Mário João Novais was born in Lisbon to a family of photographers, the Novaes, who owned several commercial houses in the city: Photographia Bastos, Photographia Novaes, J. Novais & Pozal, A Photographia Contemporânea, Photographia Eduardo Novaes and Photographia Vasques.

He started his professional career in the 1920s at Photographia Vasques, in Chiado, after working with his uncle Eduardo Novais at Photographia Bastos. In the same decade he established himself as an independent photographer, with his own laboratory on Travessa de São Pedro de Alcântara and Rua Nova do Loureiro, and in 1933 he set up his own studio on Avenida da Liberdade – Estúdio Mário Novais.

This was the beginning of 50 years of activity, during which he recorded the country’s main artistic, cultural and political events.

As a photographer-author, he took part in solo exhibitions, such as the Salão da Voga (Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, 1928) and group exhibitions together with artists of the time: he was one of the participants in the I Salão dos Independentes (Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, 1930) and the I Exposição Geral de Artes Plásticas (Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, 1946), among others.

Novais dedicated himself to portraiture, photo reporting, advertising and commercial photography, working for such firms as Estúdio Técnico de Publicidade, Agência de Publicidade Artística, Vacuum, Casa Jalco, Casa Quintão, Loja das Meias, Companhia Abel Pereira da Fonseca and Fábrica da Borracha Luso-Belga.

Mário Novais also recorded cultural and artistic events in Portugal and abroad, promoted by the regime, and was part of the project teams for national and international fairs and exhibitions (Paris 1937; New York and San Francisco 1939; Lisbon 1940; Lausanne 1959; Brussels 1958; Lisbon International Fair, 1963).

With Alvão, J. Martins, Bobone, Horácio Novais, among others, he contributed to the photographic album Portugal 1934, published by the National Propaganda Secretariat (SPN), a pioneering work in the use of photography as a propaganda tool for the Estado Novo.

He was the author of photographs for books by art historians with whom he worked, such as Mário Tavares Chicó, Reinaldo dos Santos, Luís Reis Santos, Robert Chester Smith, Santos Simões, George Kubler and José Augusto França.

Novais was also a photographer for museum collections, such as the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, making photographic inventories of its collection and illustrating publications and exhibition catalogues.

From the 1940s onwards, he was joined by assistants Abílio Barata (1945) and Mário Soares (1947). When Mário Novais passed away, the studio became the property of his widow, who gave it and his entire assets to the two collaborators.

The studio continued to operate for another 15 years, until June 1982.