Candido Portinari was a Brazilian painter of Italian descent and is regarded as one of Brazil’s most important artists. Born on a coffee plantation in São Paulo in 1903 to poor Italian immigrant workers, he studied at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro while earning money as a pencil portraitist.

In 1928, he won the Prix de Voyage and travelled to Europe, where he studied the work of European expressionists and cubists and met his future wife, Maria Martinelli. Returning to Brazil, he committed himself to depicting the real Brazilian experience: its hardship, labour and landscape.

Portinari drew inspiration from the land he grew up on, with its dark earth and blue sky. The colours blue, brown and red appear strongly in his later work. ‘I am the Son of the Red Earth,’ he said. ‘I decided to paint the Brazilian reality, naked and crude as it is.’

He created more than five thousand works, from small studies to monumental murals, including the War and Peace panels donated to the United Nations in 1956. Deeply engaged with Brazil’s cultural and political world, he maintained a strong social conscience throughout his life. He died aged 58 from lead poisoning caused by his paints.