Roversi

Paolo (1947). Italian photographer. After an initial period of interest in news photography, he opened a studio in his hometown of Ravenna, where he dedicated himself to still-life and portrait photography. He moved to Paris in 1973 and it was there, through Guy Bourdin, that he first encountered the world of fashion. A refined artist, he was capable of bringing out in the style of his images both explicit references to the culture of the beat generation and dreamy atmospheres of mystery and childhood memories. In order to achieve this, he made use of very special lights that were well suited to the substantial quality of large-format 20×25 cm. Polaroid film, and he was the first to use this film in the field of fashion. He worked for Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Uomo Vogue, Arena, i-D, Interview, Marie Claire, W, Elle and did campaigns for Christian Dior, Cerruti, Valentino, Yves Saint-Laurent, Alberta Ferretti, Givenchy, and Kenzo. Among his book, which were companion pieces to his infrequent but magnificent exhibitions, Nudi (1999) assembled a series of female bodies endowed with a mysterious eroticism that appears as well in the book published the following year by Carla Sozzani. The introduction to Libretto (Editions Stromboli, 2000), a small book that contained color pictures with a mysterious allure, properly renders the spirit that animated Roversi: “This little book came into existence by chance, without any particular reason. You should take it as is, as you pick up a rock, the way you listen to a song or a bird whistling at the far end of the garden.”