Paolo Roversi: Studio

Studio assesses nearly two decades of Paolo Roversi's hugely influential studio portraiture. Within the confines of his Paris studio, Roversi photographs using an 8 x 10 Polaroid format, often allowing the images to fade before affixing them to their substrate. His long exposures at close range harness an aesthetic that dates back to the earliest days of studio photography, but with a renewed urgency that wavers somewhere between history and apparition. Stripped of the usual accoutrements of studio portraiture, Roversi's subjects push back with a vulnerable intensity that reveals as much of the photographer as of the model. The images collected here function not only as a series of individual portraits but also as a collective self-portrait of the artist and the place that stands at the center of his work. First published in 2005 in a limited edition, this new edition of Paolo Roversi's sumptuous and critically acclaimed book presents a distinctive body of work in an accessible trade edition.
Paolo Roversi was born in 1947 in Italy. In 1970 he began collaborating with the Associated Press. His first assignment was to cover Ezra Pound's funeral in Venice. During the same year, Roversi opened his first portrait studio in Ravenna, photographing local celebrities and their families. In 1971, he met Peter Knapp, the legendary Art Director at Elle magazine, and at Knapp's invitation, he visited Paris in November of 1973, where he has remained since. His photographs have appeared in numerous publications, including French and Italian Vogue. He lives and works in Paris.