Bisilliat, Maureen

She studied painting in Paris and New York before permanently moving to Brazil in 1957 to the city of São Paulo. She switched from painting to photography in the early 1960s, working as an editor between 1964 and 1972 at the magazine Realidad. She is the author of photography books inspired by works of great Brazilian writers: A João Guimarães Rosa, 1966; The Visit, 1977, based on the eponymous poem by Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902 - 1987); Sertão, Light and Darkness, 1983, inspired by the classic by Euclides da Cunha (1866 - 1909); The Dog without Feathers, 1984, based on the poem of the same title by João Cabral de Melo Neto (1920 - 1999); Chorinho Doce, 1995, featuring poems by Adélia Prado (1935); and Beloved Bahia, Amado, 1996, with a selection of texts by Jorge Amado (1912 - 2001). In 1985, she exhibited in a special room at the 18th São Paulo International Biennial with a photographic essay inspired by the book The Apprentice Tourist, by Mário de Andrade (1893 - 1945). In the 1980s, she dedicated herself to video work, where Xingu / Terra stands out, a documentary featuring the filming by Lúcio Kodato in the Mehinaku village, Alto Xingu. In 1988, she was invited by the anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro (1922 - 1997), along with Jacques Bisilliat (her second husband) and Antônio Marcos Silva (her partner), to collect a collection of Latin American folk art for the Memorial Foundation of Latin America. She traveled with Jacques to Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, and Paraguay to gather pieces for the permanent collection of the Pavilion of Creativity, of which she is the curator.