High Life

HIGH LIFE #13 Oct 2017 45 A ntónio Conceição Júnior is, above all else, a man with impeccable taste. His charm is indisputable and even those who haven’t met him will recognize his face – he’s a figure one doesn’t easily forget. But how does António describe himself? As a man of the world, he explains – a man who is interested in all aspects of art and is constantly fascinated by everything human. António was born in Macau in the early 1950s into a highly cultured family. His mother was a journalist, an English and shorthand teacher and Macau’s first female novelist. Her work is studied at a number of universities in the People’s Republic of China and in the US. His father was a journalist, French teacher, Director of Education and the last Director of the Portuguese language newspaper Notícias de Macau (Macau News). Unsurprisingly, António became involved in his parents’ metier, taking on the roles of editor, writer and illustrator of the juvenile page of the newspaper, perhaps the first step in a career that would be filed with innovation, creativity and success. Naturally driven to follow in his parents’ footsteps, he majored in design and communications with excellence at the Lisbon School of Fine Arts and Design in 1975. “The following year, I was chosen to represent Portugal at the 12th International Illustrators Convention in Lucca, Italy,” he recalls. It was by Governor Garcia Leandro’s invitation that he returned to the city where he was born in 1977.