Jorge Guerra

Jorge Guerra (1939) became known for his photography of the city of Lisbon during the 60s. He studied philosophy and history at university in Lisbon and between 1961 and 1963 he did military service in Angola, where he took photographs. He settled in London in 1964 (until 1970) where he attended the London Film School. He worked for a film and advertising company and was director of photography on various films, documentaries and commercials. He began to dedicate himself to photography even before finishing his film studies, travelling and photographing in Germany, France, Mexico (1966) and Italy (1967). He photographed in Lisbon and conceived his first editorial project in the field of photography, Lisboa, Cidade de Sal e de Pedra, 1967 (in homage to the work Lisboa, cidade triste e alegre, by Victor Palla and Costa Martins). However, this work was put on hold and the images were only published in 1984 in a different project, Os Poucos Poderes (photographs by Jorge Guerra, poems by Ruy Belo and João Miguel Fernandes Jorge, coordinated by José Sasportes). In 1994 he tried to resume the original project with the publication (and exhibition) Mandados Oblíquos, in which the Lisbon images were accompanied by excerpts from Álvaro de Campos’ Ode Marítima. He then moved to Montreal, Canada, where he founded and co-edited (with Denyse Gérin-Lajoie) the magazine OVO (1974-1988), becoming a key figure in the international dissemination of Canadian photography in those decades.