Marcel Gautherot

The construction of Brasilia

Acquired in 1999, the works of Marcel Gautherot are now part of the collection maintained by the Moreira Salles Institute (IMS) alongside the production of other great 19th and 20th-century Brazilian photographers, such as Marc Ferrez and Jose Medeiros. Ever since its foundation in 1990, the Moreira Salles Institute has always been a cultural institution dedicated to the recovery and enhancement of Brazilian culture. In keeping with this mission, it has elected photography as one of its priority fields of activity, beside literature and popular music, although it is also active in the visual arts and cinematography. IMS began to compile its photographic collection in 1995 by acquiring the Collection of the Great Masters of Brazilian Photography in the 19th Century. In the same year, it acquired 44 negatives produced by Claude Levi-Strauss. These are images of Sao Paulo captured by the anthropologist between 1935 and 1937, when he lived in the city and taught at the newly-founded University of Sao Paulo (USP). This initial assembly of approximately 2,600 images was expanded over the years to a total of more than 450 thousand in 2008. After acquiring collections like Gilberto Ferrez▓s, IMS became the proprietor of the most important 19th-century collection in Brazil. It also put together the best ensemble related to early 20th-century Brazilian photography, including the entire production of photographers like Marcel Gautherot, Hildegard Rosenthal, Alice Brill, Carlos Moskovics, and Henri Ballot. Furthermore, it has a growing number of pieces by contemporary authors, such as Jose Medeiros, Hans Gunter Flieg, Madalena Schwartz, and Maureen Bisilliat. The main reasons for this effort to collect photographs is related to IMS perception of the importance of photography in the arts, not only from a formal and aesthetic perspective but also in terms of documentation, especially where the latter is concerned with the task of constructing and reconstructing cultural values associated with the country▓s memory and history. Added to that is the concern about the fragility of photographs, no matter what the form or process may be. The need for effective action in the fields of preservation, curatorship, and dissemination of the brazilian photographic production through investments in technical resources, as climate controlled archives, and permanent curatorial research, associated with a medium and long-term institutional policy of acquisitions, was clearly needed in Brazil. This is precisely the path followed by the Instituto Moreira Salles in the area of photography over the last 12 years. In Marcel Gautherot▓s case, IMS has added to its collection of approximately 25 thousand images, including negatives, contacts, slides, and original period photographs (vintages), an assembly of books and documents that help to shed light on important aspects of the author▓s life. Gautherot▓s work is of paramount importance for the recent history of Brazilian photography. He worked with prominent figures in Brazilian culture, like Rodrigo Melo Franco de Andrade (at IPHAN), Edison Carneiro (on the National Commission of Folklore), Oscar Niemeyer (during the construction of Brasilia), and Roberto Burle Marx (at several points of his career as an architect and landscape designer). His photographic work features wide territorial and regional coverage, thematic diversity, and outstanding aesthetic quality -151; thanks to his background in architecture and interior design. This formal rigor can also be observed in his systematic organization of a collection containing approximately 2,200 contact sheets and more than 21 thousand black-and-white negatives edited in such a way as to permit a clear and detailed reading of his entire production -151; which also includes about 3,000 slides and color negatives. The present exhibition -147;The construction of Brasilia-148; on Gautherot's documentation during the late 1950?s and early 1960?s of the modern city planned to be the new capital of Brazil, located at the central area of the country (at that time very isolated from the main cities on the eastern region), will allow the public to be acquainted with one of the most significant aspects of Gautherot?s work: the documentation of modern architecture in Brazil and the construction of the new capital of the country, including the work of architect Oscar Niemeyer, who considers Gautherot the best photographer of his work.