Search the IMS collection
Advanced search
![Nome do autor, título da obra, XXXX. [Localização da obra] / Licenciamento da obra, São Paulo, BR.](/themes/acervo/assets/pawtucket/graphics/slider-02.png)
![Nome do autor, título da obra, XXXX. [Localização da obra] / Licenciamento da obra, São Paulo, BR.](/themes/acervo/assets/pawtucket/graphics/slider-03.png)
IMS collection areas
What to find in the IMS Collection
Madalena Schwartz
Madalena Schwartz (1921–1993) was a Hungarian-Brazilian photographer whose work centered on portraiture. A member of the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante, she dedicated herself to photographing Brazilian artists, particularly transvestites and drag queens from 1970s São Paulo. Her collection, acquired by the IMS in 1998, consists of 16,000 black-and-white negatives, 450 chrome plates, and period enlargements.
José Medeiros
José Medeiros (1921–1990) was a photographer and filmmaker from Piauí who became known for his photojournalism. He worked for magazines such as O Cruzeiro, documenting Brazil's cultural, political, and religious life. He had a brief participation in the Teatro Experimental do Negro, where he performed in the plays The Emperor Jones (1945) and All God's Children Have Wings (1946). His archive, with approximately 20,000 negatives, was acquired by the IMS in 2005.
Maureen Bisilliat
Maureen Bisilliat (England, 1931) is a photographer, writer, and documentary filmmaker based in Brazil since the 1950s. Her work is renowned for photographic essays inspired by Brazilian literature and her documentation of Indigenous communities, particularly in the Xingu Indigenous Park. In 2003, the Instituto Moreira Salles acquired her archive, which includes over 16,000 images, including negatives, prints, and slides.
Millôr Fernandes
Millôr Fernandes (1923–2012), brazilian journalist, cartoonist, translator, and playwright. He began his career at Diários Associados in 1938, where he made his mark with the humorous section “O Pif-Paf,” published in O Cruzeiro magazine between 1945 and 1963. Over 70 years of professional work, Millôr Fernandes contributed to major Brazilian media outlets, maintaining daily or weekly columns that combined cartoons and sharp commentaries on politics and daily life—a trademark of his style.
Hilde Weber
Hilde Weber (1913–1994), German-born Brazilian illustrator, engraver, and cartoonist. She arrived in Brazil in 1933, where she built her career in visual arts. She worked extensively in press illustration, collaborated with the Osirarte studio, and joined the set design team of the Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia. Political and satirical cartoons became one of her most recognized contributions. She became a cartoonist for O Estado de S. Paulo in the 1950s, where she remained until the early 1990s, retiring after 40 uninterrupted years of work.
Cyrillo Hercules Florence
Hercule Florence (1804–1879), Franco-Monegasque visual artist and inventor. He was a member of the Langsdorff Expedition, a scientific mission that traveled through the provinces of São Paulo, Mato Grosso, and Grão-Pará between 1825 and 1829, documenting the fauna, flora, landscapes, and Indigenous communities encountered during the journey in drawings and watercolors. After the expedition, he settled in Campinas (São Paulo), where he pursued artistic, commercial, and educational projects, such as the Atlas Pitoresco-Celeste and photochemical experiments considered precursors to photography in Brazil and worldwide.
Ana Cristina Cesar (ACC)
A poet with a keen critical awareness, Ana Cristina Cesar emerged in the 1970s for her intimate poetry marked by colloquial language. Born in Rio de Janeiro on June 2, 1952, she studied Literature at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). Included in the anthology 26 Poetas Hoje (1975), edited by Heloisa Buarque de Hollanda, she was part of a generation that embraced an uncommon aesthetic freedom, bridging the gap between reader and poetry through informality and an air of spontaneity. Ana Cristina Cesar died in Rio de Janeiro on October 29, 1983.
Clarice Lispector (CL)
An internationally renowned writer, Clarice Lispector began her career in journalism as a reporter for the Rio-based newspaper A Noite. She was born in the village of Chechelnyk, Ukraine, on December 10, 1920, but moved to Brazil with her family at the age of five, fleeing the communist takeover during the civil war (1918-1921) that followed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Hailed as one of Brazil's greatest fiction writers, she also authored short stories and newspaper columns. After achieving fame as a novelist, she returned to journalism under the pseudonym Helen Palmer, blending literature and journalism until the end of her life. Clarice Lispector died in Rio de Janeiro on December 9, 1977, one day before her 57th birthday.
Carlos Drummond de Andrade (CDA)
Hailed as \"Brazil's great universal poet,\" Carlos Drummond de Andrade was also one of the country's finest chroniclers. Born in Itabira do Mato Dentro (Minas Gerais), he began contributing to Belo Horizonte's Diário de Minas newspaper at eighteen while simultaneously joining the Modernist movement. He moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1934, where he produced his poetic works and approximately six thousand chronicles. Drummond died in Rio de Janeiro on August 17, 1987.
Chiquinha Gonzaga
Composer, pianist, and conductor Chiquinha Gonzaga (Francisca Edwiges Neves Gonzaga, 1847-1935) stands as not only one of the great names of 19th and 20th century Brazilian music but also as a groundbreaking figure who, emerging from a patriarchal society, forged new paths and broke barriers across multiple fields. She became a pioneer even in advocating for the copyright protection of composers and playwrights.
Pixinguinha
Composer, instrumentalist, conductor, and arranger Pixinguinha (Alfredo da Rocha Vianna Filho, 1897-1973) was best defined by music critic and historian Ary Vasconcelos: \"If you have fifteen volumes to write about all of Brazilian popular music, rest assured it won't be enough. But if you only have space for a single word, all is not lost—quickly write: Pixinguinha.\"
José Ramos Tinhorão
Journalist, music critic, writer, researcher, and collector—to all these roles, José Ramos Tinhorão (José Ramos, 1928–2021) had countless adjectives attached: controversial, biting, prolific, tireless, obsessive. The truth is, his writings and books brought Brazilian music into the spotlight, and his collection remains an indispensable and endless resource for scholars and researchers.
Claudia Andujar, no lugar do outro
Claudia Andujar (1931, Switzerland) settled in Brazil in 1955. Over the following decades, she made photography her means of engaging with the country. In the 1960s, she contributed to various publications, particularly the magazine Realidade. From the 1970s onward, much of her work focused on the Yanomami people. The photographer's archive was acquired by IMS (Instituto Moreira Salles) in 2023 and is currently being processed.
Glicéria Tupinambá
Glicéria Tupinambá (1982, Tupinambá de Olivença Indigenous Land, Bahia) is an artist, educator, and activist. In her installation Nós somos pássaros que andam —a project awarded the 2022 ZUM/IMS Grant—she recounts her mission to materially and culturally reclaim the tradition of the sacred mantles taken by various European museums.
Igi Ayedun
Igi Ayedun (1990, São Paulo, Brazil) is an artist, director, and founder of the gallery and residency program HOA. In Eclosão de um sonho, uma fantasia —awarded the 2022 ZUM Grant—Ayedun employed an artificial intelligence program's database as a compositional tool while also looking toward the future through an interrogation of image histories.
Olavo Redig de Campos
Brazilian architect trained in Rome, whose work combines modernism and Brazilian architectural tradition. He worked for three decades at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, designing embassies abroad, and created landmarks of modern architecture in Brazil, such as the Walther Moreira Salles Residence and the Curitiba Civic Center. His architecture combines geometric forms, diverse materials, and a dialogue with the Brazilian landscape and culture, becoming a reference in the so-called \"Carioca school\" of modernism.
Institucional IMS
The Institutional Archive documents the trajectory of the IMS since 1987, when the Instituto de Artes Moreira Salles was created, which in 1991 merged with the Casa de Cultura de Poços de Caldas, forming the Instituto Moreira Salles. Its locations open to the public were: Poços de Caldas (1992), São Paulo (1996, new location in 2017), Belo Horizonte (1997–2009) and Rio de Janeiro (1999, activities temporarily suspended in 2023).
Featured decades
decade of 1880
decade of 1910
decade of 1960
decade of 1980
decade of 1880
decade of 1910
decade of 1960
