Fotoclubismo

Published in conjunction with the first major museum exhibition of Brazilian modernist photography outside of Brazil, Fotoclubismo presents the groundbreaking creative achievements of the Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante, an amateur photography club founded in São Paulo in 1939. The vast majority of FCCB members pursued photography as a hobby: they spent their days as businessmen, accountants, journalists, or engineers, but their artistic ambitions were considerable and their work stands out alongside better-known contemporary experimentations. The Bandeirantes played a leading role in the international photography-club circuit in the decades following. World War II, and although their pictures won prizes on six continents, they are essentially unknown to European and North American audiences today.

Fotoclubismo’s 140 tritone plates faithfully capture the FCCB’s striking photographic statements. Situating the FCCB within the broader art scene in postwar Brazil as well as within a dynamic network of photographers around the world, curator Sarah Hermanson Meister challenges us to confront our aesthetic biases and reconsider our attitudes toward the amateur. This lavishly-illustrated volume is the first publication outside Brazil to celebrate the extraordinary photography that emerged in São Paulo during a singularly vibrant era.