Maria José Palla
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Maria José Palla | |
|---|---|
 Self-portrait by Palla | |
| Born | 30 July 1943 Lisbon, Portugal |
| Died | 27 July 2025 (aged 81) Lisbon |
| Occupations | photographer; professor of literature |
Maria José Palla (1943–2025) was a Portuguese photographer and a professor of literature, photography, and cinema, at the NOVA University Lisbon. To escape Portugal's dictatorship, she had spent most of her third and fourth decades studying and working in Paris.
Palla was born on 30 July 1943 in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. She was the daughter of the architect Victor Palla and the painter Zuilcides Saraiva. Living under the Estado Novo dictatorship in Portugal she chose to move to Paris. The exact year of her departure from Portugal is unclear but by 1963 she was taking a photography course at the Société française de photographie in Paris, as well as conducting research and doing an internship in laboratory techniques. In 1965 she attended the École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière, while doing an internship at an advertising agency. From 1967 to 1973 she worked as an assistant at the Pierre and Marie Curie Laboratory, now the Institut Curie, while also taking courses at the École pratique des hautes études under the direction of the filmmaker Jean Rouch. Palla then studied art history as a senior student at the École du Louvre, from which she graduated in museology in 1975, at the same time studying for a degree in Portuguese from Paris 8 University where she gained a degree in literature in 1980.[1][2][3][4]
In 1982 Palla obtained an advanced studies diploma from the Paris-Sorbonne University in Romance Studies, with a thesis entitled "Objects of Civilization in the Work of Gil Vicente". She received a PhD from the same university in 1991, with a thesis on the symbolism of costume in the works of Gil Vicente.[1][2][5]
