Born 1944, Aimorés - Brazil.
At the age of 16 Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado moves to nearby Vitoria, where he finishes high school and undertakes university studies. After further education in São Paulo, he moves first to Paris and then to London, where he works as an economist for the International Coffee Organisation. In 1973 he returns to Paris to pursue a career as a photographer. Working first as a freelancer and then for the photo agencies Sygma, Gamma and Magnum, he and his wife Lélia Deluiz Wanick set up the Amazonas Images agency. Sebastião travelled extensively, first covering the Indians and peasants of Latin America, then the famine in Africa in the mid-1980s. Between 1986 and 2001 he works mainly on two projects. In 2003 he starts the Genesis project: a photographic journey through the five continents documenting the world as it was and as it is, celebrating the earth as a resource to be known and loved. After nine years of work, Genesis was also presented in a book and major exhibitions. The photographer's last great work is Amazonia: a project that lasted six years, during which Salgado photographed the Amazon rainforest, the rivers, the mountains and the people who live there, recording the immense power of nature in those places and capturing their fragility at the same time. The exclusive Italian stage of Amazonia was presented at MAXXI - Museo delle Arti del XXI secolo and will be on show until 13 February 2022.