The Professor’s Journeys

Six expeditions through Brazil in the 1930s and 1940s

Dr. Georg Nickel

The exhibition shows how Georg Nickel, DChE, the son of a farming family, discovered the world in the 1930s and 1940s, initially with his bicycle in his immediate surroundings, and later with a folding boat paddling along the Rhine and Weser Rivers. And how he escaped unemployment in Germany by taking a position as teacher at the German Olinda School in Brazil, where he used his Leica II to photograph school life and his surroundings, particularly those of the German settlers.
Together with his colleagues he embarked on expeditions of discovery during the longer holidays: to the Carajás Indians living on their native lands, to historical sites that testify to the tremendous wealth of the gold rush era, to the magnificent natural displays and the vast expanses of a land still in part untouched. Nickel recorded everyday life in the process, which reflected the multifarious cultural, political and economic events of the era. It’s a journey through time and through a fascinating country, seen through the eyes of a man with many different interests.