Bettina Rheims

Since her first photographs in the late ’70s, Bettina Rheims has defied the predictable. From her series on Pigalle strippers (1980) to her cycle on the life of Jesus in I.N.R.I. (1998), from Chanel commercials to Gender Studies (2011), her work has shaken up traditional iconography and pushed restlessly at the breaking point between two great human preoccupations: beauty and imperfection.

This limited Collector’s Edition is the ultimate Rheims retrospective, showcasing more than 500 photographs from 35 years of daring, often defiant, photography. Personally selected and assembled by Rheims, the collection juxtaposes renowned series such as Chambre Close with many previously unpublished archival pictures. A companion volume assembles press cuttings, behind-the-scenes material, and personal memories to trace her illustrious career.

Spanning commercial work and artistic series, the retrospective impresses with each turn of the page, as much for the vigor of each image as for the variety of Rheims’s subjects and aesthetics. With equal attention to anonymous subjects cast in the street as to such global beauty stars as Kate Moss, Madonna, Monica Bellucci, Claudia Schiffer, and Naomi Campbell, the book showcases Rheims’s particular interest in female fragility and strength, and of the magic encounter between model and the artist which disrupts codes of so-called eroticism to build up a new image system for womanhood.

Limited Collector’s Edition of 800 copies (No. 201–1,000), each signed by Bettina Rheims.

Also available in two Art Editions of 100 copies, including a signed and numbered print.