Sebastião Salgado · Lablypedia

Salgado traveled in more than 120 countries for his photographic projects, which appeared in numerous press publications and books. Touring exhibitions of his work have been presented throughout the world.

He was a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. He was awarded the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Grant in 1982, Foreign Honorary Membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992; and the Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in 1993. He was a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts at the Institut de France since April 2016.

Early life and education

Sebastião Salgado was born on 8 February 1944, in Aimorés, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. After a somewhat itinerant childhood, Salgado trained as an economist, earning a BA degree from the Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES); a master's degree from the University of São Paulo, in 1968; and a PhD from the University of Paris, in 1971.

He began work as an economist for the International Coffee Organization and often traveled to Africa on missions for the World Bank.

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Photography

It was on his travels to Africa that Salgado first started seriously taking photographs. He chose to abandon a career as an economist and switched to photography in 1973, working initially on news assignments before veering more towards documentary-type work. Salgado initially worked with the photo agency Sygma and the Paris-based Gamma, but in 1979, he joined the international cooperative of photographers Magnum Photos. He left Magnum in 1994 and with his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado formed his own agency, Amazonas Images, in Paris, to represent his work. He is particularly noted for his social documentary photography of workers in less developed nations. His work resides in Paris.

Salgado worked on long-term, self-assigned projects, many of which have been published as books: The Other Americas, Sahel, Workers, Migrations, and Genesis. The aforementioned three are mammoth collections with hundreds of images each from all around the world. His most famous pictures are of a gold mine in Brazil called Serra Pelada, taken between 1986 and 1989. He was also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2001.

Between 2004 and 2011, Salgado worked on Genesis, aiming at the presentation of the unblemished faces of nature and humanity. It consists of a series of photographs of landscapes and wildlife, as well as of human communities that continue to live in accordance with their ancestral traditions and cultures. This body of work is conceived as a potential path to humanity's rediscovery of itself in nature.

In September and October 2007, Salgado displayed his photographs of coffee workers from India, Guatemala, Ethiopia, and Brazil at the Brazilian Embassy in London. The aim of the project was to raise public awareness of the origins of the popular drink.

Salgado photographed the landscape and people of the Amazon rainforest (Amazônia) in Brazil.

Salgado's work has been described by Andrei Netto of The Guardian as an "instantly recognisable combination of black-and-white composition and dramatic lighting".

Salgado and his work are the focus of the film The Salt of the Earth (2014), directed by Wim Wenders and Salgado's son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, and produced by Lélia Wanick Salgado.

Environmentalism

Together, Lélia and Sebastião worked since the 1990s on the restoration of a part of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. In 1998, they succeeded in turning 17,000 acres (6,900 ha) into a nature reserve and created the Instituto Terra. The institute is dedicated to a mission of reforestation, conservation and environmental education. Book publisher Taschen supports the institute to plant one tree for each book they sell.

Personal life and death

Salgado was married to Lélia Wanick Salgado and had two children, including Juliano Ribeiro Salgado.

On a 2010 trip to Indonesian New Guinea, Salgado contracted falciparum malaria, which permanently impaired his bone-marrow function. Salgado died in Paris on 23 May 2025, at the age of 81. His death was announced by Instituto Terra on the following day.

Awards

1982: W. Eugene Smith Grant from the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund
1985: Oskar Barnack Award
1989: Hasselblad Award, Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenburg, Sweden
1992: Oskar Barnack Award
1992: Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1993: Centenary Medal from the Royal Photographic Society
1993: Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) from the Royal Photographic Society
1994: Grand Prix National French Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Culture (France)
1998: Prince of Asturias Awards, Arts category
1988: King of Spain International Journalism Award
2003: International Award from the Photographic Society of Japan
2007: M2-El Mundo People's Choice Award for best exhibition a PhotoEspaña, for Africa
2019: Peace Prize of the German Book Trade
2021: Crystal Award, World Economic Forum
2021: Praemium Imperiale
2024: Outstanding Contribution to Photography Sony World Photography Awards

Honours

Brazil: Commander of the Order of Rio Branco (2004)
France: Knight of the Legion of Honour (2016)
France: Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2014)
Monaco: Knight of the Order of Cultural Merit (Monaco) (2018)

Exhibitions

Genesis, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada, 2013; Natural History Museum, London, 2013; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, 2013–14; National Museum of Singapore, 2014; [[Belo Horizonte#Pal.C3.A1cio das Artes|Palácio das Artes]], Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2014; Fotografiska Stockholm, 2014; Palazzo della Ragione, Milan, Italy, 2014; International Center of Photography, New York City, 2014–15; CaixaForum Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 2014–15; Sejong Center, Seoul, South Korea, 2014–15; Cordoaria Nacional, Lisbon, Portugal, 2015; CaixaForum Palma, Palma, Spain, 2015; Amerika Haus Berlin, Berlin, 2015; Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China, 2015; Kunstfoyer, Munich, Germany, 2015–16; Prague Castle, Prague, Czech Republic, 2017; Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2017
Déclaration, Musée de l'Homme, Paris, 2018–19
Gold, Fotografiska Stockholm, 2019; Fotografiska Tallinn, 2020.
Amazônia, Philharmonie de Paris, 2021; Science Museum, London, 2021–22; Science and Industry Museum, Manchester, UK, 2022 MAXXI, Rome, 2021–22; Serviço Social do Comércio, Sao Paulo, 2022–23; Museum of Tomorrow, Rio de Janeiro, 2021–22; California Science Center, Los Angeles, 2022, Teatro Fernán Gómez, Madrid, 2023–24.
In 2025, Fotografiska Shanghai presented Retrospective, the first major posthumous retrospective of Sebastião Salgado, bringing together works from across his career including Other Americas, Sahel, Workers, Migrations, and Genesis.