Rui Sanches was born in Lisbon in 1954. He studied at Ar.Co – Center for Art and Visual Communication, received a BA from Goldsmiths’ College, London (1980), the MFA from Yale University, New Haven (1982) and the PhD from the University of Algarve (2017).

In 1984 he exhibited his work for the first time at the SNBA Modern Art Gallery and at Galeria Diferença, in Lisbon. Since then, he has held more than forty solo exhibitions, including the retrospective exhibition at F. C. Gulbenkian's CAM (2001), the “MUSEUM” at the National Museum of Ancient Art (2008) and “Inside the drawing” at the Carmona e Costa Foundation (2014). He participated in dozens of collective exhibitions, in Portugal and abroad.

Your work is ready. represented in the main Portuguese public collections and in several foreign collections, namely: Gulbenkian Museum, Modern Collection; Serralves Museum; Museum Van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerp; Extremeño and Iberoamerican Museum of Contemporary Art, Badajoz; EDP Foundation; Luso-American Foundation for Development; Collection of Caixa Geral de Depositos; Seedlings – Museum of Contemporary Art of Madeira; Leal Rios Foundation; Berardo Collection and António Cachola Collection.

He has several works in public spaces, namely the “Colonnade” in the Assembly of the Republic and the Monument to Maria José; Nogueira Pinto in Lisbon, and sculptures in Santo Tirso, Alcobendas (Spain), São Pedro do Sul and University of Algarve.

In 2008 he was awarded the AICA-Ministry of Culture Prize.