Considering contemporary Anthropology's debate around photography, there is a keen interest in the understanding of one of the most important open to public consultation photographic collections on 20th Century Brazil, that of Frenchman Marcel Gautherot (1910-1996). The collection comprises around 25,000 photographs, purchased in 1999 by Instituto Moreira Salles and kept in its fund in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The text comments on the photographer's work, linked to documentary projects under the patronage of institutions such as the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, at the end of the 1930s, and both the National Historic and Artistic Patrimony Service and the Brazilian Folklore Defence Campaign, in Brazil, between the years of 1940-1960. Such commitments and interests define important thematic groupings in the production and organisation of his personal photographic archive. A discussion about criteria and technical procedures adopted by the photographer is attempted, detailing series and visual narratives about Brazilian culture's density. With the photographs' purchase by the IMS, the oeuvre's aesthetic quality, now as an institutional collection, is highlighted. The collection's manners of preservation and conservation, reproduction and circulation are redefined.
Ethnographic Photography; Photographic Collection; Cultural Heritage; Marcel Gautherot; Brazil
