For Brazil, it's been great artists like the Dutch painter Frans Post (1612-1680) or the German Johann Rugendas (1802-1858), to name a few whose fascination for our color was recorded in paintings, drawings and lithographs essential.

In contemporary history, photography has taken the role of photographers and designers with the Americans George Leary Love (1937-1995) and David Drew Zingg (1923-2000). However, an Englishwoman named Maureen Bisilliat landed here in 1952 and forever changed the concepts of photography, documentaries, the Brazilian art and photojournalism.

Photo: Maureen Bisilliat

Of Irish origin, Sheila Maureen was born in the village of Englefield Green, Surrey, southwest England, in 1931. The surname Bisilliat adopted - now as a photographer - came from her second husband, Frenchman Jacques Bisilliat, with whom he played the charming folk art gallery "The Goat" on Rua Bela Cintra in Sao Paulo, between 1972 and 1992.

As some of the most important photographers, Maureen began Bisilliat art. Was already living in Brazil when, in 1955, went to Paris to study with the French André Lothe (1885-1962), an exponent of the Cubist movement and that, among other things, he was professor of Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) . Bresson reputaria the artist knew everything about photography.

Photo: Maureen Bisilliat

In Paris, and her friend Maureen Henrieta Michelson felt at home. "We were very well received, because until then, the studio did not have great expressions defined in the visual arts. We got no vices, no imitations, "he says. But Lothe was very stiff and dry, and spared no criticism to students. The need to counteract the severity of the master took her to the United States. Was studying with Russian Morris Kantor (1896-1974) at the Art Students League of New York.

With over one hundred years, "Art League" hosted renowned artists - including Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008). The school, which still exists today, is famous for combining amateur to professional artists and continues to be an important name in the artistic life of the city.

Photo: Maureen Bisilliat

"On the Art League had a much greater freedom of expression, but it was a blast! If the time Lothe Paris was that of Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980), for us young people, the world is opening! New York was another world too! You went to the East Side and met with de Kooning (Willem, 1904-1997) drinking beer! And it was a funky place! Any another bar, Monk (Thelonious, 1917-1982) played! ".

To Maureen, then the young man had the right to be an apprentice. The photographer says it best: "I visited the studio of Lasar Segall (1891-1957). He put my drawings on the floor and looked a long time. The Segall gave their time, looked and opined! Today it no longer exists. Today everyone has got to know a producer! "

In the late '50s, was studying with Italian Karl Plattner (1918-1986) in a studio in the neighborhood of Sumaré in Sao Paulo. The artist came to Brazil in the wake of the 1953 Biennial (II Biennial of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo). In the studio, was a fellow of two great artists: the German Gisela Eichbaum (1920-1996) and Italian Maria Bonomi, who also settled here.

Photo: Maureen Bisilliat

If considering "uprooted", ended up naturalizing in 1963. Always wearing long skirts, sandals and encharpes, a slight accent the Briton out as an outsider, though few people understand Brazilian culture as her. Few have such deep roots planted here.

It justifies the abandonment of painting and the beginning of a photographic work that would make it recognized in Brazil and abroad: "I did not know what to say to a white screen." Lost Art, won the shot? Difficult to say. His documentaries have much of their artistic and photojournalism was not only informative. His reports prodded, teased estese through a bias so far little explored: one whose color is a form and concept. Also, the novelty of their research and its chromatic explorations still baffle the less familiar vocabulary with his powerful imagery.

In 1960, she went to Valdivia in southern Chile, covering an earthquake for the New York Times. After much work, the twelve rolls of film that made never came to his publisher in Santiago. "Interestingly ... twenty years later, I met the person who should have received. She told me that they came seven years later I sent. " One of the oddities of life of a photographer you have come from shamans, sertanejos backwoodsmen and religious syncretism - and yet, it still raises eyebrows in telling these stories.

Photo: Maureen Bisilliat

Back in Brazil, began fotogrando naked at home, have a habit of time art student, until one friend miner, Olimpio Jose Borges, gave him a copy of Great Hinterland: Footpaths, Guimarães Rosa (1908-1967). "The Olimpio said, I do not know if you will understand ...," the photographer recalls, laughing. In fact, Maureen not only understood, but translated the Book of Rosa, in images that became The João Guimarães Rosa (Graphics Brunner, 1967-Ed. Diá 1987), the result of travel by Minas Gerais until 1963.

When working with Marcelo Tassara, making a "tabletop" (images for animation), in 1962, was taken by journalist Audalio Dantas for the Quatro Rodas magazine. There were more than ten years - counting also the time of the anthology magazine Reality - traveling throughout Brazil. In publications, appeared as the Swiss colleagues Claudia Andujar, the Italian Luigi Mamprin (1921-1995) and Walter Firmo Rio.

A side project, which she called "Equivalents Photography" - which has no resemblance to Alfred Stieglitz Equivalents (1864-1946) - was later turned into books and involved the work of writers such as Euclides da Cunha (Rally, Light and Dark Roots Publishing, 1983), Joao Cabral de Melo Neto (The dog without feathers, Ed.Nova Frontier, 1984) and Jorge Amado (Amada Amado Bahia, Company of Arts, 1996), among others.

A need for experimentation has always marked the work of Maureen Bisilliat. From this it appeared films such as João Guimarães Rosa, 1969, co-authored with Marcelo Tassara, Yao / Initiation Son of Saint, 1976, displayed at the Bienal de Arte de Sao Paulo; Xingu Earth, 1979, long- footage filmed in the village and tourist Mehinaku Apprentice, 1985, based on the novel by Mario de Andrade.

Far from photojournalism, but the documentary in 1972 Bisilliat Maureen began a relationship a few years with the Villas Boas brothers, visiting the Xingu region frequently, until 1977. In the film, the installation at XIII Bienal de São Paulo in 1975, also published the masterpiece Xingu Earth (Ed.Cultura, 1979), edited later in five other countries.

Marco bibliography photographic Xingu Earth achieved a historic feat of bringing poetry to the visual documentaries. It is a book extremely beautiful and edited, and at the same time filled with information. Maureen deals with color as few photographers are able, why, after almost thirty years of its publication, has yet to be overcome in its genre.

With the book's Rally Light and Darkness, the photographer would also mark his work in experimentation. More daring than the previous, also created a language is difficult to overcome. Maureen reveals that "The" distortion "of images were made in one night. "Then I took the extensions in black and white and refotografava - with a macro lens - in daylight, using films for tungsten light and vice versa. Then put the images into the water and photographed again ... ". An example, for those who insist on worshiping as the Photoshop.

In the trial of the Rally ... are classic images of cowboys, copied ad nauseum, until today, which are opposed to their experiences. For the photographer, "the best things we create are the most explosive." However, it leaves aside the criticism that actually goes with a good lesson for all: "Sometimes we make a discovery! And while it is, anything goes! But when you want to imitate the discovery, is the void. " So she set aside the results of these experiments. As she says: "Before it was a discovery, if I continued it would be just an effect."

The thousands of his images, mostly chromes, now belong to the collection of IMS, and IMS are involving several of its researchers in their scanning, identification and cataloging. The book Bisilliat Maureen Photography is an attempt to summarize his extensive work, which is not limited to experimentalism or extraordinary use of color, just to mention two aspects.

Today, a little distant from the image and closer to your videos, Maureen does not cease to be tuned in a contemporary, yet finds time to participate in projects as "an eye in the springs of 2008", organized by Studio Magdalene. In the project, Maureen led a group in the village Krukutu Guarani in São Paulo.

About the future of photography: "I loved the pictures of a girl of thirteen made with a digital. I think these new interesting little machines, "she says that soon after a reward us with more advice:" The picture goes through changes, but ... do not mix with the intentions, but live with them. "

* Text originally published in the Best Photograph of September 2008 and amended in 2010.

Service
Exposure
Maureen Bisilliat Photography - 200 images, editing the photographer with the collaboration of the curators IMS
From 02:03 to 04:07
Art Gallery of SESI, Sao Paulo - Av Paulista 1313, Sao Paulo
Tel: +55 11 3146-7405
Note: The show features original works, which were not exposed in the IMS of Rio de Janeiro. Throughout the show, there will be the projection of Xingu Earth.

Book
Maureen Bisilliat - Photos - IMS Edition ISBN: 978-85-86707-45-2. $ 140.00

Juan Esteves, photographer, has been writing his articles since 1988 in the Folha de S. Paul. It was Iris Photo Magazine columnist and editor and columnist for the Fotosite. You Better Shoot magazine columnist and contributor to text and images for magazines such as Mitsubishi, Living Alone, Travel and More Cosac Naify. Now, the blog of Paraty in Focus, called Juan, all Fridays, unpublished or published - the last, with reprint and update made ​​especially for this blog. This week, unusually, he sent his column in advance to announce the launch of Maureen expos.