Santa Rita's wharf, Recife, PE. Brazil

We know little of the life of Francisco Du Bocage, supposedly a French citizen who migrated to Brazil and settled there in the early 1890s as a professional photographer in Recife, across from the Centro Photographico de Pernambuco, which he himself founded. A portraitist and above all a landscape photographer who also produced panoramic photographs, Du Bocage has left us an oeuvre significant enough to crown him the most important photographer to work in Pernambuco between the late 19th century and the early 20th century.
These were times of profound transformations in the urban scenery of the capital, and Du Bocage documented the extensive modernization projects around Recife’s port, carried out by the Societé de Construction du Port de Pernambuco, with technical skill and keen artistic sensibility.
Apart from the collection housed at the IMS, the highlights of which being images of the modernization of the port, works of Du Bocage’s are held at the Biblioteca Nacional, the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, and the Fundação Joaquim Nabuco in Recife.