The Portinari Project was created in 1979. Its founder and director-general to this day, Professor João Candido Portinari, addressing his father in a posthumous letter-preface that introduced the first publication of the Portinari Project, declared: "...it is as a Brazilian that I feel duty-bound to work so that we can all rediscover your work and, through it, ourselves".
Candido Portinari was born on December 29, 1903, on a coffee farm near the small town of Brodowski, in the state of São Paulo. The son of Italian immigrants from a humble background, he had a poor childhood. He only received primary education. From an early age, he showed his artistic vocation. He started painting at the age of nine. And from the coffee plantation to the United Nations, he became one of the greatest painters of his time.
