Author Description

André-Charles Armeilla (b. France - d. Rio de Janeiro, 1913) remained a complete mystery for many years. Who would be the photographer behind wonderful images of Rio de Janeiro at the beginning of the 20th century. There were no clues and only a few photographs signed by him were known, long admired by experts. This book unravels the Armeilla puzzle, suggests its great participation in the illustrated press of the time and shows for the first time its 180 original print runs, many of which are published for the first time. Disclosed in this book his work of exceptional quality, Armeilla is now inscribed among the great masters of the Rio de Janeiro landscape from the period 1890-1910 alongside Marc Ferrez, Juan Gutierrez and Augusto Malta. There was a time when collector Pedro Corrêa do Lago participated in an average of 100 auctions a year - most of them outside Brazil. Seven or eight years ago, he found in an auction, for a value he no longer remembers, a batch of 40 photos of Rio de Janeiro from the early 20th century. By searching for the album at the auctioneer, he came to the conclusion that, personally, the photographs were even more beautiful than those shown on the internet. Not all, however, were signed. The ones that were, bore the signature of "C. Armeilla". Photographer André-Charles Armeilla, born in France and, before arriving in Rio around 1903, worked for about ten years in Montevideo, in Uruguay, where the photographer signed his negatives as "A. Armeilla". This book is dedicated to one of the greatest photographers of Rio of the early 20th century "who died homeless" and presents a selection of the work of the French photographer who lived in Rio between 1903 and 1913.