Exhibiting copies: learning from a North-American show in São Paulo, 1947

In 1947, the Municipal Library of São Paulo hosted the exhibition Artistic Photography, prepared by the Museum of Modern Art of New York with Andreas Feininger as the technical adviser. It was an educational show with photographic reproductions printed on panels and accompanied by texts, with images made by photographers such as Erich Salomon, Ansel Adams, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, amongst others. Originally entitled Creative Photography, it was conceived as a multiple exhibition, one that could be purchased and displayed simultaneously in several locations. The present article aims to analyze the show Artistic Photography and seeks to contextualize it in the midst of the profound cultural transformations of the aftermath of World War II. The American cultural activities held in Brazil in the period, the negotiations for the creation of the first museums of modern art in the country and the use of photographic reproduction techniques in art will be considered in this context.

Artistic Photography; Municipal Library of São Paulo; Museum of Modern Art of New York; Didactic exhibition; Andreas Feininger; Creative Photography