Cândido Aragonez de Faria was a Brazilian journalist , caricaturist , illustrator and teacher , considered one of the main graphic artists of humor and advertising in his generation.

He was the son of the illustrious physician from Laranjeiras, José Cândido Faria, and the Spanish woman Josefa Aragonez, and grew up in comfortable circumstances. He had brothers Adolfo, Júlio and Henrique. In 1855, after his father died, the family moved to Rio de Janeiro with their eight slaves. His mother died in 1860, leaving her children under the guardianship of her brother Antônio Amálio Aragonez and supported by a pension granted by the Empire. After passing through the guardianship of two other guardians, in 1869 Cândido was emancipated.

He studied at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts and perhaps at the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios do Rio de Janeiro . Cândido completed his studies in 1866 and in the same year he already appeared professionally as a caricaturist for the newspaper A Pacotilha , and shortly after he became an editor and illustrator for A Folha Fluminense . In 1869 he founded the weekly magazine O Mosquito with his brother Adolfo , and in 1871 he bought O Lobisomem by Antônio Alves do Vale , starting to do some work in partnership with this illustrator.

His earliest known works show a talent that was still immature and inexpressive, as would be expected from a young beginner. But his evolution was rapid and evident. He sparked controversy, at this stage of his emergence, over alleged plagiarisms from French illustrators, who were in fashion, but allusions and references to other people's works and ideas are part of the spirit of satire and parody , essential to the art of caricature, and at the time were standard practice. Furthermore, at that time, French culture was in fashion in Brazil; it was the new ideal model of civilization.

With the engravings of O Mosquito he began to establish his name as one of the most sought-after caricaturists in the capital of the Empire. For a time he signed all the illustrations for the periodical, which promised "political, theatrical and literary stings". At first the caricatures dealt with prosaic themes, especially customs, fashions, petty vices and human shortcomings. Later he incorporated political themes and in 1871 he launched into the discussion of international affairs. At this time Faria left O Mosquito , to which he would contribute only sporadically from then on, and went on to illustrate A Vida Fluminense .

In O Mosquito Faria had already demonstrated his ability to articulate short stories and situations in comics, and this is probably why in 1872 he continued with As Aventuras de Nhô Quim ou Impressões de Uma Viagem à Corte , the first Brazilian comic book , published by Angelo Agostini in 1869, illustrating the last five of the work's 14 chapters. In 1874 he founded O Mephistópheles , which he published and illustrated entirely for two years, and his work is considered one of the most virulent of the period, especially for the attack on the clergy during the Religious Question , also standing out for its graphic quality; in the opinion of Herman Lima , author of a fundamental biography, there he would leave "some of his most beautiful compositions, not only for the political scope of the captions, but also for the vigor of the drawing".

In 1876, he returned to O Mosquito , a year before the publication's end, and began his collaboration with O Fígaro , the successor to the now-defunct A Vida Fluminense , directed by Luis Borgomainerio , taking responsibility for all the newspaper's illustrations and caricatures. Some of the leading cartoonists of the time met there, and Faria was at the height of his talent, but he remained there for a short time, and by the end of the same year he was already working for O Ganganelli . He collaborated on many other publications in Rio de Janeiro, such as the legendary O Mequetrefe , and was the exclusive cartoonist for O Diabrete during its short and celebrated 11-issue run. He collaborated sparingly with A Comédia Popular , A Galeria , Zigue-Zague , Ba-ta-clan , O Contemporâneo and others.

By 1874 or 1875 he had become extremely popular, one of the great stars of the first echelon, "not only for the excellence of his drawings, but also for the timeliness and mischief of his cartoons", as Athos Damasceno , one of his first biographers, said. Owner of a versatile style, a great sense of humor and a sharp verve for social and political criticism, the set of his caricatures forms a rich panorama of the society of the time and the transformations it was undergoing.

In 1878 he made a visit to Porto Alegre , which would last almost two years. He announced himself as a teacher of drawing and watercolor, but does not seem to have left any appreciable mark on this teaching. On October 6, 1878, he founded a new Fígaro in Porto Alegre. The magazine would only have 19 issues, but it made an invaluable contribution to the graphic arts and illustrated press of the state, which were still in their infancy.

He finally arrived in Buenos Aires in mid-1879. The reasons that led him to leave Brazil are unclear. Perhaps Buenos Aires, one of the main cultural centers of America, seemed to him a more promising market, but he found a tumultuous context due to wars against the Indians, a civil war and other problems. Despite this, his debut was auspicious. It did not take long for him to launch La Cotorra , and in October 1879 it was in circulation, presenting the public with the first color magazine in South America, a breakthrough achieved through the technique of chromolithography . Faria did practically all the illustrations for the 43 issues.

He collaborated with El Mosquito , a newspaper that was probably the inspiration for the Brazilian O Mosquito , and for which he created several pieces, and exclusively illustrated 91 issues of the daily El Gráfico , which covered politics, fashion, commerce and various news. Faria had counted on the collaboration of the Argentine illustrator Carlos Clérice from the beginning, but with the rise to power of Julio Argentino Roca, censorship was imposed on the press, and so the partners turned to printing and illustrating musical scores for the publishers Hartmann, Guión and Rolon. Roca ordered the closure of Cotorra in August 1880; El Mosquito survived, because it had shown itself to be critical of the previous governments and adhered to the program of the new government. But the context had become unfavorable. Clérice left for France in 1882 with his brothers and his entire family, founding the important printing house Clérice Fréres in Paris , publishing mainly posters.

In 1883, Faria was also in Paris, where he settled. There he maintained useful contacts with the Clérice family and with Brazilians traveling or studying, such as Victor Meirelles , Eduardo Sá and Horácio Hora . He had the necessary adaptability to quickly adapt to the new environment, founded a commercial studio, prospered financially and his art improved even more. He became quite successful, working for several magazines and newspapers. Angelo Agostini met him in 1889 and described his life at that time: "I also met with our old colleague Faria, who was very happy to see me. He does not paint, he has devoted himself to drawing, in which he has made enormous progress and has now worked hard on several illustrations. He is much sought after and does good business."

The great turning point in his career began in 1895, with the invention of the cinematograph . Cinema, in fact, became an instant success, appealing to all classes, and the emerging film companies sought to exploit all possible audiences. To achieve this, advertising on a massive scale was necessary. It was Faria who, in 1902, produced the first poster in the history of cinema , for the film Les victimes de l'alcoolisme , by Ferdinand Zecca , produced by the celebrated Societé Pathé Frères . He worked especially for the Clérice Frères, Film d'Art and Pathé, creating advertisements and posters for operas, musicals, films and variety shows , book and musical edition covers, and other works. His posters for films and tours of famous singers and shows traveled the world, giving him an international reputation. From 1902 to 1911 he was the main poster designer for Pathé Frères, a company that emerged as the first giant of cinematography, when his work, in Gaudêncio Junior's understanding, reached the greatest specialization, establishing "the most fruitful and synthetic moment of a narrative still deficient in this first cinema".

His images maintained a direct relationship with the style and content of the films they advertised, promoting a vogue for sentimental and/or burlesque productions dealing with the lives of the petite bourgeoisie, the factory worker, the seamstress and the maid, the street vendor, the orphan, describing in strong tones and exhaustively repeated clichés the dramas and joys of the "typical" bourgeois family and the forgotten and outcasts of the big city, which attracted the working class en masse to the cinemas. But there were also adventure films, romances, detective mysteries, horror films and pseudo-historical or pseudo-orientalist fantasies, themes that also excited everyone's imagination and generated advertising that was always spectacular and appealing. As a true and modern professional, Faria was ready to meet these varied needs in an equally effective manner. In the description in the Cinémathèque Française 's film encyclopedia ,

"Thanks to the elegance and confidence of his strokes, he is equally at ease painting interiors as he is painting street scenes. He knows human expressions, from those of those who live in the gutter to those of high society salons. With an unusual workforce, he produced enormously, applying his refined and powerful style to the very different domains of religious films, or films of historical inspiration, comic films, fantasy and marvelous films. His studio, a productive fortress located at 6 rue Steinkerque in Montmartre , was the breeding ground for many young talents, a place where, among others, his son Jacques de Faria (1898-1956), Jacques Bonneaud , François Florit , Antonin Magne and Gustave Soury were trained ."
His studio employed many collaborators, who could participate to some extent in the creation of the projects, but were mainly responsible for the execution. Competing with a legion of renowned graphic artists working in the French capital, and managing to establish himself so solidly in this competitive market, reaching such a vast audience, for Damasceno his French phase represented his "complete triumph". He was not, however, only interested in business. There was a strong ideological and aesthetic component to his work, a desire to renew and bring art to a large audience. Through the poster in particular, Faria was an important figure in the movement to modernize art.

Cândido Aragonez de Faria worked until the end and died in full control of his abilities, and was buried at the entrance to the São Vicente de Montmartre Cemetery in Paris. Tradition has it that he died in the middle of creating a portrait of the star Eugénie Buffet.