The Gulbenkian Biography Project has had a number of impacts beyond the 2019 book Mr Five Per Cent, including exhibitions, radio documentaries and a youth engagement project. The greatest impact, however, has been the project’s role as catalyst in a national debate within Portugal surrounding the origins of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. How important a role should “founder’s intent” play in shaping the future of this philanthropy? What challenges would Gulbenkian identify as most important, were he alive today? How can the man become a living presence in the museum that bears his name? These are some of the questions Dr Conlin continues to explore beyond the project’s successful completion, with ongoing support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
The centenaries of World War I and of the Armenian Genocide provided a context within which the project’s preliminary findings were presented to the public, through a 2014 exhibition at the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon (opened by Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk) as well as an episode of the prestigious radio documentary series Une Vie, Une Oeuvre (France Culture).
Upon its publication in January 2019 Conlin's biography entered the UK non-fiction best-seller lists, reaching third place in the Evening Standard's “London Bestsellers” while the Portuguese translation spent several weeks at number two in Portugal. The implications of the biography for the Foundation were clear to journalists inside and outside Portugal, with Conlin interviewed on NewsTalk radio (Dublin), German public radio, RTP television and radio (both Lisbon) and the BBC World Service's “The Forum”. The Portuguese newspaper Público's headline welcomed Conlin's book as follows: 'After 60 Years, A Biography To Help To Shape the Future of the Gulbenkian'.
At the launch of the book at the Foundation headquarters in Lisbon in late January 2019 Conlin, Foundation President Isabel Mota and the Portuguese Head of State, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa delivered speeches addressing the biography’s implications for Gulbenkian's legacy to Portugal and the world. The biography formed a focus of the Foundation's celebrations of Gulbenkian's 150th birthday, not only at their Lisbon headquarters, but in their London and Paris branches as well. In February 2020 it announced the creation of the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity, an annual award of one million Euros intended to engage civil society in addressing global challenges such as climate change.
The project provoked a debate on whether “founder’s intent” should direct a foundation’s agenda. Staff from twenty UK-based foundations attended a symposium at the Foundation's UK branch in February 2019, at which Conlin took part in a discussion with Gulbenkian's great-grandson and the Chief Executive of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Hosted by Janet Morrison, Chair of the Association of Charitable Foundations, the symposium suggested that “founder’s intent” could be “something that facilitates continuous development and vision”, rather than being “a dead hand”.
The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon is one of Portugal’s most important tourist sites, and visitors often express curiosity about the man behind the collection. The project has sought to enrich their understanding of the connections between Gulbenkian and his collection. The Museum invited Conlin to contribute a series of labels to their permanent galleries, allowing visitors to learn more about Gulbenkian's taste and relationship with the art market. He delivered the keynote introduction at “Collecting: modus operandi, 1900-1950”, an international conference on the history of collecting held at the Museum.
The Foundation’s Quem e Calouste?-Who is Calouste? programme invited young adults aged 15-25 to use music, the visual arts and written word to tell the Foundation what Calouste – refugee, tycoon, paterfamilias, visionary – meant to them today. All in all the Gulbenkian Biography Project has made this mysterious, quasi-mythical figure into a living presence for a range of publics, within Portugal and around the world.
