Photoclubism presents the innovative creative achievements of Foto-Cine Clube Bandeirante, an amateur photography club founded in São Paulo in 1939. The vast majority of FCCB members practiced photography as a hobby: they spent their days as businessmen, accountants, journalists, or engineers, yet their artistic ambitions were considerable, and their work stands out alongside the best-known contemporary experiments. The Bandeirantes played a prominent role in the international circuit of photography clubs in the subsequent decades.

Curator Sarah Hermanson Meister challenges us to confront our aesthetic prejudices and reconsider our attitudes towards amateurs. This lavishly illustrated volume is the first publication outside Brazil to celebrate the extraordinary photography that emerged in São Paulo during a uniquely vibrant era.