António José Prates was born in Vale de Açor, Ponte de Sor. He is a renowned Portuguese gallerist, entrepreneur and writer having founded the Galeria de São Bento, the Centro Português de Serigrafia, Galeria António Prates and the Fundação António Prates.

In 1984, he began his activity as a gallery owner with the opening of Galeria de São Bento, a meeting place for artists and other intellectuals of the time. The artists Luís Machado, Artur Bual, Lima de Freitas, Martins Correia, Eduardo Alarcão, Luís Dourdil and António Palolo stand out in the conception of this project.

In 1985, he contacted the painter Manuel Cargaleiro inviting him to do a serigraphy and founded, with the aim of forming an art club, the Portuguese Serigraphy Centre, inviting João Prates to lead it.

Later, he founded the gallery under his name: Galeria António Prates. This had as a goal the contact with renowned international artists. He held exhibitions of great names in international art, for example of Narrative Figuration, such as Antonio Segui, Bernard Rancillac, Erró, Jacques Monory, Peter Klasen and Vladimir Velickovic, of New Realism such as Arman and Yves Klein and also with other groups of artists such as the Spanish group El Paso, with artists such as Antonio Suárez, Luis Feito, Manuel Viola, Rafael Canogar and Antonio Saura as well as other Spaniards such as Alberto Reguera, Andrés Alcántara, Esther Pizarro, Hilario Bravo and José Manuel Ciria.

The gallery became a pioneer, exhibiting the world's first exhibitions of Robotic Art in 2004 and Bioart in 2005, with Leonel Moura, Miguel Chevalier, Harold Cohen, Ken Rinaldo, Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau.

He also made the first Street Art exhibition in Portugal, with the direct intervention of the artists, "Além-Paredes" (2012) Costah, Dalaiama, EL ST, Pantónio, ± maismenos ± (Miguel Januário), MAR (Gonçalo Ribeiro), Maria Imaginário, Miguel "RAM", Robert Proch, Target, YUP - Paulo Arraiano.

Still, Portuguese painting has always been present in Galeria António Prates. The renowned Artur Cruzeiro Seixas, Carlos Calvet, Nadir Afonso stand out, as well as younger artists such as Clara Martins, Leonel Moura, Luís de Lemos, and Manuel Patinha.

On 15 December 2017, he launched the book "Vida - Narrativas Poéticas".