell you, but I'll tell you one thing I discovered not long ago that doesn't concern my father, but it was his time. He was the Picador da Casa Real; that means he was the écuyer of,  I don't know, the riding master — Yeah, the riding master.
00:30:20.484 --> 00:30:24.571
Écuyer of the Portuguese Royal House.
00:30:24.739 --> 00:30:26.031
For the royal family.
00:30:26.031 --> 00:30:27.909
For the royal family, yes.
00:30:28.159 --> 00:30:32.704
So, but I discovered something, and quickly I'll tell you.
00:30:32.704 --> 00:31:14.329
Among my father's papers, which remained with my brother, or no — Sara Oliveira, his daughter, she has them in Belgium, and discovered these little books So, for the men it must have been the same, where he, in his own writing, he would give these little books to every woman that would come to ride — sidesaddle— from what she wore underneath, to the type of fabric, to the pins in her hair, to the way she would do her hair, to how to go up to the horse, everything was specified there.
00:31:14.329 --> 00:31:19.376
So, you know, the way you dressed was very important.
00:31:19.376 --> 00:31:31.931
I remember my father saying they went to accompany one king to the cemetery.
00:31:31.931 --> 00:31:40.147
There was a a march, and my father went as well, and he had to give him the right clothing, because my father didn't have the proper things.
00:31:40.147 --> 00:31:42.692
Nowadays we don't live like that.
00:31:42.692 --> 00:31:45.444
But he was really a noble person, no?
00:31:45.612 --> 00:31:46.863
Who? Mr. Miranda.
00:31:46.863 --> 00:31:53.744
I don't know if he was aristocratic, from aristocrats, I don't know, but he was noble, of course.
00:31:53.744 --> 00:31:55.496
You don't need to be...
00:31:55.496 --> 00:31:57.123
...nobility to be noble?
00:31:57.289 --> 00:32:03.378
No, but with the gentlemanly sort of appreciation of how things are done, it sounds very similar.
00:32:03.378 --> 00:32:04.047
Yes.
00:32:05.506 --> 00:32:14.598
One thing I wanted to ask is how would you say your father related to horses, like his relationship to them, and how do you think he really felt with them?
00:32:15.557 --> 00:32:26.486
With respect because he always says there are no methods; not rules, there are no methods.
00:32:26.486 --> 00:32:31.281
Each horse is a different being, like people.
00:32:31.907 --> 00:32:41.125
So, and with his knowledge, and the rest, I cannot tell you because I'm not a rider, and of course he's has so much more knowledge than I could have, so, I don't know.
00:32:41.416 --> 00:32:44.628
But, I think it's mainly with respect and love.
00:32:44.628 --> 00:32:47.964
For instance, love for sure, and with immense passion for the horse.
00:32:47.964 --> 00:32:50.759
My father was a passionate man.
00:32:50.759 --> 00:32:54.888
Everything he did was always...
00:32:54.888 --> 00:33:02.605
if he was angry with you, you really wanted to stay away.
00:33:03.146 --> 00:33:05.273
If he was in love, he was passionate.
00:33:05.273 --> 00:33:09.444
If he was happy, he made us all laugh.
00:33:09.862 --> 00:33:30.717
But, every time my father had to sell his horses, because he had to feed his family, and feed the horses, and pay the salaries, and buy food for the horses, all these things, he would cry, and for a week he would be in such a bad mood, and sad and depressed.
00:33:31.384 --> 00:33:39.726
But then every time, and Luís Valença can tell you this, he has lots of stories like this — every time he bought a new horse, it was the best.
00:33:39.726 --> 00:33:45.314
Never had he had any horse that was as good, I mean, he would say"I'm in love with this horse.
00:33:45.314 --> 00:33:49.861
I'm in love. I never had a horse like this!" That's the way he was.
00:33:50.193 --> 00:33:52.654
What was it like to watch him ride?
00:33:53.321 --> 00:34:02.248
When I was little, listen, I had no critical spirit, because that's all I knew.
00:34:02.664 --> 00:34:19.806
And actually I didn't need to know anything else; it was the best! But when I was very, very young, in school, I used to say very proudly to my classmates, my friends, I don't know how you say that — the other little girls.
00:34:20.599 --> 00:34:28.858
Because teachers used to ask something that I think you should not do.
00:34:29.400 --> 00:34:42.704
"What does your father do?""What does your father do in life?" So everybody would say what they did, and I said, "My father is an artist, and he's the greatest artist in the world," so they would make fun of me.
00:34:42.704 --> 00:34:45.625
But I was convinced he was a great artist.
00:34:46.291 --> 00:34:47.626
I was right.
00:34:47.751 --> 00:34:48.418
No?
00:34:48.418 --> 00:34:50.588
I think so as well.
00:34:51.130 --> 00:34:55.802
So, he must have had, gosh, so many horses throughout his career.
00:34:55.842 --> 00:35:00.222
There were many, many, because he rode many horses for other people.
00:35:00.222 --> 00:35:08.188
When he was young, he started very young, and at 14 he was already training at Master Miranda's after school.
00:35:08.356 --> 00:35:14.695
Do you think there were maybe one or a couple horses that really stood out to him, or were especially special to him?
00:35:14.695 --> 00:35:18.365
Yes, I can't remember which, but there were some horses.
00:35:18.365 --> 00:35:33.755
Who always remembers those things, if anybody wants to ask, go to Luís Valença before he disappears, because he knows everything, he remembers everything, he knows the names of the horses, their colours, where he bought them, he went with him...
00:35:33.755 --> 00:35:36.175
and for sure he had favourites.
00:35:36.175 --> 00:35:38.677
He had a passion for certain horses.
00:35:38.677 --> 00:35:42.139
But, I'll tell you a very funny story.
00:35:42.597 --> 00:35:45.559
I think it was Beau Geste. He loved Beau Geste.
00:35:45.684 --> 00:35:49.105
He was beautiful, you know how they are.
00:35:49.188 --> 00:36:01.742
 And there was this American actor that came, he started to come when I was in my teens, he started to come to that old school.
00:36:02.076 --> 00:36:09.876
 He made these movies, cowboy movies, and was a big guy with muscles and everything.
00:36:09.876 --> 00:36:12.085
He wanted to buy that horse.
00:36:12.335 --> 00:36:20.594
There was also a student of my father who many people there knew, Mitos Sison, she was a Filipino lady.
00:36:20.594 --> 00:36:27.309
And the American actor wanted to buy the horse.
00:36:28.393 --> 00:36:30.813
 But my father thought...
00:36:30.813 --> 00:36:39.614
he didn't think it was the right fit; he was too big, he was maybe not as refined...
00:36:39.989 --> 00:36:44.202
excuse me! And the horse was different type.
00:36:44.202 --> 00:37:11.938
So, he came with his checkbook open, and signed it, with a blank value, and said to my father,"Put whatever value you want." And my father sold the horse to the lady, because she was small, little, much more refined and he sold the horse for much less money.
00:37:11.938 --> 00:37:18.360
I mean, he could have put any sum he wanted.
00:37:18.360 --> 00:37:20.028
It was a better match for the horse.
00:37:20.278 --> 00:37:23.407
That's how he loved horses and respected them.
00:37:23.407 --> 00:37:25.242
More than the money.
00:37:26.869 --> 00:37:35.378
I wanted to come to back to how you said that your father was an artist, and I think most people agree, he really got to the level of riding where it became an art.
00:37:35.378 --> 00:37:40.132
And then, I want to pivot a bit to your story, because you're also an artist.
00:37:40.423 --> 00:37:50.016
Do you think that seeing your father working, or, you know, this spirit that he had influenced you and your journey towards becoming an artist?
00:37:50.309 --> 00:37:51.936
Well, it was not only him.
00:37:51.936 --> 00:37:54.563
My mother was a fantastic poet.
00:37:55.021 --> 00:38:01.987
She wrote beautiful sonnets and she was a very sensitive woman and very cultured.
00:38:01.987 --> 00:38:07.367
And so, it was not only him, it was her as well.
00:38:09.996 --> 00:38:15.835
But, and let's go further back.
00:38:17.420 --> 00:38:20.840
The person he loved most in his life was his grandmother.
00:38:23.092 --> 00:38:27.804
She lived in the same house as him, since he was young, they lived in the same house.
00:38:28.389 --> 00:38:33.059
She was an extraordinarily well educated woman.
00:38:33.393 --> 00:38:58.293
She spoke six languages and wrote in them, and she wrote with several Portuguese writers, she painted marvelously, and she was a big influence on my father with classical music, opera, and all that.
00:38:58.626 --> 00:39:01.047
So this had happened already.
00:39:01.088 --> 00:39:09.889
This comes from her, from his father, and my grandmother also played the piano.
00:39:10.139 --> 00:39:22.443
And it's very funny, something that made my father very unhappy was that he had tried to play the piano, and she said, "No, you have peasant's hands." Oh dear.
00:39:22.650 --> 00:39:30.367
That made him very unhappy until the end of his life, and you know, lightness in the hands, that's all he ever spoke about.
00:39:30.367 --> 00:39:32.036
He used it in a different way.
00:39:32.369 --> 00:39:33.119
Yeah.
00:39:35.748 --> 00:39:42.463
If people are hearing about you for the first time through this podcast, how would you describe yourself to them?
00:39:43.547 --> 00:39:45.800
I don't know, I'm still a work in progress.
00:39:47.550 --> 00:39:48.594
As are we all.
00:39:48.760 --> 00:39:49.427
Yeah.
00:39:51.389 --> 00:39:56.351
I don't know how, other people can describe me.
00:39:57.769 --> 00:40:02.273
I don't know how to describe myself, except for things that are not
00:40:04.610 --> 00:40:13.369
how old I am, that I'm one meter and a half, how much I weigh, the colour of my eyes, what I do...
00:40:13.369 --> 00:40:15.204
but that's not a person.
00:40:15.496 --> 00:40:21.918
But then you're open, I suppose, to becoming someone every day, and seeing what happens.
00:40:22.753 --> 00:40:23.920
Very nice.
00:40:26.172 --> 00:40:30.677
I try to be happy, and to be fair.
00:40:31.387 --> 00:40:33.931
For the rest, we'll see.
00:40:34.347 --> 00:40:43.898
How do you think your experiences growing up, and with your father being who he was, and doing what he was doing, how do you think it kind of shaped your life, or who you've become?
00:40:43.898 --> 00:40:46.652
Immensely, immensely, immensely.
00:40:46.777 --> 00:40:56.077
In one way, one of the best things that my father gave me is liking some sort of music.
00:40:56.077 --> 00:41:31.197
 Every Sunday, he was home only on — he would come home every night, but he worked Sunday mornings also — so, in the afternoon, usually he would sit on the sofa and very often go to sleep, read his newspaper, But I spent my childhood on Sundays sitting on his lap and listening to those small records with the thing that goes around like this...
00:41:31.197 --> 00:41:32.822
how do you call this? I don't remember.
00:41:32.822 --> 00:41:34.115
Yeah, a record.
00:41:34.617 --> 00:41:39.663
Beethoven — you know, I know Beethoven from left to right and right to left.
00:41:39.663 --> 00:41:48.088
At that time it was Beethoven, and I inherited the taste and the ear for that.
00:41:48.088 --> 00:41:59.141
And it was magnificent to me, because even today, my soul can listen to these things and be full.
00:41:59.641 --> 00:42:13.030
So, the taste for music — quite often what we did when I was here, at midnight in his office, was to look at the stars, and listen to an aria of opera in 10 different versions.
00:42:13.030 --> 00:42:20.829
We would smoke at that time, unfortunately, I smoked and drank cognac with him, and we stayed for two hours listening to that.
00:42:20.954 --> 00:42:28.211
"What do you like best?""What do you think of this one?""What do you think of that one?""What do you think of this voice?" It was very funny.
00:42:28.753 --> 00:42:33.509
I heard you also heard a lot of opera in the riding hall, he used to ride all the time to Verdi.
00:42:33.509 --> 00:42:34.510
Everybody did.
00:42:34.510 --> 00:42:37.762
You know, even in the village, because he put it so loud.
00:42:37.762 --> 00:42:46.730
He had four loud speakers and we were in the village, it started at 8 o'clock in the morning, there was music already.
00:42:46.730 --> 00:42:57.157
He started before that, earlier, but in the village, people were working the fields to the sound of Verdi.
00:42:58.826 --> 00:43:10.295
And many students came and said,"Oh my God, we have to listen to, this? In order to watch him, we have to listen to this awful thing all the time?" Many of them left loving opera.
00:43:11.005 --> 00:43:12.463
It makes a big impact.
00:43:12.590 --> 00:43:15.134
I used to go to the opera with him often.
00:43:15.509 --> 00:43:32.610
The first time I went, I remember that it was an opera from Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro, and beforehand we went to a restaurant, a very chic restaurant where all the waiters had the white towel and everything.
00:43:32.610 --> 00:43:51.711
And I was so happy, because I was maybe 6 or something, and I felt like a lady, and I had this beautiful man just there for me, and I was alone with him, but I was also feeling really ashamed, because underneath the tablecloth, my feet couldn't reach the floor, you know?
00:43:51.878 --> 00:43:55.923
But then we went and he gave me chocolates, and we listened to the opera.
00:43:55.923 --> 00:43:57.425
We used to go very often.
00:43:57.425 --> 00:44:02.972
My mother used to go out as well, but she liked more romantic music, and not so much opera.
00:44:03.681 --> 00:44:10.105
So, it sounds like the whole family was really quite artistic, and I also wanted to ask about the art that you do.
00:44:10.105 --> 00:44:13.192
You make really beautiful, beautiful silk scarves.
00:44:13.358 --> 00:44:13.900
You liked it?
00:44:14.025 --> 00:44:18.947
I love them, they're stunning, and I really recommend people have a look if they're interested.
00:44:19.030 --> 00:44:28.164
Could you talk about how you created them, and sort of how you came to be an artist, and make what you have?
00:44:29.208 --> 00:44:46.474
I always drew since I was very little, and I remember the best thing my father did when he started to go to Switzerland — First it was in Switzerland that he started to become known abroad.
00:44:46.599 --> 00:44:47.809
Where in Switzerland?
00:44:47.809 --> 00:44:56.275
Oh, Zurich and Geneva, and there's lots of videos of him doing presentations there.
00:44:58.320 --> 00:45:10.206
There's even this story where he went to Switzerland to do a presentation with two horses, and the horses went by train.
00:45:10.248 --> 00:45:22.344
The horses were supposed to be picked up the day before the exhibition, somewhere on the outskirts of Geneva, and nobody went there to pick them up.
00:45:22.344 --> 00:45:35.690
It was rush hour, and my father, not knowing Geneva very well, rode one of the horses, took the other one by the reins, and crossed Geneva with the horses on horseback.
00:45:37.275 --> 00:45:38.443
He made it happen.
00:45:38.485 --> 00:45:45.242
He used to do that in Lisbon when he was young, you know, even going to the other side of the Tagus River, doing 50 kilometers on horseback.
00:45:45.242 --> 00:45:46.326
Wow.
00:45:46.409 --> 00:45:51.123
So, he used to bring me these fantastic Caran d'Ache...
00:45:51.581 --> 00:45:52.541
A what?
00:45:52.541 --> 00:45:59.757
Caran d'Ache is a beautiful brand of coloured pencils and nowadays many other things.
00:46:00.173 --> 00:46:06.972
So, he knew that was the best thing for me, because most of my life, that's what I did, like most children do, you know?
00:46:07.181 --> 00:46:14.438
So, then I went into art school in Portugal, in Belgium, and in Chicago.
00:46:14.521 --> 00:46:18.150
And um, that's where I learned about fabrics.
00:46:18.317 --> 00:46:30.913
I also was also weaving silk, but not only that, I also did oil painting and acrylics, and drawing, and all these things.
00:46:30.913 --> 00:46:38.628
Nowadays, I'm not doing that much, because...
00:46:40.047 --> 00:46:44.217
because I want to live, and it's a lot of pressure.
00:46:44.717 --> 00:46:50.139
You are working all the time, and nowadays I prefer...
00:46:50.139 --> 00:47:03.487
I'm older, so, now what I want to do, really, is I have a 150 year old Portuguese loom, a beautiful loom that is sitting in my house.
00:47:03.820 --> 00:47:15.081
And that's what I want to do for this winter; weave on my loom, look at the trees, listen to nice music, meditate, and be quiet.
00:47:15.916 --> 00:47:20.838
That exhibition I sent to you, it's so beautiful.
00:47:21.045 --> 00:47:26.885
I usually don't say good things about my work, I always point to its faults, but that exhibition was really beautiful.
00:47:26.885 --> 00:47:31.974
So I did that, and now I want to be quiet.
00:47:32.557 --> 00:47:35.226
Yeah, you sent me this exhibition, it's really beautiful.
00:47:35.226 --> 00:47:40.940
People can see them on your website as well — I'd prefer that they go to YouTube and see it.
00:47:41.567 --> 00:47:46.280
Yeah, Okay, I'll put a link down in the description of this video so people can have a look.
00:47:46.362 --> 00:47:50.534
The problem is that the music is so loud, but it was a nice exhibition.
00:47:53.327 --> 00:47:54.079
The works that are there?
00:47:54.371 --> 00:47:56.498
I started with white silk.
00:47:56.664 --> 00:48:01.168
I painted it, fixed it, and I've sewn it.
00:48:02.086 --> 00:48:06.632
And I mean, recently you've been, from what I've seen, more busy with, for example,
00:48:10.304 --> 00:48:14.307
The Collected Early Writings by Master Nuno Oliveira with Xenophon press.
00:48:15.016 --> 00:48:18.353
The later works and the early works.
00:48:18.353 --> 00:48:19.605
Ah, and the early ones.
00:48:19.980 --> 00:48:50.427
And this summer I did something that I'm very happy I did, and I would like to do more, but Portuguese publishers don't seem to be very interested in that — it was the county of Mafra that offered to work with me, to do a translation of The Classical Principles of the Art of Training Horses, which in my opinion is the best, because everything is in there.
00:48:50.552 --> 00:49:00.728
 When I was translating it and I asked them if I could do the Portuguese version, and they paid for it and published it, and it's quite a nice little book in Portuguese.
00:49:00.728 --> 00:49:02.773
Is it only available in Portuguese?
00:49:02.981 --> 00:49:08.570
No, it's available in the Xenophon Press edition, everything is there.
00:49:08.862 --> 00:49:09.237
Okay, yeah.
00:49:09.320 --> 00:49:15.327
But in Portuguese, there is almost nothing because my father wrote directly in French.
00:49:15.952 --> 00:49:17.204
Ah, that's why.
00:49:17.286 --> 00:49:25.878
His French was very good, it was a family that spoke several languages very well, and he learned his French with his grandmother.
00:49:27.755 --> 00:49:35.097
 And so I decided, okay, if they do this, I'll be a part of it, because you needed a good designer too.
00:49:35.097 --> 00:49:45.690
I think this book is important, and Portuguese should have its own editions; not everybody speaks English well, or knows the technical terms.
00:49:46.065 --> 00:50:01.873
So, it was a huge pleasure for me to translate this, because I translated it from the manuscript as I did with the help of Desiree du Pisanie for the English version.
00:50:03.125 --> 00:50:30.985
 I translated it directly from the manuscript because, for instance,  the French version, my father said yes to it, she (the translator) put it into nice French, and although it's in French, behind the French, I can hear the Portuguese man who is thinking in Portuguese.
00:50:31.902 --> 00:50:39.077
So, it is easy to make a translation in such a way that one can hear him.
00:50:39.161 --> 00:50:42.873
And I was listening to the translation, and I could see everything that is in there.
00:50:43.039 --> 00:50:46.918
It was just like the lessons he gave, when he was at the school.
00:50:47.043 --> 00:50:55.092
You know, I could see the horses going, I could see him telling people,"Do this; do that." You can see that in this book.
00:50:55.217 --> 00:51:00.474
This book is precious, for people to know what to do.
00:51:01.724 --> 00:51:11.818
All of them are, but this book, the  Classical Principles of the Art of Training Horses, something like that, is...
00:51:13.527 --> 00:51:17.907
fantastic, and simple. You know, the difference is — can I tell you this?
00:51:18.282 --> 00:51:19.076
Okay.
00:51:19.367 --> 00:51:29.251
The last things I translated from him, some years ago, before this one, the last things were the articles he did in the 1950's.
00:51:29.628 --> 00:51:43.099
In the 1950's, he was 20-something years old, they are very interesting, but in all of them, you can already feel the passion of this young man, but in all of them.
00:51:43.349 --> 00:51:53.275
He's showing you all the time, his erudite readings, how much he knows, how he applies it, everything.
00:51:53.818 --> 00:51:54.568
He's proud.
00:51:54.568 --> 00:51:57.197
My father was a proud man, uh?
00:51:57.197 --> 00:52:01.284
Something that you couldn't do is to hurt his pride.
00:52:02.369 --> 00:52:08.458
 And he had reasons to be proud — many.
00:52:09.208 --> 00:52:17.007
 But, he had some pride in showing how much he knew.
00:52:17.007 --> 00:52:28.686
 This book (Classical Principles of the Art of Training Horses) is one of the last ones he wrote in Australia after he had been offering training, So, he would be quiet in his hotel, and he wrote the whole thing in one go.
00:52:29.603 --> 00:52:32.690
He didn't need to show off anything anymore.
00:52:32.690 --> 00:52:36.820
His language is extremely simple, and straightforward.
00:52:37.152 --> 00:52:42.617
Because then he was a master, and the more you know, the simpler you explain things.
00:52:42.742 --> 00:52:43.952
it's true.
00:52:45.829 --> 00:52:56.505
Maybe we're coming close to an end, but I really want to ask, is there a story of your father, which you feel like isn't told very often, but you feel like says a lot about him, or is important?
00:52:56.505 --> 00:52:59.175
 Oh, there are so many stories.
00:52:59.175 --> 00:53:12.856
He, he was a very special person, not only in riding you know, he had a sense of humor, and a sense for doing theatrical things.
00:53:12.856 --> 00:53:19.570
So, I've written many of them that are shared around, but not in a book.
00:53:19.653 --> 00:53:21.822
What's an example?
00:53:23.199 --> 00:53:24.867
As an example...
00:53:27.786 --> 00:53:30.539
I don't know if it's well known or not.
00:53:30.789 --> 00:53:42.052
Once I was there, in the old school, and there was this journalist that had come from Paris.
00:53:42.135 --> 00:53:55.606
 I don't know which, but he wrote for one of those very well known horse magazines, and he came, and he was just coming for that afternoon, and then leaving for Origny.
00:53:56.106 --> 00:54:04.490
 He came, and it was in the arena down there, and here was the — how do you say, the spectators gallery?
00:54:04.615 --> 00:54:13.500
 And in the viewing gallery, my father had a piece of furniture  in which you kept all the records.
00:54:13.500 --> 00:54:20.465
He always had a fantastic collection, and you had those LP players that you put 10 records onto.
00:54:20.465 --> 00:54:26.596
 My father told me before the man came, "You can put his one." I was like, 17, 16, something like that.
00:54:26.887 --> 00:54:31.141
 Put these records after this one" then they, they would drop, you know.
00:54:32.101 --> 00:54:40.277
Then my father started to ride, and the man came for the interview, and he was in the viewing gallery.
00:54:40.527 --> 00:54:57.710
My father would ride, smoking all the time, smoking with his cigarette hanging from his mouth, would stop, say "Haaa" to the horse, and then would whistle, listen to the opera, whistle, and go again.
00:54:58.753 --> 00:55:18.063
And then he stopped the horse, he looked up at the guy, and he said "Vous avez, monsieur.""You know, I would actually like to be, what I would like to do in life is be a tenor, an opera singer, but I don't have the voice.
00:55:18.440 --> 00:55:23.277
So I ride, in order to be able to listen to opera.
00:55:24.445 --> 00:55:27.197
You know, the man went away without any interview.
00:55:28.240 --> 00:55:32.536
Because, I don't know, he would do things like that.
00:55:32.619 --> 00:55:44.090
He had these huge eyes, and he would wink at me like this and laugh, and he decided for that day, that he would only speak about opera, not about horses.
00:55:44.173 --> 00:55:49.262
He liked to do these kinds of things and he was enjoying it immensely, doing these...
00:55:50.012 --> 00:55:52.806
theatrical things. That was him.
00:55:52.806 --> 00:55:53.974
Bit of a jokester.
00:55:53.974 --> 00:55:55.101
Yeah.
00:55:55.268 --> 00:56:04.693
If you could leave people listening with one memory or idea, or maybe a message from you or your father, what would you say?
00:56:05.778 --> 00:56:08.530
It can be about anything, it doesn't have to be about horses.
00:56:12.452 --> 00:56:16.539
Do things with lots of passion and love.
00:56:17.206 --> 00:56:23.338
and openness, but really you can only do something if you really love what you're doing.
00:56:23.505 --> 00:56:29.844
So, try to do what you love in your life, if possible, all the time.
00:56:30.719 --> 00:56:32.012
I think that's good advice.
00:56:32.262 --> 00:56:33.389
That's what he did.
00:56:33.556 --> 00:56:38.018
And he became, you know, an amazing person who inspires a lot of people.
00:56:41.523 --> 00:56:44.275
it was a huge amount of work.
00:56:45.150 --> 00:56:47.903
I never saw anybody work so much.
00:56:49.655 --> 00:56:58.748
And he had a huge amount of honesty towards the horse, towards his art, that counts a lot.
00:56:58.748 --> 00:57:00.958
Work, work, work, work, work.
00:57:00.958 --> 00:57:04.670
I think it's important for people to know, that that also makes the difference.
00:57:04.920 --> 00:57:09.967
I also think, you know, maybe he worked too much.
00:57:10.135 --> 00:57:11.385
Too much.
00:57:13.471 --> 00:57:16.932
But he also smoked too much, so he died very young.
00:57:18.143 --> 00:57:24.983
And thank God, he died young, because he left everything he knew to people.
00:57:25.858 --> 00:57:35.742
 But he was in a very bad condition physically, And, he might have been paralyzed after.
00:57:35.742 --> 00:57:39.539
He didn't know that; I knew, because the doctor told me.
00:57:39.621 --> 00:57:48.172
So, it was good he died young, because, you know, he said he's going to end up in a wheelchair.
00:57:48.590 --> 00:57:53.469
And with a man of that strength, he would've been impossible.
00:57:53.677 --> 00:57:55.096
He was not an easy man, uh?
00:57:55.262 --> 00:57:57.139
He was not an easy person.
00:57:57.139 --> 00:57:59.349
He was difficult to live with.
00:57:59.641 --> 00:58:04.481
Passionate, but difficult to live with.
00:58:04.981 --> 00:58:09.318
A very interesting person, but very difficult to live with.
00:58:09.318 --> 00:58:12.572
He was difficult with himself, even.
00:58:13.447 --> 00:58:18.286
So God did things the way they should be done.
00:58:19.244 --> 00:58:27.920
He went to bed with his Walkman listening to Verdi, and then he passed onto the other realm.
00:58:28.045 --> 00:58:29.297
So, good.
00:58:30.255 --> 00:58:37.847
Well, he continues to be a huge inspiration for so many riders, and I just want to thank you so much for joining me for this conversation.
00:58:37.931 --> 00:58:38.764
Thank you, I loved it.
00:58:38.764 --> 00:58:50.318
Because you know, it's so special to hear, directly from you about your story, and your experiences, and the stories about your father, because there are not so many people who can really speak directly to it anymore, so it means a lot.
00:58:50.318 --> 00:58:51.485
So, thank you so much.
00:58:51.735 --> 00:58:52.527
Thank you.
00:58:52.778 --> 00:58:53.530
Thank you.