J. Borges - woodcut print. Artist

José Francisco Borges, known as J. Borges, is a Brazilian artist, cordelist and poet. He is one of the most famous wood engravers in Brazil. Born in 1935 in the city of Bezerros in the interior of Pernambuco, where he still lives today. He started working with woodcuts to illustrate his stories in pamphlets. Today, his woodcuts are sold to collectors, artists and intellectuals.

At the At the age of 21, Borges decided to write cordel. At the time, he created ‘O Encontro de Dois Vaqueiros no Sertão de Petrolina’. Mestre Dila, from Caruaru, illustrated the pamphlet. It sold more than five thousand copies in two months.

Since he didn't have the money to pay an illustrator, Francisco decided to do it himself. He carved the façade of the church of Bezerros as a matrix. He used this for the illustration in ‘O Verdadeiro Aviso de Frei Damião’.

From then on, he began to make individual matrices and illustrated the more than 200 cordel that he wrote during his lifetime.

His works were discovered by collectors and dealers. They were carried into the academic circles of the country. In the 1970s, J. Borges designed the cover of ‘As Palavras Andantes’ by Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. He began to create larger matrices independently of Cordel. This opened the door to exhibitions abroad for him. In 1992, exhibitions followed at the Stähli Gallery in Zurich and the Santa Fe Museum of Popular Art in New Mexico. Further exhibitions in Europe and the United States followed.

His woodcuts are printed and offered in various sizes. The subjects of his woodcuts include the daily life of the poor, the cangaço, love, the punishments of heaven, secrets, miracles, crimes and corruption. They also depict folk festivals, religiosity and passion, always associated with the people of northeastern Brazil.

J. Borges received both national and international recognition

  • In the New York Times
  • Medal of Honour for services to the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, Recife 1990
  • Manoel Mendive Engraving Prize at the 5th International Biennale Salvador Valero Trujillo in Venezuela in 1995
  • President Fernando Henrique Cardoso awarded Borges the Order of Merit
  • Medal of Honour for Cultural Merit; from the Palácio do Planalto, Brasília, in 1999
  • UNESCO Prize in the category of education/culture in 2002. He was one of thirteen artists to illustrate the UN annual calendar in 2002. His woodcut ‘Life in the Forest’ opens the year in the calendar In 2023
  • In 2023, President Lula presented one of his woodcuts to Pope Francis
  • The writer Ariano Suassuna considered him the most popular xylographer in the Northeast

In January 2022, the Rio Art Museum opened the exhibition ‘J. Borges - The Master of Woodcuts’. It showed 40 woodcuts, including 10 new works, 10 new wood engravings and the 20 most important works of his career. The exhibition was intended to show the artist's life.

J. Borges a living icon from Brazil