MASP Colecao Pirelli

Nearly twenty years ago, Pirelli started to fund the acquisition of photographs by the Museum of Art of Sao Paulo (MASP), Brazil. The artists have all been Brazilian or 'adoptive' Brazilians. Every year an exhibition is held of the latest acquisitions, and the body of work has grown to be one of the most impressive holdings of photographic works of art anywhere in the world.

And also every year, a catalogue is published to accompany the exhibition. Up until yesterday I was fortunate enough to have visited about five of the exhibitions and even more fortunate to have built up a collection of 17 of the 18 catalogues; Number 4 from 1994 being missing due to it being out of print.

Today, I'm over the moon as I have now acquired the missing volume through the good offices of Guardian-featured blipper fotodiario who located a copy in the Sao Paulo second hand book market for me!

Here is a link to the MASP site which features all 18 catalogues and generously includes all the photos contained therein. The boy, here, is featured on page 11 of Catalogue Number 4, and was photographed by Jose Albano in 1988 as part of his Tapeba Children Series. Hope you enjoy a peruse of some of the other works, if you have time.