Sebastiao Salgado

SEBASTIAO SALGADO (Aimorés, Brazil, 1944).
From the series "Brazil", 1980-1983.
Gelatin silver print.
Photographer's credit in the margin.
Signed, dated and annotated in pencil; artist's stamp (on verso).
Provenance: Coolidge private collection, New York.
Measurements: 34.5 x 52 cm (image); 51 x 61 cm (paper).

Sebastião Salgado's photographs taken in Brazil between 1980 and 1983, especially those that focus on the feet of rural workers, are powerful testimonies to the human connection to the land, labor, and daily struggles. Through his lens, Salgado has succeeded in capturing the dignity and humanity of his subjects, creating images that resonate deeply with the viewer and continue to have a lasting impact.

Sebastião Salgado is a Brazilian socio-documentary photographer and photojournalist. He has traveled to over 100 countries for his photographic projects. Most of these have appeared in numerous publications and books. Traveling exhibitions of his work have been shown around the world. Gallery owner Hal Gould considers Salgado the greatest photographer of the early 21st century. He has received numerous international awards, including the 1998 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts3 and the W. Eugene Smith Award for Humanitarian Photography. Eugene Smith Award for Humanitarian Photography4 in 1982. He came to the field of photography relatively late, having previously trained and worked as an economist. In his career as a photographer he started working for the Paris-based Gamma agency and then joined Magnum Photos in 1979. In 1994 he left Magnum to form his own agency Amazonas Images in Paris to represent his work. Salgado belongs to the tradition of socio-documentary photography: his work highlights the documentation of the work of people in less developed countries or in poverty. In 2001 he was nominated special representative of Unicef for his work. He works on his own long-term projects, some of which have been published in books such as "Otras Américas" or "Éxodos". Among his best known photographs are those taken in the gold mines of Serra Pelada in Brazil. He usually photographs in black and white with Leica. In 1989 he received the Hasselblad Foundation International Award. In June 2007, after receiving the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts, there was a large anthological exhibition of his work at the PHotoEspaña international festival in Madrid, where he won the Audience Award. While Sebastião Salgado's fame grew in the world of photography, being part of the Magnum agency, his wife Lélia Wanick worked as editor of his works to publish them in books and exhibitions. In the 1990s they both decided to return to Minas Gerais, Brazil, to receive from Sebastião's family a totally devastated, eroded and dry field. In 1998 they formed the Terra Institute and with Lélia as president of the project, they began to reforest the land. With more than 4 million seeds of native species raised by them, they completely reforested the Bulcao Farm with its original flora, giving life to an emblematic and hopeful project for the whole world. Published books: GOLD (2020), Genesis (2013), Exodus (2000), The Gold Mine of Serra Pelada (1999), Terra (1997), Trabalhadores (1996), The Hand of Man (1993), Sahel: l'Homme en Détresse, Prisma Presse and Centre National de la Photographie, for Médecins sans frontières, France (1986), Other Americas (1986), Les Hmongs, Médecins sans frontières, Chêne/Hachette, Paris (1982).