Faces and Places in Brazil: Photographs by Genevieve Naylor, November 9-30, 1943

Genevieve Naylor was an American photographer and photojournalist, best known for her photographs of Brazil and as Eleanor Roosevelt's personal photographer. She was born on February 12, 1915 in Springfield, Massachusetts. She attended Miss Hall's School and later, at age 16, the Music Box where she studied painting. It was at the Music Box that Genevieve met her future husband Misha Reznikoff. Together they had two children. Two years later, in 1933, they were in love, and when Misha moved to New York, Genevieve soon followed, and they settled into the Bohemian lifestyle of Greenwich Village. In 1934, Naylor attended an exhibit by photographer Berenice Abbott and so admired Abbott's work that she switched from painting to photography. Naylor became Abbott's apprentice in 1935, and they maintained a lifelong professional relationship.

In 1937, at the age of 22 she Naylor was chosen by Holger Cahill of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as a photographer for the Harlem Arts Center. She also worked for the WPA in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and New York. She then worked for the Associated press and was one of the first women photojournalists to be hired by any American news wire services. In 1940, Genevieve Naylor was assigned by the U.S. State department as part of a team to travel to Brazil. In an effort to further and strengthen the anti-Nazi relationship between the United States and Brazil and to promote mutual cultural awareness, the U.S. Office of Inter-American Affairs, under the leadership of Nelson Rockefeller, created a team of notable Americans that included Orson Welles, Errol Flynn, and Walt Disney. Genevieve Naylor and her partner Misha Reznikoff arrived in Brazil in October, 1940, where he showed his paintings while Miss Naylor took photographs. Naylor's assignment was to document Brazil's progress toward becoming a modern nation, capture images that would boost war-time morale, foster cultural interchange, and promote the Allied cause. But Naylor, with her energetic and outgoing personality, soon ventured into other milieus, taking photographs of Brazilian workers jammed into trams, school children, religious and street festivals, and various aspects of everyday lives. Because it was war time, film was rationed, and Naylor's equipment was modest. She had neither flash nor studio lights and had to carefully choose her shots, balancing spontaneity with careful composition. Of her work, nearly 1,350 photos survived and were preserved. After her return to the states in 1943, Naylor became only the second woman photographer to be given a solo exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art. The subsequent tour of the show came to the Legion of Honor in November 1943.

Naylor later spent 15 years as a photographer with Harper's Bazaar and from 1944 to 1980 was a freelance photographer for Vogue, McCall's, Town and Country, Life, Look, Saturday Evening Post, Women's Home Companion, Cosmopolitan, Fortune, Collier's, Glamour, Good Housekeeping, Vanity Fair, Elle, Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, House Beautiful, Holiday, Mademoiselle, American Home, Seventeen, Better Homes and Gardens, Charm, Bride's, amongst others. She was a war time photographer, covering parts of the Korean War for Look magazine.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genevieve_Naylor