Sebastião Salgado (Aimorés MG 1944 - Paris, France 2025)
Sebastião Salgado was a photographer trained in economics, with a doctorate from the Université de Paris. Between 1971 and 1973, he worked for the International Coffee Organization in London. During a trip to Africa, where he was coordinating a project on coffee growing in Angola, he decided to become a photographer. He settled in Paris in 1974, working for the Sygma agency until the following year and for Gamma between 1975 and 1979. During this period, he documented turbulent social and political events in Europe and Africa. In 1979, he joined the Magnum agency, where he remained until 1994, the year he founded his own company, Amazonas Images. Between 1977 and 1984, he traveled through Latin America, recording the living conditions of peasants and Indigenous peoples, work that resulted in the book Autres Amériques, published in 1986. In the 1980s, he collaborated for 15 months with the French organization Médecins Sans Frontières, traveling through the Sahel region of Africa and recording the devastation caused by drought. Between 1986 and 1992, he produced the series Workers, documenting manual labor and harsh living conditions in various parts of the world. He is the author of the books Sahel: L'Homme en Détresse (France, 1986), La Main de l'Homme (France, 1993), Terra (Brazil, 1997), Trabalhadores: uma Arqueologia da Era Industrial (Brazil, 1996) and Retratos de Crianças do Êxodo (Brazil, 2000), among others. He died in Paris on May 23, 2025.
Critical Commentary
During a trip to Africa to coordinate a project on coffee growing in Angola, Sebastião Salgado decided to become a photographer as a way of denouncing poverty and social problems around the world. His first years in photography were marked by strong political engagement. He settled in Paris in 1974 and began covering turbulent social and political events in Europe and Africa, such as the living conditions of immigrants in European countries and the actions of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Until 1983, Salgado traveled through several Latin American countries, building a panorama of the life of peasants and the cultural resistance of Indigenous peoples and their descendants (Autres Amériques, 1986). His images reveal an archaic way of life and precarious working conditions, alongside the presence of religiosity and death. Between 1984 and 1985, on a trip to the Sahel, a semi-desert region of North Africa, with Médecins Sans Frontières, he photographed the devastation caused by drought. His images of women wandering through the desert and of gravely ill children circulated around the world (Sahel, l'Homme en Détresse, 1986).
Questioning the economic imbalance between rich and poor countries, the photographer undertook a vast documentation of manual labor in various regions of the world. He photographed harsh working conditions in sugarcane fields and in the Serra Pelada gold mines in Brazil, on tea plantations in Rwanda, in the construction of a dam in Rajasthan, India, and in the oil wells of Kuwait. The photographs of the exhibition Workers were shown simultaneously in eight countries in 1993.
In the view of the historian Pedro Vasquez, Salgado's work, in terms of creative affinities, can be compared to that of the photographers Eugene Smith (1918 - 1978) and Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 - 2004). With Smith, he shares solidarity with human beings, reflected in a certain air of gravity and the sense of the tragic that pervade his photographs. With Cartier-Bresson, he shares a keen sense of composition, the so-called "decisive moment": the fleeting instant in which all the elements of a scene come together in an expressive moment.
In his classically composed photographs, the use of light and deep blacks stands out. Through the symbolic force of the images and the gravity of the faces, Sebastião Salgado's work, beyond its character of denunciation, restores human dignity and pays tribute to the people portrayed.
Collections
Pirelli/Masp Photography Collection - São Paulo SP
Fundação Cultural de Curitiba Collection - Curitiba PR
Joaquim Paiva Collection - Brasília DF
Critiques
"Sebastião Salgado is a bearer of the mystery of art. Which means that his photography is not described: it is felt. And it is felt in a special way, which comes from what has made Sebastião Salgado recognized throughout the world, in so few years, as a very special photographer.
In front of his photography one cannot feel, as photographs usually provoke, tenderness, or sorrow, or guilt, or aesthetic delight. In front of Sebastião Salgado's characteristic photography, there come to us, in a single burst, tenderness and pain and guilt and aesthetic pleasure. Inseparable and indistinguishable, consistent and undisguisable, in a single burst, all the rich feelings that the emotional poverty of our time has not yet managed to consume and devour.
It is this special capacity that makes Sebastião Salgado, internationally, the most sought-after, most acclaimed and most awarded photographer of our time (unquestionable proof of such relevance: in 1991 alone, New York, the world capital of photography, mounted two major exhibitions of his work). The special attention Sebastião Salgado attracts does not come from trendy computer tricks, which, in any case, have nothing to do with photography. Nor is it due to his favorite subjects, as a writer for 'The New Yorker' supposed. I even outlined an essay to refute the angry thesis of the article, according to which Sebastião Salgado's 'rhetoric' consists of the 'easy exploitation of tragedy' as a subject, of its 'embellishment', to shock the viewer of his photographs".
Janio de Freitas
Freitas, Janio de. A condição de Salgado. In: SALGADO, Sebastião. As Melhores fotos. Introduction by Janio de Freitas; photographs by Sebastião Salgado. São Paulo: Boccato, 1992.
"Sebastião Salgado's photographs are, above all, the result of an exhaustive process of choosing between what was seen and what should be seen again by each of us. A process that becomes even more complex and subjective once the places, people or events he intends to photograph (or ends up photographing, by sheer chance) have been 'chosen'.
Using three or four Leica cameras and dozens of rolls of film a day, Sebastião Salgado is able to produce more than ten thousand images on a single trip, among the many that make up the extensive itinerary he has traced over the last two decades to document stories (or history) and tell them through photographs: hunger in Africa, labor in the contemporary world, the struggle for land, the movement of populations, etc.".
Maria Inez Turazzi
REVISTA DO PATRIMÔNIO HISTÓRICO E ARTÍSTICO NACIONAL. IPHAN. Fotografia. nº 27, 1998, p. 225.
Solo Exhibitions
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Other Americas, at Funarte's Photography Gallery
1983 - São Paulo SP - Other Americas, at Fotoptica photo gallery
1984 - Paris (France) - Vidas Secas, at Magnum Galerie
1986 - Amsterdam (Netherlands) - Sahel: L'Homme en Détresse, at Canon Photo Gallery
1986 - Arles (France) - Sahel: L'Homme en Détresse, at Festival International d'Arles
1986 - Madrid (Spain) - Other Americas, at Contemporary Art Museum of Madrid
1986 - Paris (France) - Other Americas, at Maison de l'Amérique Latine
1986 - Paris (France) - Sahel: L'Homme en Détresse, at Palais de Tokyo
1987 - Lausanne (Switzerland) - Other Americas, at Musée de l'Elysée
1987 - Lausanne (Switzerland) - Sahel: L'Homme en Détresse, at Musée de l'Elysée
1988 - Finland - Other Americas, at Tornio Arts Museum
1988 - Israel - Other Americas, at Museum Mishkan Le'Omanut
1988 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Other Americas, at Funarte
1988 - Rotterdam (Netherlands) - Other Americas, at Museum Voor Land in Volkenkunde
1988 - São Paulo SP - Sahel: L'Homme en Détresse, at Masp
1989 - Göteborg (Sweden) - Retrospective, at Hasselblad Center
1989 - Havana (Cuba) - Retrospective, at Bienal de Cuba
1989 - Beijing (China) - Sahel: L'Homme en Détresse, at National Gallery of Art
1989 - Shanghai (China) - Other Americas, at Palace of Youth
1990 - Düsseldorf (Germany) - Retrospective, at Kunsthalle
1990 - Edinburgh (Scotland) - Retrospective, at Stills Gallery
1990 - London (England) - Retrospective, at Photographer's Gallery
1990 - San Francisco (United States) - An Uncertain Grace, at Modern Art Museum
1991 - Arles (France) - Other Americas, at Rencontres Internationales d'Arles
1991 - Braunschweig (Germany) - Other Americas, at Museum für Fotografie
1991 - Exeter (England) - Retrospective, at Royal Albert Memorial Museum
1991 - Los Angeles (United States) - An Uncertain Grace, at Wight Art Gallery, University of California
1991 - New York (United States) - An Uncertain Grace, at International Center of Photography
1991 - Rouen (France) - Other Americas, at Rouen Festival
1991 - San Diego (United States) - An Uncertain Grace, at Museum of Photographic Arts
1992 - Cambridge (United States) - An Uncertain Grace, at Carpenter Center Harvard
1992 - Cardiff (Wales) - Retrospective, at Fotogallery
1992 - Cologne (Germany) - Workers, at Römisch-Germanisches Museum
1992 - Córdoba (Spain) - Other Americas, at Galeria 2000
1992 - Dudelange (Luxembourg) - Other Americas, at Musée Municipal
1992 - Glasgow (Scotland) - Retrospective, at Glasgow Arts Centre
1992 - Santiago de Compostela (Spain) - Other Americas, at Pazo Fonseca
1992 - Washington (United States) - An Uncertain Grace, at Corcoran Gallery
1993 - Bratislava (Slovakia) - Workers, at National Gallery Slovakia
1993 - Córdoba (Spain) - Other Americas, at Gran Teatro de Córdoba
1993 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Trabalho, at Centro Cultural de Belém
1993 - London (England) - Workers, at Royal Festival Hall
1993 - Louisville (United States) - Workers, at The JB Speed Art Museum
1993 - Madrid (Spain) - Trabajadores, at National Library
1993 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Centre National de la Photographie
1993 - Paris (France) - Workers, at Palais de Tokyo
1993 - Pennsylvania (United States) - Workers, at Philadelphia Museum of Art
1993 - Tokyo (Japan) - Retrospective, at National Museum of Modern Art
1994 - Aix-en-Provence (France) - Workers, at Bibliothèque Méjanes
1994 - Alicante (Spain) - Workers, at Fundación Cultural, CAM
1994 - Atlanta (United States) - Workers, at High Museum of Art, Folk Art and Photography Galleries
1994 - Bradford (England) - Workers, at The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television
1994 - Copenhagen (Denmark) - Workers, at Arbejdermuseet
1994 - Curitiba PR - Workers, at Museu Metropolitano de Arte de Curitiba
1994 - Dallas (United States) - Workers, at Dallas Museum of Art
1994 - Glasgow (Scotland) - Retrospective, at McLellan Galleries
1994 - Iowa City (United States) - Workers, at The University of Iowa Museum of Art
1994 - Lausanne (Switzerland) - Workers, at Musée de l'Elysée
1994 - Milan (Italy) - Workers, at Palazzo Affari ai Giureconsulti
1994 - Paris (France) - Serra Pelada, at Galerie Debret
1994 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Workers, at MAM/RJ
1994 - Rome (Italy) - Workers, at Palazzo delle Esposizioni
1994 - Rotterdam (Netherlands) - Workers, at Nederlands Foto Instituut
1994 - São Paulo SP - Workers, at MASP
1994 - Tokyo (Japan) - Workers, at The Bunkamura Museum of Art
1995 - Bath (England) - Workers, at The Royal Photographic Society
1995 - Stockholm (Sweden) - Workers, at Kulturhuset
1995 - Hiroshima (Japan) - Workers, at Onomichi Municipal Museum of Art
1995 - Le Chouf (Lebanon) - Workers, at Palais de Beiteddine
1995 - Montpellier (France) - Other Americas, at Montpellier Photo Visions
1995 - New York (United States) - Workers, at International Center of Photography
1995 - Paris (France) - Serra Pelada, at Le Latina
1995 - Rochester (United States) - Workers, at George Eastman House
1995 - Saint Jean des Monts (France) - Serra Pelada, at Palais de Congrès
1995 - Sarasota (United States) - Workers, at The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art
1995 - Sydney (Australia) - Workers, at The Art Gallery of New South Wales
1995 - Vicenza (Italy) - Workers, at Basilica Palladiana
1996 - Antwerp (Belgium) - Other Americas, at Hessenhuis
1996 - Charleroi (Belgium) - Serra Pelada, at Musée de la Photographie
1996 - Cleveland (United States) - Serra Pelada, at Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art
1996 - Florida (United States) - Serra Pelada, at Palm Beach Photographic Museum
1996 - Hamburg (Germany) - Workers, at Deichtorhallen
1996 - Hawaii (United States) - Workers, at Honolulu Academy of Arts
1996 - Imola (Italy) - Workers, at Chiostri S. Domenico
1996 - Luxembourg - Workers, at Hall Victor Hugo
1996 - Omaha (United States) - Workers, at Joslyn Art Museum
1996 - Paris (France) - Retrospective, at L'Espace Photographique de Paris
1996 - Pennsylvania (United States) - Workers, at Palmer Museum of Art, University Park
1996 - Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) - An Uncertain Grace, at Städtisches Museum
1996 - Turin (Italy) - Workers, at Museo dell'Automobile, Movimento Sviluppo e Pace
1997 - Belo Horizonte MG - Workers, at Museu de Arte da Pampulha
1997 - Berlin (Germany) - Workers, at Brazilian Cultural Institute
1997 - Caracas (Venezuela) - Workers, at Museo de Bellas Artes
1997 - Cholet (France) - Serra Pelada, at Groupe d'Animation Photographique
1997 - Ciudad Bolívar (Venezuela) - Workers, at Museo de Arte Moderno Jesús Soto
1997 - Hornu (Belgium) - Workers, at Grand-Hornu Images
1997 - Kuopio (Finland) - An Uncertain Grace, at Victor Barsokevitsch Valokuvakeskus
1997 - Madison (United States) - Workers, at Elvehjem Museum of Art
1997 - Montenegro (Yugoslavia) - Sahel: L'Homme en Détresse, at Cetinje Biennale
1997 - San Diego (United States) - Workers, at Museum of Contemporary Art
1997 - São Paulo SP - Terra, at Espaço Unibanco
1998 - Andorra La Vella (Andorra) - Workers, at Andorran National Commission for UNESCO
1998 - Mexico City (Mexico) - Workers, at Museo de Arte Moderno
1998 - Pachuca (Mexico) - Serra Pelada, at Archivo Histórico y Museo de Minería
1998 - Valladolid (Spain) - An Uncertain Grace, at Ayuntamiento de Valladolid
1998 - Washington (United States) - Other Americas, at Art Gallery, Inter-American Development Bank
1998 - Washington (United States) - Other Americas, at Woodrow Wilson Center
1999 - Bern (Switzerland) - Workers, at The Old Kornhaus
1999 - Iserlohn (Germany) - Workers, at Städtische Galerie
1999 - La Coruña (Spain) - An Uncertain Grace, at Casa de Las Ciencias
1999 - Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) - Other Americas, at Centro Insular de Cultura
1999 - Madrid (Spain) - An Uncertain Grace, at EFDI
1999 - Munich (Germany) - Other Americas, at Bayerische Staatsoper
2000 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Migrations, at Fundación Proa
2000 - Honfleur (France) - An Uncertain Grace, 4th Festival Chroniques Nomades, at Les Greniers à Sel
2000 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Êxodos, at Parque das Nações
2000 - Madrid (Spain) - Migrations, at Círculo de Bellas Artes
2000 - Marseille (France) - Migrations, at Hotel de la Région
2000 - Milan (Italy) - Migrations, at Arengario and Istituto Martinitt
2000 - New York (United States) - Migrations, at United Nations Hall
2000 - Paris (France) - Migrations, at Maison Européenne de la Photographie
2000 - Porto Alegre RS - Êxodos, at Usina do Gasômetro
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Êxodos, at Planetário - Museu do Universo and at Instituto Moreira Salles
2000 - Rjukan (Norway) - Workers, at Norsk Industriarbeider Museum
2000 - Rochester (United States) - Migrations, at George Eastman House
2000 - Rome (Italy) - Migrations, at Scuderie Papali Al Quirinale
2000 - Saarbrücken (Germany) - Workers, at Festival Schichtwechsel 2000
2000 - São Paulo SP - Êxodos, at Sesc Pompéia
2000 - Valencia (Spain) - An Uncertain Grace, at EFDI
2000 - Warsaw (Poland) - Workers, at Contemporary Art Center Zamek Ujazdowski
2001 - Barcelona (Spain) - Migrations, at La Pedrera
2001 - Berlin (Germany) - Migrations, at Deutsches Historisches Museum
2001 - Biella (Italy) - Workers, at Palazzo Cisterna
2001 - Brasília DF - Êxodos, at Espaço Cultural Contemporâneo Venâncio - ECCO
2001 - Brussels (Belgium) - Migrations, at Le Botanique
2001 - Cagliari (Italy) - Workers, at Ghetto degli Ebrei
2001 - Edinburgh (Scotland) - Migrations, at City Art Centre
2001 - Faro (Portugal) - Workers, at Associação Cultural Música XXI
2001 - Helsinki (Finland) - Migrations, at Helsinki City Art Museum
2001 - Modena (Italy) - Migrations, at Ponte Alto
2001 - New York (United States) - Migrations, at International Center of Photography
2001 - Palma de Mallorca (Spain) - Migrations, at Sa Nostra
2001 - Prague (Czech Republic) - Migrations, at Manes Gallery
2001 - Santa Fe (United States) - Migrations, at The Marion Center for Photographic Arts / The Museum of Fine Arts / The Children's Museum
2001 - Walsall (England) - Migrations, at The New Art Gallery
2002 - Bern (Switzerland) - Migrations, at Kornhaus
2002 - London (England) - Sebastião Salgado: 25 years of photography, at Gallery 32
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Sebastião Salgado: Photographs, at Palácio Gustavo Capanema
2004 - Belo Horizonte MG - In Principio, at Museu Histórico Abílio Barreto
2004 - São Paulo SP - In Principio, at MAC/USP
Group Exhibitions
1977 - Geneva (Switzerland) - L'Afrique des Colères, at Conseil Œcuménique des Églises
1977 - Paris (France) - L'Afrique des Colères, at Galerie Henri Plait
1978 - La Courneuve (France) - Les 4000 Logements de la Courneuve, at Centre Culturel Jean-Houdremont
1991 - São Paulo SP - Pirelli/Masp Photography Collection, at MASP
1992 - Vitória ES - Exhibition and creation by the City Hall of the Sebastião Salgado Photography Prize
1992 - Zurich (Switzerland) - Brasilien: Entdeckung und Selbstentdeckung, at Kunsthaus Zürich
1994 - Curitiba PR - 4th Curitiba Photography Week, at Fundação Cultural
1994 - San Francisco (United States) - Contemporary Brazilian Photography: a selection of photographs from the collection of Joaquim Paiva, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Contemporary Brazilian Photography, at CCBB
1996 - Bogotá (Colombia) - Imagenes de Brasil. Pirelli/Masp Photography Collection, at Casa do Brasil
1996 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Imagenes de Brasil. Pirelli/Masp Photography Collection, at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
1996 - Caracas (Venezuela) - Imagenes de Brasil. Pirelli/Masp Photography Collection, at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas Sofía Imber
1996 - New York (United States) - Latin American Photography: Spiritual Journey, at Brooklyn Museum
1996 - Paris (France) - Inaugural Exhibition of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie
1998 - São Paulo SP - The Art Directors Club in Panamericana, at Escola Panamericana de Arte
1999 - Wolfsburg (Germany) - Brasilianische Fotografie 1946 bis 1998, at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
2000 - Curitiba PR - Fé, at Centro Cultural Solar do Barão
2001 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Spirit of Our Time, at MAM/RJ
2001 - São Paulo SP - The Spirit of Our Time, at MAM/SP
2002 - São Paulo SP - Visions and Enchantments: Contemporary Brazilian Photography from the Joaquim Paiva Collection, at Oca
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Graciela Iturbide, Sebastião Salgado and Raghu Rai, at Paço Imperial
Source: Itaú Cultural
