Jô Oliveira is a Brazilian journalist and illustrator, as well as an art teacher. He was born on the isle of Itamaracá in the Brazilian state Pernambuco, and spent most of his childhood in Aquidauana and Ponta Porã, Mato Grosso do Sul. He attended the School of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro, and then spent six years in Budapest, where he studied Visual Communication.
He made his first comics while in Hungary, and his early work was published in Italian magazines and books. This included the installment 'L'Uomo di Canudos' in the collection 'Un Uomo un'avventura' for Cepim (1979). He also drew his book 'Bumba Meu Boi' (1975) during this period.
Work by Oliveira eventually also appeared in France, Germany, Spain, Greece, Denmark, Argentina and Brazil. He has published several books in his home country in the years that followed, including 'A Guerro do Reino Divino', 'Compare Gatto Impara la Lezione', 'As Aventuras da Família Tamanduá', 'A Lenda da Noite' and 'O Pavão Misterioso'.
Oliveira is additionally the artist of books about Roosevelt and Maurice of Nassau. For the Italian magazine Corto Maltese, he has drawn the story 'Madeira-Mamoré Railway Company' (1984) and the 64-page color story 'Un Avventuriero del Nuovo Mondo' (1989).
La Petite Planète
He made illustrations for a great number of books, and was awarded for his picture books 'Os Donos da Bola'. He furthermore designed over 50 stamps for the Brazilian postal services, and made illustrations for cordel poems. In his work, he draws inspiration from Brazilian pop culture and folklore, the woodcuts from cordel literature and the clay sculptures of Mestre Vitalino.
