Willy Rizzo

Retrospective

«It’s like being a driver: you can drive a locomotive, a airplane or a limousine. Photography gives you just as many opportunities. You can work in a laboratory, in a studio, in a shooting area, for the press, for the fashion industry».

Willy Rizzo received his first commission in the late 30s. The teachers of an Itallian School located in Rue Sedillot in Paris asked him to make photographs for some of their documents. He used a Box Agfa camera, which had been presented by his mother...

Many years later, after he changed several cameras and lenses, a different sort people began requiring his professional services. The disciple has grown up, and now his studio was frequented by Brigitte Bordeau, Marlene Dietrich, Marylin Monroe, Le Corbusier, Alfred Hitchock, Josefine Baker, Coco Chanel, King Husseihn of Jordan and Pablo Picasso.

During that time Willy Rizzo tried everything in the sphere of photography. From laboratories (he still remembers by heart all the components of a developer) to large studios, one of them the legendary Harcourt Studio. There were also photo-reports. It was one of his most admired genres; something that Americans have a perfect eye for. So «Life Magazine» buys a series of his shots made on the first Cannes Festival. Being attracted by the US, he travels to New York to work for the Blackstar Agency. There he gets involved with fashion photography and later moves to Hollywood, to portray such stars as Gregory Peck and Garry Cooper. 1949 is a milestone in his career — on the front page of the new magazine «Paris Match» one can see his photograph of Sir Winston Churchill. He is now a real photographer-star and will be collaborating with this new weekly for the following 20 years, being one of the creators of its individual aura. In the 70s Willy Rizzo moves to the land of his forefathers, to Italy and begins to design ultramodern furniture. He will even open his own furniture factory there.

But while returning to his roots, he feels nostalgia for Paris and for photography. Some time afterwards he is once more doing what he likes most: portraying on film the most beautiful women in the world.

Cannes 2002: in his studio in Magestique, Willy Rizzo immortalizes the smiles of Paz Vega, Mila Yovovich and Rebecca Robin.