Selaron Stairs in Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro – Downtown

There is no way to talk about the staircase without mentioning the artist responsible for it and who lends his surname to the work: Jorge Selarón. 

Selarón was born in Chile, in 1947, in the small town of Limache, and died in Rio de Janeiro, on January 10th, 2013. A self-taught painter and ceramist, the Chilean realized in Santa Teresa his greatest and best-known work, known today as “Escadaria do Selarón”, listed by the city hall of this city in 2005 and located at Rua Manoel Carneiro. 

The “Escadaria do Selarón“, a place formerly known as Escadaria do Convento de Santa Teresa, has 215 steps and 125 meters in length and connects Rua Joaquim Silva, in the Lapa neighborhood, with Ladeira de Santa Teresa, in the Santa Teresa neighborhood in the city of Rio. 

The “Escadaria do Selarón” is considered the largest sculpture in the world made by a single artist since Jorge Selarón has always worked alone, relying only on the money he made from the sale of his paintings (all representing the theme of the pregnant black woman, an emotional motif of his own life, as he states) and with eventual donations from residents. The work does not stop, the tiles are placed, new tiles arrive, others are removed from there, they change places. 

Nowadays it is a very popular place for locals and tourists to take pictures as the colors are simply amazing, don’t miss it on your next visit to the Wonderful city!