Instituto Moreira Salles

The Instituto Moreira Salles (IMS) is a Brazilian nonprofit cultural organization headquartered across three cities, Poços de Caldas, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro. Founded in 1992 by diplomat and banker Walter Moreira Salles, it is managed by the Moreira Salles family and is exclusively dedicated to the promotion, collection development, and implementation of cultural programs in photography, literature, iconography, visual arts, music, and cinema. The institute has become one of Brazil's most significant private cultural institutions, distinguished by its direct intervention in projects it conceives and executes rather than traditional patronage, and by its commitment to medium- and long-term programs over ephemeral events.

Walter Moreira Salles established the institute in 1992, choosing Poços de Caldas in Minas Gerais for its first cultural center as a tribute to the region where his family had settled in 1918. The institute expanded to São Paulo in 1996, initially occupying a mansion in the Higienópolis neighborhood. In 1999, it opened its Rio de Janeiro center in the Gávea neighborhood, housed in the former Moreira Salles family residence where Walter had lived from the late 1940s. A major expansion came with the inauguration of a new São Paulo headquarters on September 20, 2017, at Paulista Avenue, 2424, following six years of construction at an approximate cost of R$150 million. Since 2019, the institute has contributed part of its collection in the public domain to Wikimedia Commons.

The institute's collections span photography, literature, iconography, visual arts, music, and cinema, with particular prominence in photography. The photographic collection began in 1995 with acquisitions of 19th-century images and has grown to approximately 2 million images. A defining feature of the institute's approach is its focus on forming collections and preserving rare sets that address Brazil's memory, history, communications, and visual arts. The institute makes part of its collections available for public consultation on its website and at its cultural centers. It also maintains online radio channels and publishes exhibition catalogs, books on literature, photography, and music, and two periodicals: Zum, a semiannual publication on contemporary photography from Brazil and around the world, and Serrote, a quarterly magazine focused on essays and ideas. The new Paulista Avenue location houses a library dedicated entirely to photography with capacity for up to 30,000 items.

The photographic collection includes work by Augusto Malta, Alberto Henschel, Albert Frisch, Alécio de Andrade, Alice Brill, Augusto Stahl, Carlos Moskovics, Chico Albuquerque, Claude Lévi-Strauss, David Drew Zingg, Domingos de Miranda Ribeiro, Dulce Soares, Francisco du Bocage, Georg Leuzinger, Guilherme Gaensly, Guilherme Santos, Hans Gunter Flieg, Haruo Ohara, Henri Ballot, Hércules Florence, Hildegard Rosenthal, Horacio Coppola, José Medeiros, Juca Martins, Lily Sverner, Luciano Carneiro, Madalena Schwartz, Marc Ferrez, Marcel Gautherot, Martín Chambi, Maureen Bisilliat, Militão Augusto de Azevedo, Otto Stupakoff, Peter Scheier, Revert Henrique Klumb, Rossini Perez, Stefania Bril, Thomaz Farkas, and Vincenzo Pastore. The institute obtained the collection of anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss from the 1930s. In 2016, IMS acquired the photographic archive of the Diários Associados group, one of Brazil's largest media conglomerates under Assis Chateaubriand, including collections from newspapers O Jornal (founded 1919), Diário da Noite (1929), and Jornal do Commercio (founded 1827, incorporated 1957, ceased publication April 2016). The São Paulo building hosts ECHO by Richard Serra, installed in January 2019, the only sculpture by the artist in South America.

The Rio de Janeiro center occupies a house built in 1951 with architectural design by Olavo Redig de Campos and landscaping by Burle Marx, a landmark of 1950s Brazilian modernist architecture. The São Paulo headquarters, designed by architectural firm Andrade Morettin, spans nine floors and 6,000 square meters, containing three exhibition halls, a 150-seat cinetheater, a study space, three classrooms for lectures and courses, a café, and a restaurant led by Rodrigo Oliveira.

The Instituto Moreira Salles operates three cultural centers in Brazil: in Poços de Caldas (Minas Gerais), in Rio de Janeiro's Gávea neighborhood, and in São Paulo on Paulista Avenue, 2424. The Rio de Janeiro center, inaugurated in October 1999, hosts exhibitions, films, and concerts. The São Paulo building was inaugurated on September 20, 2017. The institute is a nonprofit organization managed by the Moreira Salles family, with additional information available at http://ims.com.br/.