Painter, lithographer, author, illustrator, and assemblage artist, João Câmara Filho was born on 12 January 1944 in the city of João Pessoa, in the Brazilian state of Paraíba. His family had resided in Rio de Janeiro but moved to the northeast settling in Recife. At age sixteen, while he was still studying at the Nóbrega Secondary School, Filho took the admission exam for the School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife. There he studied with Laerte Baldini and Fernando Barreto.

Filho set up his studio in 1962 and that year his work was included in the Second Panoramic Show: “Fifty Years of Painting in Pernambuco,” held at the Art Gallery in Recife. In 1963, his work was included in the exhibition Artists of the Northeast at the Museum of Modern Art in Salvador, in the state of Bahia. While staying in Salvador, Filho audited classes in woodblock printing conducted by Henrique Oswald at the School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Bahia. Back in Recife, he published a column on the arts in the for the university’s newspaper and created a broadcast for the University of Pernambuco radio station.

After graduation, he joined forces with other artists including Maria Carmen to revive the Modern Art Society of Recife (SAMR) and served as president. He was a member of Ateliê + 10, and the print workshop Oficina Guaianases de Gravura in Olinda.
He is known not only for individual works but also for his themed series that take several years to complete. For one such project, "Ten Love Affairs and a Painting," he spent the years 1976 to 1983 creating a body of work consisting of ten paintings, seventy lithographs, twenty-two assemblages and three objects.

His work is in collections throughout Brazil and abroad. He currently lives and works in Olinda, Pernambuco.