Ciro Fernandes was born in Uiraúna, in a small town in Paraíba, on January 31, 1942, during the Second World War. As a child he drew on wood and on the walls of his grandparents' house. The drought of 1858 took Ciro, a teenager, to the city of Natal (RN). Two years later, he moved to the city of São Paulo and earned a living as a laborer and house painter. In 1961 he arrived in Rio de Janeiro and supported himself by painting, working in butcher shops and painting price signs for businesses. Until his evolution was to work in advertising agencies where he held the position of Creative Director in three of them, he was an illustrator for the newspaper “Jornal do Brasil”, and in the newspaper “O Globo”.

Ciro's art is the identity of cordel pamphlets, handmade publications of rhymed stories, which he helped transform into works of art. He proposed replacing the photographs that illustrated the covers with woodcuts. And so his talent as ropers was complemented in image. With a cutting simplicity like the gouges he uses to carve wood, Ciro transforms techniques and concepts of art. His works of art belong to important collections such as the National Museum of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro.

He also illustrates books by authors such as Raquel de Queiroz, Orígenes Lesa, Gilberto Freire, Autran Dourado, Ferreira Gullar, José Lins do Rego and Ana Maria Machado. In the same way, he signs covers of important Brazilian musicians, such as the one who wrote Cordel (Sérgio Ricardo), “História de João Joana”, by none other than Carlos Drummond de Andrade.
He is the only illustrator to receive the Machado de Assis Award from the Brazilian Academy of Letters, for his work on the book “Cordelinho” by Chico Salles, and his works of art are spread across walls and collections.

His woodcuts are the most evident facet of his immense talent, which is also transferred to the canvas.
He celebrated his 80 years of life and his 60 years of profession with exhibitions at the Centro Cultural del Banco do Nordeste (CCBN), in Sousa, in Alto Sertão Paraibano, and at the Pinacoteca do Estado, in Natal. He even participated in the “Corpo Moderno” exhibition at the Municipal Museum of Art of Curitiba, which brought together works of art, including drawings, paintings, engravings and sculptures, by Pablo Picasso and Cândido Portinari.