Derli Barroso

Aug. 2, 1938 - May 13, 2024

Derli was a photographer who had a major presence in the renovation of Brazilian photography in the 1970’s and 80’s, with shows in galleries and museums in São Paulo, Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro, such as the Museum of Art of São Paulo, the Modern Art Museum, and others. He was a Professor at Alvares Penteado Fine Arts College, published a weekly page in national newspaper Folha de São Paulo, and received the Nikon International Award of Photography with shows in Frankfurt, Paris, and New York. Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 1983, he spent a year at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Moving to the United States in 1990, he initially traveled around the world to document social and biodiversity projects supported by the MacArthur Foundation. He felled in love with the Midwest prairie, object of his first book which presented a “realistic poetic vision where the viewer will find no strong horizontal lines or sweeping vistas, only remarkable choices” in the words of Dan Martin’s Preface. His twelve books cover a variety of subjects and styles from homages to the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa to singing the body eclectic of Walt Whitman. In 2019, he and his wife Carmen moved to Portland, Oregon to be close to their daughter Valentina, her husband, Jeremy and their two grandsons Milo and Enzo. Here he could pursue his life-long passion for nature, and deepen his interests in reading and music innovations. His many friends from around the world remember his odd combination of sharp wit and sweet empathy.