João Timóteo da Costa

João Timóteo da Costa (1879 – 20 March 1932) was an Afro-Brazilian painter and decorative artist. The Escolas Nacional de Belas Arts was established in order to spread the education and culture of the arts, and the da Costa brothers enrolled there despite the difficulties of being a black artist.

Biography João Timóteo da Costa was born in Rio de Janeiro, from an Afro-Brazilian family eminent in the arts mechanics and liberal arts. Since his background views the arts as a way to climb up the social ladder, he and his brother Arthur Timótheo da Costa, attended the Mint. A semi boarding school in Rio de Janeiro that’s market is usually young black working people like João. Even with this attention he still faced racism, being racialized in the news, being considered “accomplished for a mulatto”.

Selected paintings