Paolo Pellegrin
Encyclopedia
Paolo Pellegrin is an internationally renowned photojournalist who was born in Rome, Italy, into a family of architects.
Between 1987 and 1990 he started working on his first photography projects in Italy, concentrating on immigration, the circus and homelessness. He was also working as an assistant for a number of photographers and videographers.
In 1991, after completing a well-paid assignment for the Italian state TV channel, he bought a second-hand car, filled it with his prints and negatives, and moved to Paris where he met Christian Caujolle, who invited him to join Agence VU’, which represented him for nine years.
In 1992 he began working on personal projects, on subjects such as such as the gypsies in Italy and Bosnia and made several trips to the Balkans after Albania opened its borders. Through Christian Caujolle, he met Grazia Neri, who represented him in Italy.
Between 1994 and 1995, he started working on a project about children in post-war Bosnia and travelled in Italy, Romania, Mexico, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Kenya for a project on HIV/AIDS.
In 1995 he won his first World Press Photo award for his work on AIDS in Uganda.
The year after, he was awarded the Kodak Young Photographer Award / Visa d'Or at Visa Pour l’Image photography festival for his reportage on AIDS in Uganda and participated in the World Press Joop Swart Masterclass.
In 1997 he published his first book, Bambini, on his work about children in Bosnia, Uganda and Romania and was awarded the City of Gijòn International Prize of Photojournalism for his work on children in post-war Bosnia.
In 1998 he worked on a project for Médecins Sans Frontières, which became a book, Cambodia, and a traveling exhibition. He won a World Press Photo award for his work in Cambodia. In the same year, he was given his first assignment by Kathy Ryan at the New York Times Magazine to work on blood feuds in Albania with reporter Scott Anderson. This assignment with Anderson marked the beginning of a long-time work collaboration that will result in over ten cover stories for the magazine.
Between 1999 and 2000 he travelled frequently between Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, and Serbia during the war, creating an in-depth reportage on the conflict and its aftermath. He won a World Press Photo for his coverage of the conflict in Kosovo.
In 2000 he was offered a contract position at Newsweek magazine by Director of Photography Sarah Harbutt and was awarded the Hasselblad Foundation Grant for Photography for his work in the Balkans. He also published the booklet L´au De La Est La, with his work on children in post-war Bosnia.
In 2001 he became a Magnum Photos
nominee and won a World Press Photo
award for his work on anti-terrorism in Algeria. During the same year, he won the Leica Medal of Excellence for his work in the Balkans. He began to travel extensively, covering news events mainly in the Middle East and Africa. In 2002 he published the book Kosovo 1999-2000: The Flight of Reason and won the German Hansel-Mieth prize for a story in Bosnia.
In 2003 he travelled to cover the US-led invasion of Iraq. In 2004 he began travelling to Darfur to cover humanitarian crisis and won the Olivier Rebbot prize by the Overseas Press Club, USA, for his coverage of Darfur. He also won a World Press Photo award for his reportage on Yasser Arafat
’s funeral. With Thomas Dworzak, Alex Majoli and Ilkka Uimonen, created Off Broadway, a traveling multi-media project.
He became a Magnum Photos full member in 2005. In the same year he covered the aftermath of the Tsunami and hurricane Katrina
and won two World Press Photo awards, one for his work on the funeral of Pope John Paul II
, and another for the reportage on the backstage of fashion shows in NYC.
Between 2005 and 2006 he worked on a project about the Guantamano Bay detention center and its former detainees in Afghanistan, Albania, Kuwait and the U.K.
In 2006 he travelled to Lebanon to cover the war, where he was injured in Tyre. He won a World Press Photo award for his work in Lebanon and the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his long-term project on Islam.
In 2007 he was awarded the Robert Capa Gold medal by the Overseas Press Club for his work on the war in Lebanon and won the European Publishers Award, which published As I Was Dying. 2007 was also the year of Double Blind, with his work on the war in Lebanon, with text by Scott Anderson. He also won City of Gijon International Prize of Photojournalism for his work on Lebanon.
During 2008 he travelled to Syria and Jordan for a story about the Iraqi Diaspora and won the Deutsche Fotobuchpreis 2008 for the book As I was Dying and The Lucie International Photography Awards 2008 Book award. He also worked on the New York Times Magazine annual Oscar’s Portfolio.
In 2009 he was awarded Getty Image Professional Editorial Photography Grant for his work on the Iraqi Diaspora in the Middle East and a STERN Spezial Portfolio was published with a monograph of his work.
In 2010 published the 5th annual Magnum Photos Fashion Magazine, STORM and the 130th number of the Photo Poche collection.
The book Dies Irae was published in 2011, when he travelled to Egypt and Tunisia to cover the revolutions in North Africa and, on assignment for Zeit Magazine, covered the Japan’s earthquake and tsunami destructions. With Jim Goldberg, Alec Soth, Mikhael Subotzky and Susan Meiselas he made a road trip from San Antonio to Oakland for the Magnum project “Postcards from America”.
1996 - AIDS in Uganda. Visa pour l'Image, Perpignan, France
1997 - Emergency. Galleria Grazia Neri, Milano, Italy
1997 - AIDS in Uganda. EFTI, Centro de Imagen, Madrid, Spain
1997 - Bosnia. Palazzo Renzo, Bologna, Italy
1998 - Cambodia. Galleria Sozzani, Milano, Italy
1999 - Cambodia. Visa pour l'Image, Perpignan, France
1999 - Bosnia. The Heritage of War. Chiesa di Santa Monaca, Firenze, Italy
1999 - Cambogia. Convento S Chiara Napoli, Italy
2000 - Kukes. War in Kosovo, Swedish Parliament, Stockholm, Sweden
2001 - Kosovo 1999-2000. Parson School of Design, New York City, USA
2001 - Paolo Pellegrin. Leica Gallery, New York City, USA
2002 - Traces of War. Hasselblad Center, Goteborg, Sweden
2002 - Traces of War. Mercati di Traiano, Festival Internazionale di Roma, Rome, Italy
2004 - Israel and Palestine. Bildens Hus Fotomuseet, Sundsvall, Sweden
2005 - The War of Desires. House of Photography, Moscow, Russia
2006 - Traces of War. Malmo Museer, Sweden
2006 - Traces. Galleria Santa Cecilia. Rome, Italy
2007 - Broken Landscape. Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Italy
2007 - Darfur. Holocaust Musem, Berlin, Germany
2007 - Double Blind. CVZ Contemporary, New York, USA
2008 - Double Blind. Fovea exhibitions. New York, USA
2008 - As I Was Dying. Leica Galerie, Solms, Germany
2008 - Nero Avorio. Casa della Confraternita, Udine, Italy
2008 - As I was Dying. Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France
2008 - As I was Dying. Magnum Gallery. Paris, France
2008 - As I was Dying. Zephyr Weltkulturen Museum, Mannheim, Germany
2008 - Paolo Pellegrin. Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, USA
2008 - Iraqi Diaspora. Visa pour l'Image, Perpignan, France
2008 - As I Was Dying. Western Australian Maritime Museum, Perth, Australia
2009 - Black Mountains. Reportage Atri Festival, Italy
2010 - Retrospective. Galerie Fait et Cause, Paris, France
2010 - Paolo Pellegrin. Galerie de l’Instant, Paris, France
2011 - As I Was Dying. Palacij Ljublijankega Gradu, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2011 - Paolo Pellegrin. Spazio Forma - Centro Internazionale di Fotografia, Milan, Italy
2011 - Retrospective. Kunstfoyer der Versicherungskammer Bayern, Munich, Germany
2003 - Confronting Views: Nine Phtographers on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - The Photographers' Gallery, London, UK
2004 - 11th Noorderlicht Photofestival 2004. Stichting Fotografie Noorderlicht. Groningen, Holland
2006 - Katrina - An Unnatural Disaster. Noorderlicht Gallery. Groningen, Holland
2006 - Off Broadway. Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy
2007 - Euro Visions. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
2007 - Indianscope. Maison de la Photographie. Lille, France
2007 - Degrees of Separation. Michael Mazzeo Gallery. New York City, USA
2007 - Vor den Augen der Welt - Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Germany
2007 - Berlin 1946 - 2006 - Camera Work AG, Berlin
2007 - FotoGrafia. Festival Internazionale di Roma. Italy
2007 - Darfur/Darfur - George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY
2008 - Disposable People. Hayward Gallery, London, UK
2008 - Access to Life. Corcoran Museum, Washington D.C., USA
2009 - Georgian Spring. Magnum Photos traveling exhibition: Uferallen, Berlin Germany; Teatro Circo Price, Madrid, Spain; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France.
2010 - Haiti Earthquake. Reportage Atri Festival, Atri, Italy
2010 - Magnum . Shifting Media. New Role of Photography. C/O Berlin, Germany
2010 - Disquieting Images. Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy
Biography
Pellegrin studied architecture at L'Università la Sapienza, in Rome and after three years he decided to change career directions and left to study photography at Istituto Italiano di Fotografia in Rome, from 1986 to 1987. During these years, he met the Italian photographer Enzo Ragazzini, who became his mentor.Between 1987 and 1990 he started working on his first photography projects in Italy, concentrating on immigration, the circus and homelessness. He was also working as an assistant for a number of photographers and videographers.
In 1991, after completing a well-paid assignment for the Italian state TV channel, he bought a second-hand car, filled it with his prints and negatives, and moved to Paris where he met Christian Caujolle, who invited him to join Agence VU’, which represented him for nine years.
In 1992 he began working on personal projects, on subjects such as such as the gypsies in Italy and Bosnia and made several trips to the Balkans after Albania opened its borders. Through Christian Caujolle, he met Grazia Neri, who represented him in Italy.
Between 1994 and 1995, he started working on a project about children in post-war Bosnia and travelled in Italy, Romania, Mexico, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Kenya for a project on HIV/AIDS.
In 1995 he won his first World Press Photo award for his work on AIDS in Uganda.
The year after, he was awarded the Kodak Young Photographer Award / Visa d'Or at Visa Pour l’Image photography festival for his reportage on AIDS in Uganda and participated in the World Press Joop Swart Masterclass.
In 1997 he published his first book, Bambini, on his work about children in Bosnia, Uganda and Romania and was awarded the City of Gijòn International Prize of Photojournalism for his work on children in post-war Bosnia.
In 1998 he worked on a project for Médecins Sans Frontières, which became a book, Cambodia, and a traveling exhibition. He won a World Press Photo award for his work in Cambodia. In the same year, he was given his first assignment by Kathy Ryan at the New York Times Magazine to work on blood feuds in Albania with reporter Scott Anderson. This assignment with Anderson marked the beginning of a long-time work collaboration that will result in over ten cover stories for the magazine.
Between 1999 and 2000 he travelled frequently between Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, and Serbia during the war, creating an in-depth reportage on the conflict and its aftermath. He won a World Press Photo for his coverage of the conflict in Kosovo.
In 2000 he was offered a contract position at Newsweek magazine by Director of Photography Sarah Harbutt and was awarded the Hasselblad Foundation Grant for Photography for his work in the Balkans. He also published the booklet L´au De La Est La, with his work on children in post-war Bosnia.
In 2001 he became a Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices located in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo...
nominee and won a World Press Photo
World Press Photo
World Press Photo is an independent, non-profit organization based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Founded in 1955 the organization is known for holding the world's largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest....
award for his work on anti-terrorism in Algeria. During the same year, he won the Leica Medal of Excellence for his work in the Balkans. He began to travel extensively, covering news events mainly in the Middle East and Africa. In 2002 he published the book Kosovo 1999-2000: The Flight of Reason and won the German Hansel-Mieth prize for a story in Bosnia.
In 2003 he travelled to cover the US-led invasion of Iraq. In 2004 he began travelling to Darfur to cover humanitarian crisis and won the Olivier Rebbot prize by the Overseas Press Club, USA, for his coverage of Darfur. He also won a World Press Photo award for his reportage on Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
’s funeral. With Thomas Dworzak, Alex Majoli and Ilkka Uimonen, created Off Broadway, a traveling multi-media project.
He became a Magnum Photos full member in 2005. In the same year he covered the aftermath of the Tsunami and hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
and won two World Press Photo awards, one for his work on the funeral of Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
, and another for the reportage on the backstage of fashion shows in NYC.
Between 2005 and 2006 he worked on a project about the Guantamano Bay detention center and its former detainees in Afghanistan, Albania, Kuwait and the U.K.
In 2006 he travelled to Lebanon to cover the war, where he was injured in Tyre. He won a World Press Photo award for his work in Lebanon and the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his long-term project on Islam.
In 2007 he was awarded the Robert Capa Gold medal by the Overseas Press Club for his work on the war in Lebanon and won the European Publishers Award, which published As I Was Dying. 2007 was also the year of Double Blind, with his work on the war in Lebanon, with text by Scott Anderson. He also won City of Gijon International Prize of Photojournalism for his work on Lebanon.
During 2008 he travelled to Syria and Jordan for a story about the Iraqi Diaspora and won the Deutsche Fotobuchpreis 2008 for the book As I was Dying and The Lucie International Photography Awards 2008 Book award. He also worked on the New York Times Magazine annual Oscar’s Portfolio.
In 2009 he was awarded Getty Image Professional Editorial Photography Grant for his work on the Iraqi Diaspora in the Middle East and a STERN Spezial Portfolio was published with a monograph of his work.
In 2010 published the 5th annual Magnum Photos Fashion Magazine, STORM and the 130th number of the Photo Poche collection.
The book Dies Irae was published in 2011, when he travelled to Egypt and Tunisia to cover the revolutions in North Africa and, on assignment for Zeit Magazine, covered the Japan’s earthquake and tsunami destructions. With Jim Goldberg, Alec Soth, Mikhael Subotzky and Susan Meiselas he made a road trip from San Antonio to Oakland for the Magnum project “Postcards from America”.
Main solo exhibitions
1993 - The Homeless. Visa pour l'Image, Perpignan, France1996 - AIDS in Uganda. Visa pour l'Image, Perpignan, France
1997 - Emergency. Galleria Grazia Neri, Milano, Italy
1997 - AIDS in Uganda. EFTI, Centro de Imagen, Madrid, Spain
1997 - Bosnia. Palazzo Renzo, Bologna, Italy
1998 - Cambodia. Galleria Sozzani, Milano, Italy
1999 - Cambodia. Visa pour l'Image, Perpignan, France
1999 - Bosnia. The Heritage of War. Chiesa di Santa Monaca, Firenze, Italy
1999 - Cambogia. Convento S Chiara Napoli, Italy
2000 - Kukes. War in Kosovo, Swedish Parliament, Stockholm, Sweden
2001 - Kosovo 1999-2000. Parson School of Design, New York City, USA
2001 - Paolo Pellegrin. Leica Gallery, New York City, USA
2002 - Traces of War. Hasselblad Center, Goteborg, Sweden
2002 - Traces of War. Mercati di Traiano, Festival Internazionale di Roma, Rome, Italy
2004 - Israel and Palestine. Bildens Hus Fotomuseet, Sundsvall, Sweden
2005 - The War of Desires. House of Photography, Moscow, Russia
2006 - Traces of War. Malmo Museer, Sweden
2006 - Traces. Galleria Santa Cecilia. Rome, Italy
2007 - Broken Landscape. Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Italy
2007 - Darfur. Holocaust Musem, Berlin, Germany
2007 - Double Blind. CVZ Contemporary, New York, USA
2008 - Double Blind. Fovea exhibitions. New York, USA
2008 - As I Was Dying. Leica Galerie, Solms, Germany
2008 - Nero Avorio. Casa della Confraternita, Udine, Italy
2008 - As I was Dying. Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France
2008 - As I was Dying. Magnum Gallery. Paris, France
2008 - As I was Dying. Zephyr Weltkulturen Museum, Mannheim, Germany
2008 - Paolo Pellegrin. Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, USA
2008 - Iraqi Diaspora. Visa pour l'Image, Perpignan, France
2008 - As I Was Dying. Western Australian Maritime Museum, Perth, Australia
2009 - Black Mountains. Reportage Atri Festival, Italy
2010 - Retrospective. Galerie Fait et Cause, Paris, France
2010 - Paolo Pellegrin. Galerie de l’Instant, Paris, France
2011 - As I Was Dying. Palacij Ljublijankega Gradu, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2011 - Paolo Pellegrin. Spazio Forma - Centro Internazionale di Fotografia, Milan, Italy
2011 - Retrospective. Kunstfoyer der Versicherungskammer Bayern, Munich, Germany
Main group exhibitions
2003 - Exhibitions at Dokument 03. Bildens Hus . fotomuseet. Sundsvall, Sweden2003 - Confronting Views: Nine Phtographers on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - The Photographers' Gallery, London, UK
2004 - 11th Noorderlicht Photofestival 2004. Stichting Fotografie Noorderlicht. Groningen, Holland
2006 - Katrina - An Unnatural Disaster. Noorderlicht Gallery. Groningen, Holland
2006 - Off Broadway. Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy
2007 - Euro Visions. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
2007 - Indianscope. Maison de la Photographie. Lille, France
2007 - Degrees of Separation. Michael Mazzeo Gallery. New York City, USA
2007 - Vor den Augen der Welt - Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Germany
2007 - Berlin 1946 - 2006 - Camera Work AG, Berlin
2007 - FotoGrafia. Festival Internazionale di Roma. Italy
2007 - Darfur/Darfur - George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY
2008 - Disposable People. Hayward Gallery, London, UK
2008 - Access to Life. Corcoran Museum, Washington D.C., USA
2009 - Georgian Spring. Magnum Photos traveling exhibition: Uferallen, Berlin Germany; Teatro Circo Price, Madrid, Spain; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France.
2010 - Haiti Earthquake. Reportage Atri Festival, Atri, Italy
2010 - Magnum . Shifting Media. New Role of Photography. C/O Berlin, Germany
2010 - Disquieting Images. Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy