Geraldo De Barros

Geraldo de Barros was a pioneer of abstract photography in Brazil. He is considered to be one of the most important artists of the Concrete Art movement. He began his artistic career from 1948 in São Paulo where he attended the Photo Cine Bandeirantes Club. During this period, de Barros began to create his Fotoformas series after coming into contact with European photographic experiments such as those by artists Man Ray and Lázló Maholy-Nagy. The Fotoformas represent a new era of photography in Brazil. By rendering common objects unidentifiable and by converting industrial structures into geometric patterns, they leave the merely representational and give photography a conceptual complexity it had previously lacked. In 1951 de Barros obtained a scholarship to study in Europe where he studied at Atelier Dix-Sept, the workshop of StanleyWilliam Hayter, and at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm Germany (School of Form). It was there that he encountered artists such as Max Bill. In 1952 on his return to Brazil, de Barros along with other artists such as Lothar Charoux and Waldemar Cordeiro organised the Ruptura exhibition at the Museum de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. This exhibition marked the official inauguration of Concrete Art in Brazil.