
1961
David Vestal studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before turning to photography in the late 1940s. He honed his craft under Sid Grossman at New York’s Photo League, a cooperative dedicated to documentary photography and social activism, but preferred depicting single moments to producing social interest photo essays. In this image, made on a trip to Brazil in 1960–61 (for a book that was never published), Vestal captured the joyous, blurred motion of students in a school of capoeira, a Brazilian martial art that combines dance and music. Hugh Edwards acquired 15 of Vestal’s photographs in 1965.