This article is a essay to understand the limits of the autonomy of intellectual life in São Paulo, in the early years of the 20th century. Following the track from the modernist writer Oswald de Andrade, his participation in the bohemian groups from Rio de Janeiro and in the modernist group from São Paulo in 1922, we will analyze how works the process of institutionalization of culture in terms of building a new pattern to permit recognition and legitimization for intellectual life.