Brazilian Modernist Photography (1939-1964)

In the 1940s, Brazil was undergoing a major transformation: It was modernising, increasing international trade, attracting large numbers of European emigrants and inspiring dreams. Witnesses to this revolution were the artists of the modernist movement, including photographers whose images tell the story of Brazil's entry onto the cosmopolitan art scene. In the wake of Oscar Niemeyer's architecture, his vision of the modern city, the Novo cinema and Bossa Nova, five figures helped to create a new kind of photography: Geraldo de Barros, German Lorca, Gertrudes Altschul, José Oiticica Filho and Thomaz Farkas. Seizing on the political, social and aesthetic potential of photography, they introduced new subjects: modernist architecture and its supple lines, botanical motifs with contrasting light and shadow, inventive experiments and perspective games tinged with a taste for abstraction. Foto Clubes Carioca in Rio de Janeiro and the Foto Clube Bandeirante in São Paulo, amateur clubs that de