José Antônio da Silva, born in 1909 and deceased in 1996, was a Brazilian painter, drawer, writer, sculptor, and improvisational poet. A rural worker with limited formal education and self-taught, he moved to São José do Rio Preto, São Paulo, in 1931. He emerged in the artistic scene after participating in the inaugural exhibition of the city’s House of Culture in 1946, catching the attention of critics Lourival Gomes Machado and Paulo Mendes de Almeida, and philosopher João Cruz e Costa. In 1948, he had his first solo show at Galeria Domus in São Paulo, where Pietro Maria Bardi, the director of the São Paulo Museum of Art Assis Chateaubriand (MASP), purchased several of his works. In 1951, at the 1st São Paulo International Biennial, he received an acquisition prize from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Silva also founded the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art of São José do Rio Preto in 1966 and published several books throughout his career, including "Romance of My Life" in 1949 and "Maria Clara" in 1970. He moved to São Paulo in 1973 and continued to work and influence Brazilian art until his death.