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Victor Palla was born in Lisbon, where he began his architecture studies in Lisbon before he moved to Oporto, where he graduated as an architect. Back in Lisbon, he took part in most of the General Art Exhibitions between 1947 and 1955, showing drawings, paintings, decorative art work, sculpture and photography. With a significant body of work both as an architect and a photographer, Victor Palla was also a painter, ceramic artist, graphic designer, publisher, translator, gallery owner, a man of ideas and a promoter of many events. The project and book "Lisboa Cidade Triste e Alegre" (Lisbon: A Sad and Joyful City), that he exhibited and published together with Costa Martins in 1957-1959, was a complete innovation in the world of Portuguese photography. Rediscovered and redistributed in 1982 by António Sena and the Ether association-gallery in Lisbon, the book has gained an international reputation – mainly through "The Photobook”, the history of the photographic book published by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger in 2004. Apart from the countless group exhibitions in which he participated, he had solo exhibitions at the National Society of Fine Arts (SNBA) Modern Art Gallery (1977), Diagonal (1983) and Diário de Notícias Gallery (1984). In the 1950s, Victor Palla became one of the main architects responsible for the modernization of Portuguese architecture. Victor Palla would also soon become well-known in other areas like graphic design and publishing, with works that would help create a modern visual taste. The Modern Art Center of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation held a Victor Palla photographic retrospective in 1992. In 1999 Victor Palla was awarded the National Photography Prize by the Centro Português de Fotografia.   

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