PACE/MACGILL

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. After a nine-month period assisting British photographer Lawrence Sackmann, whom he credits as an influential teacher, Roversi started shooting independently with small commissions for ELLE and Depeche Mode, gaining wider recognition with a Dior beauty campaign in 1980, and ultimately forging his reputation as one of the industry's leading photographers by the mid-1980s.

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.