Ismael Nery, born in Belém on October 9, 1900, moved to Rio de Janeiro in his childhood, where he began his artistic journey. Despite a brief stint at the National School of Fine Arts - Enba from 1915 to 1916, Nery did not adapt to the academic nature of the course and chose to dedicate himself to self-taught study of Greco-Roman antiquity sculptures, developing a fascination with the human figure.

In 1920, Nery traveled to Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian for three months, a period during which he absorbed influences from expressionism and European modernism, studying works by Cubists like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and familiarizing himself with German expressionism and Italian Renaissance painting. His work is marked by an interest in universal themes and an approach that seeks to transcend perceivable reality through Essentialism, a philosophy he created based on the abstraction of time and space.

Back in Brazil in 1921, he worked as a draftsman at the National Heritage Directorate and became deeply involved with the Rio de Janeiro intellectual and artistic circle, where his ideas on essentialism were formed and discussed. He married poetess Adalgisa Nery in 1926, who became a muse for his major works, which often feature imaginary settings and deal with themes such as the human figure and spiritual condition.

After a trip to Europe in 1927, where he met significant figures like Marc Chagall and André Breton, Nery returned even more influenced by surrealism, integrating it into his work that began to explore even more philosophical and spiritual themes.

Nery's health deteriorated in 1930 when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a disease that was reflected in his later works, which featured distorted figures and somber themes like death. Ismael Nery passed away on April 6, 1934, leaving an artistic legacy that was only fully recognized posthumously, now considered one of the great names in Brazilian art alongside Tarsila do Amaral and Di Cavalcanti.