About the collection

The João Cunha Collection brings together more than a hundred paintings by Chico da Silva and the Pirambu School he founded in Fortaleza. The paintings trace the arc of his work, from the early gouaches on paper to the large acrylics on canvas of the Fortaleza years.

Some works from the Pirambu circle carry a dual attribution, “Chico da Silva por Babá” or “Chico da Silva por Claudionor”: canvases that came out of the master’s ateliê through the hands of his disciples. The catalogue names both the master and the painter.

João Cunha is the Brazilian collector who keeps these works together and acts as their guardian. The collection exists to catalogue, document and place this body of work on public record.

Here, beside Garcia, in Fortaleza, in October 2025.

Publishing this catalogue serves two purposes: to give researchers a source on Chico da Silva and the Pirambu School, and to pay tribute to the art of Ceará. Several works in the collection still need restoration. Even so, João Cunha chose to catalogue them as they stand: documenting them now, ahead of restoration, is itself a form of preservation. This is a living collection: new works will continue to be catalogued over time.

How the works are documented

Every painting has a page of its own, with the technique, the support, the measurements and, when the canvas carries one, the signature as it reads. Each page also names who photographed that canvas, and the photograph opens in a high-resolution viewer. Where the chain of ownership is known, it is recorded there too.

Each page also carries a written description of the painting for blind and low-vision visitors. It goes figure by figure and color by color, so that someone who cannot see the canvas can follow what is on it.

Every work has a permanent address of the form /id/jcc-030. It leads to the painting’s current page and will keep leading there if a title is corrected or an address changes. That is the link to cite in a thesis, an article or a Wikipedia entry.

Anyone can reuse the photographs of paintings and the texts, with credit; photographs with people are not included. The license below sets out how.

License

The paintings sit in a private collection, and people who research, teach or write about Chico da Silva almost never get to stand in front of them. The photographs on this site exist to close some of that distance.

The photographs of paintings in the João Cunha Collection, when properly identified, and the texts on this site are free to reuse, as long as you credit the source. They are published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. The license covers the photographs, which are our own work, and not the artists’ paintings themselves.

What you can do

Copy them, print them, put them in a book, a thesis, a newspaper, a video or a website. Crop them, adapt them, translate them. You do not need to ask, you do not need to tell us, and it costs nothing.

How to credit

Every artwork page carries the line ready to use. For a photograph:

Chico da Silva, “Cockfight” (1983). Photo: Eric Keki, João Cunha Collection, CC BY 4.0. https://chicodasilva.org/id/jcc-030

For an article or any other text from here:

“The Caboclo of the Alto Tejo”, João Cunha Collection, CC BY 4.0. https://chicodasilva.org/en/articles/caboclo-of-the-alto-tejo/

For the photographs, use the permanent link, the one with /id/, rather than the address in your browser bar. It survives any future change to the page.

What this does not cover

The press clippings reproduced in the articles belong to the newspapers and magazines that published them. They are here as historical sources and they are not ours to give: to use them, talk to the publication.

Photographs that show people (the painter, collectors, family or visitors to the collection) also fall outside this license. To reproduce them, ask first: the address is in the contact section below.

If you recognize a photograph or a clipping

Some of the historical material reached us with no credit. There are photographs of the painter where we do not know who was behind the camera, and newspaper clippings we could not date or trace to the right publication. If you know who took one of those photographs, which paper a clipping came from and on what day, or you recognize someone in the picture, write to us and we will put the credit right. If you made something published here and would rather it came down, just say so.

Contact

For loans, licensing, press and research inquiries about the works of Chico da Silva in the João Cunha Collection, write to inquiries@chicodasilva.org.

The same address answers for whatever the license above does not settle on its own. The site serves photographs up to 3200 pixels on the long edge, and the zoom bar on every artwork page has a button to download that file: if you need the full resolution or a photograph that shows a person, or want to discuss a loan, an exhibition or a print run, write and we will be glad to help.