“The Hard Life” examines the impact that centuries of practice, individual craftsmanship and the desire to sculpt with the most modest of means, have had on the tools that made life both viable and meaningful for a pre-industrial society. The exhibition poses the following questions: by what means did so much beauty and ingenuity find their way into the objects of daily rural life in Portugal? How did the shape of these objects balance necessity and formal perfection so skillfully? Objects can be appreciated both for their beauty and as examples of design in its purest form.