Photographer Sebastiao Salgado at the presentation of his exhibition, Kuwait: A Desert on Fire, at the Galleria Meravigli, in Milan, Italy, Oct. 20, 2017. Salgado, known for his long-term projects and images of nature and humanity, died at age 81, the Instituto Terra confirmed.Luca Bruno/The Associated Press
Brazilian photographer and environmentalist Sebastião Salgado, known for his award-winning images of nature and humanity, has died at age 81.
Instituto Terra, which was founded by him and his wife, confirmed the information Friday, but did not provide more details on the circumstances or where he died. The French Academy of Fine Arts, of which Salgado was a member, also confirmed his death.
The photographer had suffered from various health problems for many years after contracting malaria in the 1990s.
“Sebastião was more than one of the best photographers of our time,” Instituto Terra said in a statement. “His lens revealed the world and its contradictions; his life, (brought) the power of transformative action.”
“We will continue to honour his legacy, cultivating the land, the justice and the beauty that he so deeply believed could be restored,” it added.
One of Brazil’s most famous artists, though he always insisted he was a photographer first, Salgado had his life and work portrayed in the documentary film “The Salt of the Earth” (2014), co-directed by Wim Wenders and his son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado.
He received a number of awards, and was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States in 1992 and to the French Academy of Fine Arts in 2016.
Born in 1944 in the city of Aimores, in the countryside of the Minas Gerais state in Brazil, Salgado moved to France in 1969 as Brazil endured a military dictatorship. He started to fully dedicate his time to photography in 1973, years after his economics degree.
His style is marked by black-and-white imagery, rich tonality, and emotionally charged scenarios. He had a particular interest in impoverished communities.
Among his main works are the recent series “Amazonia;” “Workers” which shows manual labour around the world; and “Exodus” (also known as “Migrations” or “Sahel”), which documents people in transit, including refugees and slum residents.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who received Salgado’s support throughout his political career, requested a minute of silence during a ceremony in the capital city of Brasilia to honour “one of the greatest, if not the greatest, photographer the world has ever produced.”
“His nonconformity with the fact that the world is so unequal and his stubborn talent in portraying the reality of the oppressed always served as a wake-up call for the conscience of all humanity,” Lula said. “Salgado did not only use his eyes and his camera to portray people: he also used the fullness of his soul and his heart.”
Salgado and his wife had been working since the 1990s to restore part of the Atlantic Forest in Minas Gerais. In 1998, they turned a plot of land they owned into a nature reserve, according to Salgado’s biography on the French Academy of Fine Arts’ website. That same year, they created Instituto Terra, which promotes reforestation and environmental education.
Salgado and his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado, founded Amazonas Images, an agency that exclusively handles his work.
He is also survived by his sons Juliano and Rodrigo.
Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, which published several of Salgado’s works over the last decades, said he recently cancelled a meeting with journalists in the French city of Reims due to health problems. He was scheduled to attend an exhibition with works by his son Rodrigo on Saturday, the daily reported.
An exhibition of about 400 of Salgado’s works is currently on display in the city of Deauville, in northern France. In an undated interview with Forbes Brasil published on Thursday, Salgado said that attending it felt like a stroll through his life.
“How many times in my life have I put my camera to the side and sat down to cry? Sometimes it was too dramatic, and I was alone. That’s the power of the photographer; to be able to be there,” Salgado said. “If a photographer is not there, there’s no image. We need to be there. We expose ourselves a lot. And that is why it is such an immense privilege.”
