This is the first overview of the oeuvre of Mario Cravo Neto (1947-2009), taking in his New York photographs of the late 1960s, his pictures of his beloved Salvador and north-eastern Brazil, and his studio work. Even though Mario Cravo Neto (Brazil, 1947-2009) earned fame as a fine artist, photography had been part of his creative process from the start. His work appropriates a variety of elements to construct an artistic vernacular that combines religion and eroticism, violence and drama, nature and culture. He stages rituals and mythologies that synthesize the confluence of culture, ethnicity and race in northeast Brazil, where the blend of the traditions of the indigenous peoples merges with the Portuguese and African cultural legacy.