Candido Portinari

Candido Portinari was born on 29 December 1903 on the Santa Rosa coffee plantation in the state of São Paulo to a humble family of Veneto origin who had emigrated to Brazil some time before.

From an early age he showed a talent for painting, moving to Rio de Janeiro at the age of 15 to attend the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes where he began to concentrate on portraiture.

In 1928 he won the European Travel award and went to Paris, where he developed his artistic identity.

In the 1930s, he consolidated his fame with numerous solo exhibitions in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, but it was in 1940, at the MoMa in New York, that his career reached its peak, with the solo show Portinari of Brazil.

He portrayed human drama, elevating his message to a universal meaning, as can be seen in his three works Café, O Labrador de Café and Retirantes.

His paintings are loved and displayed in all the most important international galleries.

He died in 1962 at the age of just 59, poisoned by paint, after a life dedicated to art and the completion of his masterpiece War and Peace.

Story collected in collaboration with the Centro Studi Grandi Migrazioni.