566566
GAENSLY, WILHELM
the Rio Vermelho district before it became part of the
urban landscape. His photographs are valuable histori-
cal documents of the city’s development between 1865
and the 1890s. The National Library of Brazil in Rio
de Janeiro houses 64 photographs by Gaensly in the
D. Thereza Cristina Maria Collection. Most are views
of Salvador. In 1895, Gustavo Koenig Wald published
photos by Gaensly in São Paulo 1895. Between 1900
and 1910, Gaensly’s studio produced several series of
postcards on the city of São Paulo, as well as the Port of
Santos and coffee plantations. During his years in that
coffee-growing region of Brazil, he had photographed
numerous plantations in rural São Paulo, including
Araraquara, Ribeirão Preto, and Campinas, for the
Department of Agriculture. According to art historian
Vânia Carneiro de Carvalho, “In his portrayals of planta-
tions, Guilherme Gaensly seeks to make the geometrical
lines of the countryside coincide with the dividing lines
of photographic planes. Movement is replaced with a
rigorously analytical treatment of the image in which
nature is framed in an orderly universe and rationalized
production.... [We] see in photography the intention of
monumentalizing its motif, whether through extreme
close-ups or the immoderate addition of formal value to
the motif, as well as the attempt to show it as an integral
part of its surroundings.” Researcher and photographer
Pedro Vasquez observes that Gaensly’s work for the
São Paulo Tramway Light and Power Company “gave
him an opportunity to develop his tremendous talent for
landscape photography, which is wonderfully expressed
in his ample documentation of the city of São Paulo’s
modernization process.” Like Marc Ferrez, Benjamin
Mulock, and Auguste Stahl, Gaensly’s railway photog-
raphy transcended his commissions in documenting
the natural surroundings and even human aspects of
the works he portrayed, which accounts for his pho-tographs’ lasting appeal. His talents were recognized
abroad during his lifetime. He won a silver medal at the
1889 Exposition Universelle de Paris, where photogra-
phy was featured prominently in the Brazilian pavilion
(Lindemann also won awards that year for his views of
Salvador and Recife). Gaensly received another silver
medal at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri,
where Brazil’s pavilion was a remarkable building with
an octagonal dome designed by St. Louis architect
Charles H. Deitering. Gaensly worked until about 1915
and died in São Paulo in 1928, after a long and success-
ful career. Since 1975 his works have been shown in
New York, Zurich, Berlin, Madrid, Rotterdam, Paris,
and major Brazilian cities, including São Paulo, Rio de
Janeiro, Campinas, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia. In ad-
dition to the National Library collection, they can also
be found at the Moreira Salles Institute, the Joaquim
Nabuco Foundation and the Patrimônio Histórico da
Energia de São Paulo (São Paulo Historic Heritage of
Power) Foundation in Brazil.
Sabrina GledhillBiography
Wilhelm (Guilherme) Gaensly was born in Wellhausen,
Thurgau Canton, Switzerland, in 1843, to Jacob Hein-
rich Gaensly and Anna Barbara Kym Gaensly. His father
became a fabric merchant and cotton exporter in Salva-
dor, Bahia, and the family—including the fi ve-year-old
Wilhelm and brothers Ferdinand and Frederick—joined
him there in 1848. Gaensly’s sisters Julia and Alaine and
at least two other siblings, Albert and Alwina, were born
in Salvador. His former assistant Rudolf (Rodolpho)
Lindemann became his business partner in 1882 and
his brother-in-law in 1888, when he married Alaine
Gaensly. Guilherme Gaensly wed Ida Elisabeth ItschnerGaensly, Wilhelm (Guilherme).
Ladeira de S. Francisco de Paula,
Agua de Meninos, Egreja de S. S.
Trindade, Ancoradouro. Acervo da
Fundação Biblioteca Nacional, Brasil.