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Valdir Cruz is a Brazilian photographer. Born in Guarapuava, in the Southern State of Paraná, Brazil, Cruz has lived in the United States for more than twenty-five years. He currently divides his time between his studios in New York City and São Paulo. Much of his work in photography has focused on the people, architecture and landscape of Brazil. In 1996 Cruz was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Faces of the Rainforest, a project documenting the life of indigenous people in the Brazilian Rainforest. The Guggenheim Foundation further supported this project with a publication subvention award in 2000.
Cruz became interested in photography in the late 1970s through George Stone’s work for National Geographic and began to study photography at the Germain School. He then received technical and aesthetic training from George Tice at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan. Cruz developed a solid basis for the comprehension of the entire photographic process, allowing him to approximate the creative methods and visual expression of Edward Steichen, Horst P. Horst, Mapplethorpe, and others. He collaborated with Tice in the authorized production of two important Edward Steichen portfolios, Juxtapositions and Blue Skies after which time he devoted his energies exclusive to his own work.
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