José Antônio da Silva (Sales Oliveira, SP, 1909 - São Paulo, SP, 1996) was a self-taught painter, sculptor, writer and painter, with little schooling, always calling himself in the third person "the Silva". He was born on a farm in Sales Oliveira, in the interior of São Paulo, a village near Ribeirão Preto. Since he was a child, he often moved with his family, in search of better conditions. He stayed at Scol for a few months and then went to help his father with rural activities. In São José do Rio Preto, he was responsible for the foundation of the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (1966), together with the library of that city, and later helped in the creation of the Museum of Primitivist Art "José Antônio da Silva" (1980) . In this b ook that tells a part of his trajectory, Orandi Momesso, a collector and passionate about Silva''s work, invites Ana Paula Nascimento, Augusto de Campos, Olívio Tavares de Araújo, Orandi Momesso, Paulo Pasta and Paulo Venancio Filho to lecture on 70 special works from his private collection and about the trajectory of this great artist