Photography in Brazil in the 20th century

Twentieth century
In the 1940s, the apex of photoclubism occurred, a movement that brought together people interested in the practice of photography as a form of artistic expression. The first photo clubs emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, but only from the 1930s onwards did they become decisive in the training and technical improvement of Brazilian photographers. The main photoclubs were the Photo Club Brasileiro, founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1923, and the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante, created in São Paulo in 1939. The main photographers who were exponents of photoclubism and some of them representatives of the modern movement in photography were Thomas Farkas , José Oiticica Filho, Eduardo Salvatore, Stefan Rosenbauer, Chico Albuquerque, José Yalenti, Gregori Warchavchik, Hermínia de Mello Nogueira Borges and Geraldo de Barros.

From the pioneering advertising spirit of Chico Albuquerque, who portrayed the first advertising campaign with photography in 1948, new authors emerged such as Bob Wolfenson, Marcio Scavone, Claudio Elisabetsky, JR Duran and Miro.

Between the 1940s and 1950s, the Association of Photographic and Cinematographic Reporters (in Portuguese, ARFOC) was founded in Rio de Janeiro (1946), São Paulo (1948) and Minas Gerais (1950). Photojournalism was promoted by the magazines O Cruzeiro and Jornal do Brasil, which began to emphasize photography in their pages.

Assis Chateaubriand, director of the magazine O Cruzeiro, hired Jean Manzon, making it the most important magazine in the country.

From the photojournalism of the magazines Realidade (1966), Veja (1968) and Jornal da Tarde (1966), another wave of great photographers emerged, the main ones being: Claudia Andujar, Geraldo Guimarães, Walter Firmo, George Love, David Drew Zingg, Orlando Brito and Luigi Mamprim. Luís Humberto took ironic photos about the situation in Brazil under the military regime, despite censorship control. These photographers became icons of the 1960s and influenced photographers such as Orlando Azevedo, Paulo Leite, Ed Viggiani, João Noronha, Thiago Santana, José Bassit, André Cypriano, André Vilaron, exponents of photojournalism.

In the 1970s, various photography offices and schools emerged in the country, such as Enfoco e Imagen and Ação, in São Paulo, which promoted author photography. Due to the lack of specialized places for exhibitions, several galleries were created, such as Fotóptica and Álbum; and groups such as Photogaleria emerged, in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, with the intention of inserting photography into the Brazilian art market.

The independent journalism of agencies such as Focontexto, F4, Ágil, Fotograma and ZNZ was recorded by photographers such as Juca and Delfim Martins, Nair Benedicto, Ricardo Chaves, Emidio Luisi, Milton Guran, among others, who stood out in author photography. Pedro Martinelli and Cristiano Mascaro add to the highlights of author photography, although they did so working for traditional publications.

There are also works whose proposal is the insertion of photography with established art and vice versa, represented by Otto Stupakoff, Anna Bella Geiger, Antonio Saggese, Cássio Vasconcellos, Alex Flemming, Kenji Ota, Gal Oppido, Eustáquio Neves, Guy Veloso, Miguel Rio Branco, Flavya Mutran and Vik Muniz, among others.
In the 1980s, Brazilian photography became known abroad through participation in international exhibitions and the publication of the work of Brazilian photographers in foreign magazines. Among the main names of the time are Sebastião Salgado, Cristiano Mascaro, Mario Cravo Neto, Kenji Ota, Sergio Valle Duarte and Marcos Santilli.

In 1981, Sebastião Salgado was one of the only photographers to record the attempted assassination of US President Ronald Reagan, which gave him great international prominence. In addition to him—who at the time was a freelancer at the Magnum agency in Paris and had been sent to accompany the president at the request of the New York Times—only Americans Ron Edmonds and Michael Evans photographed the attack. Since then, Salgado, based in France, has been recognized worldwide as one of the masters of contemporary documentary photography. In the 1980s and 1990s, he published important photographic reports of social denunciation, in books such as Sahel: l'Homme en Détresse (1986), Workers (1993) and Terra (1997).