Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, a spokesperson for the marginalized and for the protection of nature, dies.

As misfortune would have it, two photographers, photojournalists with a heart, professionals of black and white images, touched by the magic wand of the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts, crossed paths on the same day: on one side, Graciela Iturbide, recognized today with this award. On the other, Brazilian Sebastiao Salgado, who received it in 1998, when the award was still named after a man, and whom we must bid farewell today.

And according to the French Academy of Fine Arts, the renowned photographer, one of the most popular with the general public, died today at the age of 81. Salgado was primarily known for his large-format black and white photographs, in impeccable productions, depicting major conflicts and for his love song to the planet in general and the Amazon rainforest in particular. In fact , 'Amazonía' was the last exhibition that brought him to Spain a couple of years ago (Centro Cultural de la Villa, 2023, curated by his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado), his last major project developed between 2013 and 2019, which took the form of a concert at the Barcelona Liceu in 2024.

Born in 1944 in Minas Gerais, Sebastião Salgado became the photographer who probably walked the most kilometers and exposed the most inequalities with his trusty Leica: he visited more than one hundred countries and social realities. With his camera, he denounced the planet's great injustices and anticipated the environmentalist clamor to safeguard it when the issue wasn't even a minor item on the agendas of major leaders.

However, her training was as an economist, although the possibilities of photography attracted her from the age of 29, and she devoted herself to self-teaching. Thus, after working for the agencies Sygma and Gamma, in 1979 she joined the prestigious Magnum Photos, where she remained until 1994, when she founded, together with Wanick Salgado, Amazonas Images, a company dedicated exclusively to her work.

No area of ​​marginalization or abuse was spared by his lens. In the introduction to 'Exodus' (2000), he wrote: " More than ever, I feel there is only one human race. Beyond differences of color, language, culture, and possibilities, the feelings and reactions of each individual are identical." That didn't prevent him from receiving criticism throughout his life—for example, from Susan Sontag herself—for extracting commercial profit from human misery.

His first major project, "Workers," led him to capture images of workers from around the world with his camera for six years in the 1980s, the result of which was published in a book of the same name in 1993. In the 1990s, he conducted extensive photographic research on global migration, illustrating the plight of millions of displaced people fleeing war, political oppression, or hunger, as well as those fleeing poverty in rural areas. This work has been published in the books "Migrations" and "Portraits." In 2004, he began the "Genesis" project, a series of portraits of physical and human landscapes spread across the globe, his love letter to nature. It also adopted the photobook format.

In 2010, in Indonesia, he contracted a particular form of malaria while working on this project. Fifteen years later, complications from this disease led to severe leukemia, which ultimately claimed his life.

His work has been exhibited in major museums around the world. In June 2007, a major retrospective of his work was held in Madrid as part of PHotoEspaña, a festival with which he returned to occupy the exhibition halls of the Royal Palace in 2022. An honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Commander of the Order of Rio Branco, he received honorary doctorates from the University of Évora (Portugal), the New School University (New York), the Art Institute of Boston, and the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom). He has received numerous awards, including the Eugene Smith Prize for Humanitarian Photography (1982) and the Hasselblad Foundation International Award (1989). In 2001, he was appointed a special ambassador for UNICEF.

In his last interview with ABC, the artist declared: "Photography lies, because it's not objective, it's subjective. The photography I take is my point of view. It's my ideology, the entire heritage I've had in my life, which has created an aesthetic form and a political form. I can't say it's objective; it's profoundly subjective. That's what photography is." Today, this legacy is turning its most bitter page.