Candido Portinari Born in 1903 in Brodowski, close to the city of Ribeirão Preto, State of São Paulo, Brazil Candido Portinari is considered to be one of the greatest painter Brazil has ever produced, yet all but a few of his 4,000 paintings are out of public view. They have become dispersed in private collections in so many places that his biographer compared their fate to that of Brazil's 18th-century revolutionary hero Tiradentes, whose body was dismembered and strewn along a 300-mile turnpike.

The inaccessibility of Portinari's work is particularly vexing to his enthusiasts because his own dedication to producing an epic view of Brazil for his countrymen was such that he continued painting even after doctors warned him that exposure to paint was killing him. Portinari died of lead poisoning in 1962 .