Mário Ferreira da Silva was born and lives in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal. He got a degree as a technical ceramist in Portugal. Then, as a scholar of the Gulbenkian Foundation, he went to Italy, where he attended the Institute of Ceramic Art Gaetano Bellardini, in Faenza, and a course of Sculpture, in Perugia. In study trips, he travelled across Switzerland, Germany, England, France, Italy, Holland and Spain. In 1971, by invitation of the Portuguese government makes and supervises the placement of 80 panels of ceramic for the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington DC - USA. He is titular member of the International Academy of Ceramics - advisory organ of UNESCO, in Geneva.
From 1978 to 1980, he taught Ceramics in the Art School - Soares dos Reis - in Porto. Since 1994 he has been teaching in the University School of Art in Coimbra - EUAC - and he is responsible for the degree of ceramics.