Brazilian, 1895 - 1967

Yalenti belonged to a low-middle-class urban family that settled in São Paulo during the first decade of the last century. He never left Brazil and barely traveled beyond the borders of the state of São Paulo, but his photographs visited many places, traveling to halls and exhibitions around the world.

Here selected are images briefly introducing to the vast work of this long-time photographer, belonging to the moment of the creation of a series of formal photographs, combining patterns of nature with geometric patterns, and seeking a non-conventional point of view. Looking upward, diagonalizing the horizon line, creating the illusion of volume through the insinuating play of light and shadow, proposing new perspectives.

In 2018, Utópica acquired the collection of some 400 photographs that Yalenti left after his death, which until then were kept by the photographer's family. The first book on the work of José Yalenti has been published by Utópica and Editora Madalena in 2019, with research by Rubens Fernandes Junior."