Julião Sarmento was born in Lisbon in 1948 and lived and worked in Estoril. He attended the Lisbon School of Fine Arts, where he studied painting and architecture. Throughout his career, he was a multidisciplinary artist, working in a wide variety of media, ranging from painting, drawing, and sculpture to photography, video, performance, sound, and installation. He also developed site-specific projects.

Over the past five decades, he has held solo and group exhibitions at prestigious institutions such as the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Serralves Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Haus der Kunst, the Van Abbemuseum, and the Tate Modern. He represented Portugal at the 46th Venice Biennale (1997). He also participated in Documenta 7 (1982) and Documenta 8 (1987), the Venice Biennale (1980 and 2001), and the São Paulo Biennial in 2002. He has been honored with numerous awards over the years, including the “Il Lazio” International Prize (2009) and the AICA Prize for the Visual Arts (2014). His work is represented in various public and private collections in North America and