Les boeufs, 1980

José Antonio Da Silva  

José Antonio da Silva

1909 – Salles de Oliveira, SP.

1996 – São Paulo, SP.

Painter, singer, sculptor, writer, and scenographer. In the early 1940s, José Antonio moved to São José do Rio Preto. In 1948, he held his first solo exhibition at Galeria Domus in São Paulo, where he was enthusiastically received by the high society of São Paulo and acclaimed by the critics as a true discovery, as an artist “with an extraordinary sense of colour and intuitive knowledge of the essential secrets of composition". He was selected to participate in the Bienal de São Paulo of 1951, 1953, 1955, 1961, 1963, 1965, 1967 and 1987, and the Bienal de la Havana in 1954 and the Biennale di Venezia in 1966. 

Considered the Brazilian Naïve painter of greater repercussion, Silva held numerous exhibitions, including the great retrospective held at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de São Paulo in 1989, and the solo exhibition held at the Paço das Artes, also in São Paulo, in 1992 – which was publicized with a placard that reproduced a painting by José Antonio which depicted [the Three Greatest Painters of the World], where he is portrayed in slightly larger scale, standing in between Picasso and Van Gogh. 

Another remarkable event, albeit posthumous, was the great retrospective exhibition held at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, which included a digital catalogue and a impressive publication devoted to his life and work which were produced and edited for the occasion, two years after his death. “An uncommon artist, who dealt with the living theme of the  [one of the four sub-regions of the northeast of Brazil, distinctive for its very dry climate and arid backlands] and the vibrant language of colours within a gestural and sometimes brutal technique which nevertheless always remained sensitive and eloquent", wrote art critic Luiz Ernesto Kawall.