Renowned Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado dies at 81
Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado speaks during a news conference at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City on February. He died at the age of 81 on Friday. Photo by Isaac Esquivel/EPA-EFE
May 23 (UPI) -- Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado, whose black-and-white photographs documented human suffering and destruction of the Amazon rainforest, died Friday. He was 81.
The Instituto Terra, the environmental restoration nonprofit he founded with his wife of six decades, Lelia Wanick Salgado, confirmed his death.
"Sebastiao was much more than one of the greatest photographers of our time," Instituto Terra wrote. "His lens revealed the world and its contradictions; his life, the power of transformative action."
The nonprofit didn't say where he died.
In 2010, Salgado had developed leukemia due to complications from malaria contracted in Indonesia, his family said in a statement.
"I know I won't live much longer," Salgado told the Guardian in an interview last year. "But I don't want to live much longer. I've lived so much and seen so many things."
Over five decades, he went to more than 130 countries. Many of his photographs are on his Facebook site.
He used expressive lighting for the compositions in displaying human suffering.
"Why should the poor world be uglier than the rich world?" he asked last year. "The light here is the same as there. The dignity here is the same as there."
His photographs also showed the destruction of the planet. In 1986, he captured illegal gold miners toiling in the anthill-like Serra Pelada mine in the Amazon.
His last book, Amazonia, in 2021, contains more than 200 photographs. Currently on display in Brussels, there are the Amazon's lush landscapes, curving rivers and diverse Indigenous peoples. He spotlighted the wealth of the rainforest as it faces an increased threat of destruction from human activities and the climate crisis.
"We are presenting a different Amazonia," Salgado told CNN in 2021. "There are no fires, no destruction -- the Amazonia that must stay there forever.
"We cannot build our future -- the future of humanity-based only on technology," Salgado continued. "We must look at our past; we must take into consideration anything that we did in our history. Human beings have a huge opportunity: the prehistory of humanity is in Amazonia now."
Salgado helped restore the native Atlantic forest on the family farm in Minas Gerais. In 2021, he told CNN that he and volunteers had planted more than 3 million trees over 22 years there.
"We can rebuild the planet that we destroyed, and we must," Salgado said.
He was in the process of archiving more than 500,000 photos for sale.
"We will keep honoring his legacy, cultivating the land, justice and beauty he so believed was possible to restore," the institute said.
Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, observed a minute of silence when he learned of Salgado's death during an event in Brasília. He said Salgao's work was "a warning for the conscience of all of humanity. Salgado didn't only use his eyes and his camera to portray people: he also used the fullness of his soul and heart."
He was born in rural Minas Gerais, Brazil, and studied economics in Sao Paulo. He moved to Paris during the political repression of Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship from 1964-1985.
He took up photography in the 1970s.
He was named an honorary member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992, and the French Academy of Fine Arts in 2016.
Notable deaths of 2025
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