Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado Júnior (8 February 1944 – 23 May 2025) was a Brazilian social documentary photographer and

photojournalist Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (suc ...

. He 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. Salgado was a

UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador is an official postnominal honorific title, title of authority, legal status, and job description assigned to those goodwill ambassadors and activists, advocates who are designated by the United Nations. The UNICEF, ...

. He was awarded the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Grant in 1982, Foreign Honorary Membership of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 1992; and the

Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is the world's oldest photographic society having been in continuous existence since 1853. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as th ...

's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in 1993.Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Award
Accessed 13 August 2012 He was a member of the

Académie des Beaux-Arts The (; ) is a French learned society based in Paris. It is one of the five academies of the . The current president of the academy (2021) is Alain-Charles Perrot, a French architect. Background The academy was created in 1816 in Paris as a me ...

at the

Institut de France The ; ) is a French learned society, grouping five , including the . It was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institute manages approximately ...

since April 2016.

Early life and education

Sebastião Salgado was born on 8 February 1944, in Aimorés, in the Brazilian state of

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil, being the fourth largest state by area and the second largest in number of inhabitants with a population of 20,539,989 according to the 2022 Brazilian census, 2022 census. Located in ...

. After a somewhat itinerant childhood, Salgado trained as an

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

, earning a

BA degree A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

from the Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES); a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

from the

University of São Paulo The Universidade de São Paulo (, USP) is a public research university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, and the largest public university in Brazil. The university was founded on 25 January 1934, regrouping already existing schools in ...

, in 1968; and a PhD from the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

, in 1971. He began work as an economist for the

International Coffee Organization The International Coffee Organization (ICO) was set up in 1963 in London under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) due to the economic importance of coffee. It administers the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) which is an important instrum ...

and often traveled to Africa on missions for the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

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 Gamma (; uppercase , lowercase ; ) is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. In Ancient Greek, the letter gamma represented a voiced velar stop . In Modern Greek, this letter normally repr ...

, but in 1979, he joined the international cooperative of photographers

Magnum Photos Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices in Paris, New York City, London and Tokyo. It was founded in 1947 in Paris by photographers Robert Capa, David Seymour (photographer), Davi ...

. He left Magnum in 1994 and with his wife

Lélia Wanick Salgado Lélia Wanick Salgado (born on July 1, 1946), is a Brazilians, Brazilian author, film producer and environmentalist. She directs the photo press agency Amazonas Images that she founded in 2004 with husband Sebastião Salgado. Salgado was born in ...

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 aforemetioned three are mammoth collections with hundreds of images each from all around the world. His most famous pictures are of a

gold mine Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to more comple ...

in Brazil called Serra Pelada, taken between 1986 and 1989. He was also a

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 The Amazon rainforest, also called the Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin ...

(Amazônia) in Brazil. Salgado's work has been described by Andrei Netto of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' 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 Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker and photographer, who is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among the honors he has received are prizes from the Cannes Film Festival, Cannes, Venice International Film ...

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 into a nature reserve and created the Instituto Terra. The institute is dedicated to a mission of reforestation, conservation and environmental education.

Personal life and death

Salgado was married to

and had two children, including Juliano Ribeiro Salgado. On a 2010 trip to Indonesian New Guinea, Salgado contracted falciparum

malaria Malaria is a Mosquito-borne disease, mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects vertebrates and ''Anopheles'' mosquitoes. Human malaria causes Signs and symptoms, symptoms that typically include fever, Fatigue (medical), fatigue, vomitin ...

, which permanently impaired his bone-marrow function. Salgado died on 23 May 2025 in Paris. 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 The Hasselblad Award (in full: Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography) is an award granted to "a photographer recognized for major achievements". History First awarded in 1980, the award—and the Hasselblad Foundation—wa ...

Hasselblad Foundation The Hasselblad Foundation was established in 1979 at the will of Victor Hasselblad, as a fully independent, not-for-profit foundation based at Götaplatsen in Gothenburg, Sweden. The main aim of the foundation is to promote research and academic ...

, Gothenburg, Sweden * 1992: Oskar Barnack Award * 1992: Foreign Honorary Member of the

* 1993: Centenary Medal from the

* 1993: Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) from the Royal Photographic Society * 1994: Grand Prix National French Ministry of Culture,

Ministry of Culture (France) The Ministry of Culture () is the ministry of the Government of France in charge of national museums and the . Its goal is to maintain the French identity through the promotion and protection of the arts (visual, plastic, theatrical, musical, ...

* 1998:

Prince of Asturias Awards The Princess of Asturias Awards (, ), formerly the Prince of Asturias Awards from 1981 to 2014 (), are a series of annual prizes awarded in Spain by the Princess of Asturias Foundation (previously the Prince of Asturias Foundation) to individuals ...

, Arts category * 1988: King of Spain International Journalism Award * 2003: International Award from the

Photographic Society of Japan The is an organization set up in December 1952 to advance photography in Japan. Its membership of about 1,400 includes both amateur and professional photographers, as well as researchers, critics, and people in the photographic industry. Its addr ...

* 2007: M2-El Mundo People's Choice Award for best exhibition a

PhotoEspaña PHotoEspaña, the International Festival of Photography and Visual Arts of Madrid, is a Spanish photography festival based in Madrid, founded in 1998. It is supported by private companies and public institutions, and its program presents work by ...

, for ''Africa'' * 2019:

Peace Prize of the German Book Trade is an international list of peace prizes, peace prize awarded annually by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (), which runs the Frankfurt Book Fair. The award ceremony is held in the Frankfurter Paulskirche, Paulskirche in Frankfurt. T ...

* 2021: Crystal Award,

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

* 2021:

Praemium Imperiale Prince Takamatsu The Praemium Imperiale () is an international art prize inaugurated in 1988 and awarded since 1989 by the Imperial family of Japan on behalf of the Japan Art Association in the fields of painting, sculpture, architecture, mu ...

* 2024: Outstanding Contribution to Photography Sony World Photography Awards

Honours

* : Commander of the

Order of Rio Branco Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * ...

(2004)Academie des Beux Arts
/ref> * : Knight of the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

(2016) * : Commander of the

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres The Order of Arts and Letters () is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is the recognition of significant ...

(2014) * : Knight of the

Order of Cultural Merit (Monaco) The Order of Cultural Merit (; Monégasque: ''U̍rdine d’u Me̍ritu Cürtürale'') is the fourth highest Order of the Principality of Monaco. The order was established by Rainier III, Prince of Monaco on 31 December 1952 by Sovereign Order 6 ...

(2018)

Publications

* ''An Uncertain Grace''. Essays by

Eduardo Galeano Eduardo Germán María Hughes Galeano (; 3 September 1940 – 13 April 2015) was a Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist considered, among other things, "a literary giant of the Latin American left" and "global soccer's pre-eminent man of le ...

and Fred Ritchin. ** ** * ''Workers: Archaeology of the Industrial Age''. ** ** ** * * ** * ''The Children: Refugees and Migrants''. New York: Aperture, 2000. . * ''Sahel: The End of the Road''. Oakland, CA:

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

, 2004. . * ''Africa''. Cologne: Taschen, 2007. . * ''Genesis''. Cologne: Taschen, 2013. . * ''From my Land to the Planet''. Roma: Contrasto, 2014. . * ''The Scent of a Dream: Travels in the World of Coffee''. New York: Abrams, 2015. . * ''Kuwait. A Desert on Fire''. Cologne: Taschen, 2016. . * ''Gold''. Cologne: Taschen, 2019. Edited by Lélia Wanick Salgado. . * ''Amazônia''. Cologne: Taschen, 2021. Edited by Lélia Wanick Salgado. .

Filmography

* '' The Salt of the Earth'' (2014). Documentary about and with Salgado, directed by

and Salgado's son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado.

Exhibitions

* ''Genesis'',

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

, Toronto, Canada, 2013;

Natural History Museum, London The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum (Lo ...

, 2013; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, 2013–14; National Museum of Singapore, 2014; Palácio das Artes, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2014;

Fotografiska Fotografiska (Swedish for “photographic”) is one of the most successful photography museums worldwide, dedicated to inspiring a more conscious world through the power of photography, art, and culture. Founded in Stockholm in 2010, Fotograf ...

, Stockholm, 2014; Palazzo della Ragione, Milan, Italy, 2014;

International Center of Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP) is a photography museum and school at 84 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. ICP's photographic collection, reading room, and archives are at Mana Contemporary in Jer ...

, New York City, 2014–15;

CaixaForum Barcelona CaixaForum Barcelona is a cultural center in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Located in the Montjuïc area in a former Modernist textile factory designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, it is owned by the not-for-profit banking foundation " la Caixa ...

, Barcelona, Spain, 2014–15; Sejong Center, Seoul, South Korea, 2014–15; Cordoaria Nacional, Lisbon, Portugal, 2015;

CaixaForum Palma CaixaForum is a series of museums, galleries and exhibition centres sponsored by Catalan bank and not-for-profit La Caixa La Caixa (), also known as the "La Caixa" Foundation (), is a not-for-profit banking foundation based in Spain, with its h ...

, Palma, Spain, 2015; Amerika Haus Berlin, Berlin, 2015; Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China, 2015; Kunstfoyer, Munich, Germany, 2015–16;

Prague Castle Prague Castle (; ) is a castle complex in Prague, Czech Republic serving as the official residence and workplace of the president of the Czech Republic. Built in the 9th century, the castle has long served as the seat of power for List of rulers ...

, Prague, Czech Republic, 2017; Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2017 * ''Déclaration'',

Musée de l'Homme The Musée de l'Homme (; literally "Museum of Mankind" or "Museum of Humanity") is an anthropology museum in Paris, France. It was established in 1937 by Paul Rivet for the 1937 ''Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moder ...

, Paris, 2018–19 * ''Amazônia'',

Philharmonie de Paris The Philharmonie de Paris () () is a complex of concert halls in Paris, France. The buildings also house exhibition spaces and rehearsal rooms. The main buildings are all located in the Parc de la Villette at the northeastern edge of Paris in the ...

, 2021;

Science Museum, London The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded ...

, 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 The California Science Center (sometimes spelled California ScienCenter) is a state agency and science museum located in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, next to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the University of Southern Cali ...

, Los Angeles, 2022, Teatro Fernán Gómez, Madrid, 2023–24.

References

Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...

'' * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Salgado, Sebastiao 1944 births 2025 deaths 20th-century Brazilian people 21st-century Brazilian people Brazilian photojournalists Brazilian socialists Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Culture in Minas Gerais Deaths from leukemia in France Expatriate photographers in Sudan Federal University of Espírito Santo alumni Fine art photographers Knights of the Legion of Honour Magnum photographers Social documentary photographers University of Paris alumni University of São Paulo alumni