PAOLO ROVERSI

 

Paolo Roversi (b. 1947, Ravenna, Italy) has lived and worked in Paris for over 45 years. His passion for photography emerged on a 1964 family holiday in Spain, prompting his construction of a basement darkroom upon his return home. Roversi's professional career began in 1970 with photojournalism assignments for the Associated Press. 

 

Following an invitation to Paris from ELLE Magazine’s legendary art director Peter Knapp in 1973, however, his focus soon shifted to fashion. He gained wide recognition with a Dior beauty campaign in 1980, and ultimately forged his reputation as one of the world’s leading fashion photographers. 

 

Roversi’s artistry lives in composition and geometry. He possesses an abstract approach to reality. Since the early 80s, his photographs have met the demands of a constant formal rigor which lends them a timeless character, in contradiction to the tastes and customs of fashion. His familiarity with the history of art, and with Italian painting in particular, allows him to make photographs in the manner of a painter. He often works in series on a single theme or model, as if he sought to capture every last one of its formal possibilities.

 

Roversi's pictures have been the subject of numerous monographs, including Nudi (1999); Libretto (2000); Studio (2006); Studio (2009); Secrets (2013); Dior Images (2018); Storie (2018); and Natalia (2018). He has led advertising campaigns for Cerruti, Comme des Garçons, Christian Dior, Yves Saint-Laurent, and Valentino, among others, and his work has been published in an international array of print media such as Arena, Harper's Bazaar, I-D, Interview, Marie Claire, The New York Times Magazine, Italian and British Vogue, L'Uomo Vogue, and W.