Of Italian origin—his birth name may have been Braggio, according to information provided by a collector but not verified—Albino Braz was married before being institutionalized for schizophrenia in 1934 at the Juquerí Psychiatric Hospital in Franco da Rocha, a city in the state of São Paulo. Under the care of Dr. Osório Cesar, he began drawing upon his arrival, according to his medical records.
Psychiatrists described him as often agitated, expansive, and irritable, displaying intense intellectual activity despite limited formal education, and claiming an illustrious lineage. His pencil drawings (in graphite or colored pencil), made in school notebooks, draw on the visual imagination of the circus world: figures in leotards adopting erotic—even pornographic—poses, wild animals, and stage props. The figures, powerfully built, are depicted in tense postures that evoke the art of tightrope walking.