It was through a post on the Facebook social network by the Instituto da Terra, a non-governmental organization founded by Sebastião Salgado and his wife Lélia Wanick, that the announcement was made:
“With immense sorrow, we announce the passing of Sebastião Salgado, our founder, master, and eternal source of inspiration.”
“Sebastião was much more than one of the greatest photographers of our time. Alongside his life companion, Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado, he sowed hope where there was devastation and nurtured the idea that environmental restoration is also a profound act of love for humanity. His lens revealed the world and its contradictions; his life demonstrated the power of transformative action,” reads the post.
At the time of farewell, the Instituto da Terra pledges to its founder to honor his legacy, “by cultivating the land, justice, and beauty that he so firmly believed could be restored. (…) Today and always.”
The photographer, who lived in Paris, France, leaves behind two sons, Juliano and Rodrigo, and two grandchildren, Flávio and Nara. According to an account from a close friend to Folha de S. Paulo, he was facing health complications stemming from malaria contracted in the 1990s.
The photographer of dual French and Brazilian nationality was 81 years old. The French Academy of Fine Arts has also lamented the loss “of our colleague Sebastião Salgado” and shares unique images captured by the photographer.
In 1993 he exhibited in Portugal at the opening of the Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB) in Lisbon, where he showed around 250 images.
He was a photographer for the photo agencies Sygma, Gamma, and Magnum, and with his wife founded Amazonas Images and Instituto Terra for the reforestation of Brazil’s Mata Atlântica.
Throughout his career, Salgado was recognized for his humanist perspective and for deeply documenting social, environmental, and humanitarian themes across different parts of the world. His works include series such as Workers, Exodus, and Genesis, which marked generations and influenced global photojournalism.
Known for his documentary work and black-and-white photography, Sebastião Salgado was honored with the world’s premier photography awards and died on the day the exhibition “Venham Mais Cinco – O Olhar Estrangeiro sobre a Revolução Portuguesa (1974–1975)” opens in Almada, featuring photos he took during the revolution.
Salgado’s death represents a profound loss for art, journalism, and the environmental cause, to which he devoted his later years through Instituto Terra.
Biography
Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado Júnior was born in 1944 in the city of Aimorés, Minas Gerais. World-renowned, the Minas native became a master at portraying, in black and white, the human soul and the planet’s contrasts. His lens captured historical moments, faces of ordinary people, landscapes of rare beauty, and the impacts of environmental destruction.
A curious fact about Salgado is that he did not begin his career as a photographer. His first professional pursuit was studying Economics at the University of Espírito Santo from 1971 to 1973.
He also worked as secretary for the International Coffee Organization in London. During a trip to Angola in Africa, he coordinated a coffee cultivation project. It was then that he started photographing as a hobby, not professionally.
Only upon returning from the trip in 1973, at nearly 30 years old, did he launch his career as a photographer.
Since then, Sebastião Salgado has journeyed to more than 120 countries with his camera. His photographic projects have yielded countless publications in the international press and highly influential books. Exhibitions of his work, on continuous tour, have been shown around the world.
Working exclusively in black and white, Salgado distinguishes himself with his sensitivity and deep respect for his subjects. His photography not only reveals each person’s inherent dignity but also forcefully denounces injustices from wars, poverty, and social exclusion.
Globally acclaimed, Salgado is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Among other honors, he received the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Award in 1982, became an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992, and the next year earned the Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society. Since April 2016, he has been a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Paris, part of the Institut de France.