- In full:
- Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado
- Born:
- February 8, 1944, Aimorés, Brazil
- Died:
- May 23, 2025, Paris, France (aged 81)
- Awards And Honors:
- Praemium Imperiale (2021)
Sebastião Salgado
-
Who is Sebastião Salgado?
Sebastião Salgado (1944-2025) was a Brazilian photojournalist known for his powerful black-and-white photographs that capture both the beauty and destruction of the Earth, the diversity of humanity, and the plight of the impoverished.
Salgado initially studied economics, earning a master's degree in 1968, but later became a freelance photojournalist in 1973. By the mid-1980s, he dedicated himself to long-term projects, creating impassioned photographs with strong compositions that highlighted the nobility of his subjects.
His notable works include Other Americas (1986), Sahel: Man in Distress (1986), and Workers (1993). In 1998, Salgado and his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado, founded the Instituto Terra, dedicated to restoring a degraded rainforest in Brazil.
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Where is Sebastião Salgado from?
Sebastião Salgado was a Brazilian photojournalist born on February 8, 1944, in Aimorés, Brazil. Salgado, the son of a cattle rancher, initially studied economics, earning a master's degree from São Paulo University in 1968.
After working as an economist, he and his wife fled to France due to his political activism against Brazil's military government, where he then studied at the University of Paris. In 1973, Salgado became a freelance photojournalist. His work gained international recognition in 1993 when his retrospective exhibition, "In Human Effort," was displayed at the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art.
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What kind of photography is Sebastião Salgado known for?
Sebastião Salgado is a Brazilian photojournalist known for his black-and-white photography that captures the planet's beauty and destruction, humanity's diversity, and the suffering of the impoverished.
Salgado is known for his long-term projects that tell stories through images. His style features impassioned photographs with formal beauty and strong compositions, lending nobility to his subjects. His notable works include Other Americas (1986), which documents the lives of Latin American peasants, Sahel: Man in Distress (1986), focusing on the 1984–85 famine in Africa, and Workers (1993), an epic portrait of the working class.
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What are some famous projects or books by Sebastião Salgado?
Sebastião Salgado is a Brazilian photojournalist known for his black-and-white photography that captures both the beauty and destruction of the planet, the diversity of humanity, and the suffering of the impoverished.
Some of his famous works include:
* Other Americas (1986), which documents the everyday lives of Latin American peasants.
* Sahel: Man in Distress (1986), a book about the 1984–85 famine in the Sahel region of Africa.
* Workers (1993), an epic portrait of the working class.
* Migrations: Humanity in Transition (2000), a collection of photographs recording the displacement of people in more than 35 countries.
* Genesis (2013), a global survey of wildlife, landscape, and human cultures untouched by modernity and industrialization.2 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
How does Sebastião Salgado's work help people understand social or environmental issues?
Sebastião Salgado's photography brings awareness to social and environmental issues through powerful black and white images. His long-term projects capture both the beauty and destruction of the planet, as well as the diversity of humanity, and the suffering of impoverished people.
Salgado's work includes:
* Recording the everyday lives of Latin American peasants in Other Americas
* Documenting the 1984-85 famine in Africa in Sahel: Man in Distress
* Portraying the plight of Brazilian workers in Terra: Struggle of the Landless
* Recording the displacement of people across 35 countries in Migrations: Humanity in Transition
* Surveying landscapes, wildlife and human cultures untouched by modernity in GenesisSalgado's style lends a sense of nobility to his subjects through strong compositions.
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What impact has Sebastião Salgado had on photography and the world?
Sebastião Salgado is a Brazilian photojournalist whose black-and-white photographs powerfully capture the planet's beauty and destruction, humanity's diversity, and the suffering of the impoverished.
Salgado's style, established by the mid-1980s, features impassioned photographs with formal beauty and strong compositions, lending nobility to his subjects. His work gained international recognition in 1993 when the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art displayed his retrospective exhibition “In Human Effort".
Salgado's notable works include Other Americas (1986), Sahel: Man in Distress (1986), and Workers (1993), each telling stories of Latin American peasants, famine in Africa, and the working class, respectively.
2 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Sebastião Salgado (born February 8, 1944, Aimorés, Brazil—died May 23, 2025, Paris, France) was a Brazilian photojournalist whose dramatic black-and-white works powerfully express the beauty and destruction of the planet, the diversity of humanity, and the suffering of the impoverished.
Early life and career
Salgado was the only son of a cattle rancher who wanted him to become a lawyer. Instead, he studied economics at São Paulo University, earning a master’s degree in 1968. While working as an economist for the Ministry of Finance (1968–69), he joined the popular movement against Brazil’s military government. Seen as a political radical, Salgado was exiled in August 1969. He and his wife fled to France, where he continued his studies at the University of Paris. In 1971, while on an assignment in Rwanda as an economist for the International Coffee Organization, he took his first photographs and soon decided to teach himself the craft. He became a freelance photojournalist in 1973.
Gaining prominence
Over the next decade Salgado photographed a wide variety of subjects, including the famine in Niger and the civil war in Mozambique. In 1979 he joined the prestigious Magnum Photos cooperative for photojournalists, and two years later he gained prominence in the United States with a riveting photograph that captured John Hinckley’s attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan.
Mature work
By the mid-1980s Salgado had begun to devote himself almost entirely to long-term projects that told a story through a series of images. By this time he also established his style: impassioned photographs grounded in great formal beauty and strong compositions, which lend a sense of nobility to his often downtrodden subjects. He won the City of Paris/Kodak Award for his first photographic book, Other Americas (1986), which recorded the everyday lives of Latin American peasants. This was followed by Sahel: Man in Distress (1986), a book on the 1984–85 famine in the Sahel region of Africa, and An Uncertain Grace (1990), which included a remarkable group of photographs of mud-covered workers at the Serra Pelada gold mine in Brazil.
In 1993 Salgado’s international reputation was confirmed when his retrospective exhibition “In Human Effort” was shown at the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art; it was the first time in the history of Japan’s national museums that the works of an individual photographer were displayed. That same year he published Workers, an epic portrait of the working class. Four years later Terra: Struggle of the Landless received tremendous critical acclaim. The collection of black-and-white photographs taken between 1980 and 1996 documents the plight of impoverished workers in Brazil; the work includes a preface by Portuguese novelist José Saramago as well as poems by Brazilian singer-songwriter Chico Buarque.
Later career
In the 1990s Salgado recorded the displacement of people in more than 35 countries, and his photographs from this period were collected in Migrations: Humanity in Transition (2000). Many of his African photographs were gathered in Africa (2007). Genesis (2013) assembled the results of an eight-year global survey of wildlife, landscape, and human cultures uncorrupted by the onslaught of modernity and industrialization. Other publications included Kuwait: A Desert on Fire (2016), Gold (2019), and Amazônia (2021).
Awards and other projects
In 1998 Salgado and his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado, helped to found the Instituto Terra, a project that endeavored to restore a degraded portion of rainforest in Minas Gerais, Brazil. He was the subject of Wim Wenders’s documentary The Salt of the Earth (2015). In 2021 Salgado was awarded the prestigious Praemium Imperiale by the Japan Art Association.
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