Paolo Roversi (Born 1947)

Paolo Roversi is an Italian-born fashion photographer who lives and works in Paris. Born in Ravenna, Paolo Roversi’s interest in photography was kindled as a teenager during a family vacation in Spain in 1964.

Back home, he set up a darkroom in a convenient cellar with another keen amateur, the local postman Battista Minguzzi, and began developing and printing his own black & white work. The encounter with a local professional photographer Nevio Natali was very important: in Nevio’s studio, Roversi spent many hours realising an important apprenticeship as well as a strong durable friendship.

In 1970, he started collaborating with the Associated Press: on his first assignment, AP sent Roversi to cover Ezra Pound’s funeral in Venice. During the same year, Roversi opened, with his friend Giancarlo Gramantieri his first portrait studio, located in Ravenna, via Cavour, 58, photographing local celebrities and their families.

In 1971, he met by chance in Ravenna, Peter Knapp, the legendary Art Director of Elle magazine. At Knapp’s invitation, Roversi visited Paris in November 1973 and has never left.

In Paris, Roversi started working as a reporter for the Huppert Agency but little by little, through his friends, he began to approach fashion photography. The photographers who really interested him then were reporters. At that moment he didn’t know much about fashion or fashion photography. Only later, he discovered the work of Avedon, Penn, Newton, Bourdin, and many others.