Verger, Pierre 1902-1996, biography English  

Biography
Publications  

Born in 1902, Pierre Verger was a French photographer who spent much of his professional life taking pictures in Africa and in Brazil.  

The Go-Between/Le Messager: Photographs, 1932-1962 is a collection of his photographs taken in Nigeria, French West Africa, Brazil, Martinique, the U.S., and several other countries over a 30-year span. Verger's images include African men in traditional costume dancing in celebration, Brazilian workmen off-loading a boat by hand, dancers at Carnival, boys on a Harlem street. Verger saw himself as a kind of liaison between traditional African cultures and their offshoots in the New World; at their best, these vibrant photographs give one the sense of how much Africa has survived, and flourished, in the Americas.  


Retraces the adventurous life of photographer Pierre Verger (1902-1996), a French ethnographer who devoted his life to the study of the reciprocal cultural influences between Bahia, Brazil and the Benin and Nigeria regions in Africa. The originality of his work lies in his demonstration that not only were cultural traditions brought from Africa to Brazil by slaves, but former slaves who returned to their native continent brought back Brazilian influences as well. Narrated and presented by Gilberto Gil.

Info      Verger, Pierre *1902     Start