Oswaldo Goeldi was a Brazilian artist and renowned engraver. He was the son of Swiss naturalist Émil Goeldi.
Goeldi was born in Rio de Janeiro, but lived in Belém, in the state Pará, until he was 6 years old. His father was based there as director of the Museu de História Natural e Etnografia do Pará. In 1910 his family returned to Switzerland and he started his studies in Bern, and later in Zurich. After serving for a brief period in the army during the First World War, Goeldi moved to Geneva, where he was accepted at the École des Arts et Métiers. Frustrated with the academic environment, he abandoned the school after his father’s death in 1917 and began studying with artists Serge Pahnke and Henri van Muyden, and later with Hermann Kümmerly, with whom he learned lithography.
In 1919 Goeldi returned to Rio de Janeiro and began a career of engraver and illustrator for popular magazines. He became attached to a group of vanguardist artists and intellectuals, such as Beatrix Reynal, Aníbal Machado, Otto Maria Carpeaux, Manuel Bandeira, Álvaro Moreyra, Ronald de Carvalho, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti and Rachel de Queiroz.