The influence and legacy of an early career as a fashion and portrait photographer is striking in the work of Priscilla Rattazzi. As the consummate master of restraint, she conjures an innately and effortlessly elegant aesthetic of beauty; whether she’s portraying the rarefied, aspirational worlds of the Great and the Good, or her beloved, sentinel lime trees etched against a snowy landscape in the place that was once called home. Rattazzi’s talent is to imbue her portraits with a singular stillness that anchors them and gives them the potency and permanence of a statue.
Priscilla Rattazzi was born in Rome, Italy in 1956 and went to boarding school in Wales before moving to the United States in the early seventies. She studied photography at Sarah Lawrence College, and later worked as an assistant to photographer Hiro in the late seventies. Throughout the eighties, Priscilla worked as a fashion and portrait photographer in New York. After her children were born, her focus shifted to more personal subjects, such as family life and dogs; most recently she has gravitated towards the environment. Her work has appeared in Brides, Self, Redbook, New York and The New York Times Magazine. In Italy, her work has appeared in Vogue Italia, Donna and Amica. Rattazzi has published four books and one portfolio: Best Friends (1989), Children (1992), Georgica Pond (2000), Best Friends The Portfolio (2006), Luna & Lola (2010), and Three Lindens (2023). She has shown at galleries and museums such as Staley-Wise Gallery in New York, the Knoxville Museum of Art in Knoxville, TN, Glenn Horowitz Bookselller in East Hampton, NY, Jack Banning Gallery in New York, Valentina Moncada Gallery in Rome, Italy, Paul Fisher Gallery in West Palm Beach, FL, the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, FL, the Peter Marino Art Foundation in Southhampton, NY, the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, and Robilant+Voena Gallery in Milan, Italy.