The lisbonan began his studies in the Lyceum of Arts and Crafts and attended the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts just after it, where he lived the academy's transition to become a school -- consequence of the proclamation of the Republic. There, he had as teachers great names in Brazilian painting, such as Victor Meirelles and Agostinho da Motta. Peres had a great prominence as a portrait painter, and the critic Gonzaga Duque explained about his work: "Peres does not make portraits like everyone else. He makes them out of the ordinary, seeks to enter into the intimacy of his portrayed, seeks them the note, the characteristic, the typical feature, the physiognomy. it is in this that is the great difficulty, and from it Peres scorns because it knows the secret to him."