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Brazilian photographer and environmentalist Sebastião Salgado, known for his award-winning images of nature and humanity, died at 81 from leukemia, AP reported citing a statement by his family.
Local media reported he died in Paris, where he lived for more than 55 years, according to AP.
“Through the lens of his camera, Sebastião tirelessly fought for a more just, humane, and ecological world,” Salgado’s family said in a statement, according to AP.
“As a photographer who traveled the globe continuously, he contracted a particular form of malaria in 2010 in Indonesia while working on his Genesis project. Fifteen years later, complications from this illness developed into severe leukemia, which ultimately took his life,” the family added.
Earlier, Instituto Terra, which was founded by Salgado and his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado, and the French Academy of Fine Arts, of which he was a member, announced his death, but did not provide details on the circumstances or where he died, AP reported.
“Sebastião was more than one of the best photographers of our time,” Instituto Terra said in a statement, according to AP. “His lens revealed the world and its contradictions; his life, (brought) the power of transformative action.”
Salgado’s main works include the recent “Amazonia” series, “Workers,” which shows manual labor around the world, and “Exodus” (also known as “Migrations” or “Sahel”), which documents people in transit, including refugees and slum residents.
Salgado had his life and work portrayed in the documentary “The Salt of the Earth” (2014), co-directed by Wim Wenders and his son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado. The film was was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2015.
