Asta and Luis de Almeida d’Eça are credited with crafting the image of the Algarve as a tourism destination as we know it today
The Algarve’s transformation into a top tourist destination is at the heart of a new photography exhibition now on display in Portimão. Showcasing the work of Asta and Luís de Almeida d’Eça, the exhibition is part of a wider celebration of the RTA’s (Algarve Tourism Board) 55th anniversary and will travel across the region over the coming year.
The exhibition, entitled “The Algarve of Asta and Luís de Almeida d’Eça”, is on display at Portimão’s municipal theatre TEMPO until July 10, offering a nostalgic look at the region during its formative decades as a tourist destination.
Asta and Luis de Almeida d’Eça are credited with crafting the image of the Algarve as a tourism destination as we know it today. Their photos, taken between the 1960s and 1980s, were used in official tourism campaigns, highlighting the region’s natural beauty, traditions and local life.
The exhibition features over 20 panels and is made possible thanks to a collaboration between the RTA, the municipalities of Portimão and Lagoa, and TEMPO. Many of the photos come from the Almeida d’Eça Archive, a collection of around 50,000 colour slides now preserved by the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar and its Centre for Photography Studies (CEFT).
The exhibition is part of a wider calendar of 55 cultural events spread across all 16 municipalities in the region, marking more than half a century of the RTA’s work.
After Portimão, the exhibition will travel to Tavira, where it will be displayed at Tavira Plaza from July 15 to August 29, and then to Castro Marim’s tourist office at the local market between September 15 and 30, with further stops expected until March 2026.
Who were the photographers?
Last year, the Resident published an in-depth article about Asta and Luis de Almeida d’Eça and their work.
Asta Ella Føge Almeida d’Eça was born in Denmark in 1929, the eldest daughter of a couple of photographers from Aarhus. After working as a photographer in several European countries, she moved to South Africa at the start of the 1950s at the invitation of a businessman linked to Kehlet Foto, with the goal of training new photographers and running their network of commercial establishments. She met her future husband during a holiday in Maputo, Mozambique, in 1954, and the two were wed in 1956.
Meanwhile, Luís de Moura Coutinho Almeida d’Eça was born in Mozambique in 1924 and spent part of his youth studying in Lisbon. After holding an important position in the Sena Sugar Estates Lda (sugar production company), Luís Almeida d’Eça moved with his wife to Lisbon where they both focused on photography as their main activity.
University of Algarve (UAlg) professor and photography researcher Nuno de Santos Loureiro, who spent years researching the couple and their work, believes that Asta was likely the main photographer, while Luís run the business. What’s certain is that the couple worked as a team. Apart from their work in the Algarve, the couple also worked for big airlines such as British Airways and South African Airlines, as well as the tourism boards of the Algarve and Cape Verde.
The couple continued to photograph the Algarve until the 1980s. However, after Luís D’Eça died at the start of the 1990s, Asta abandoned photography almost completely. She died in the Algarve in 2015.
