Gian Paolo Barbieri was born in 1935 on Via Mazzini, in the heart of Milan, to a family of textile wholesalers, and it was in his father’s warehouse that he picked up his first skills as a fashion photographer. He took his first steps in theatre as an actor and set designer, before moving to Paris in 1960, where he worked as an assistant for Tom Kublin, the famous Harper’s Bazaar photographer. In 1962 he opened his first studio in Milan, where he started working in fashion taking pictures of sample collections and publishing photographic essays in Novità, the magazine that would become Vogue Italia in 1965.
His almost pictorial sensitivity for the set design, hairstyling, and makeup caught the attention of the international elite of fashion, allowing him to publish in international magazines like Vogue Italia, Vogue America, Vogue Paris, Vanity Fair, and GQ.
Celebrities like Diana Vreeland, Yves Saint Laurent, and Richard Avedon are a part of his story, and are as important as the collaborations with the most iconic actresses of all time, starting with Audrey Hepburn, and with top models like Jerry Hall, Veruschka, Naomi Campbell, and Eva Herzigovà.
In the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, Barbieri’s commercial campaigns contributed to defining the creative voice of the leading fashion brands: Walter Albini, Gianni Versace, Valentino, Giorgio Armani, Gianfranco Ferré, Yves Saint Laurent, and Vivienne Westwood.
The 1990s led Barbieri to take many trips in his quest for culture, without limits. Trips that, joined with his curiosity about far-flung places and ethnic groups, about nature and the most disparate of objects, as he pursued his inspirations, would later breathe life into marvellous photography books, where distant places and realities were depicted with impeccable taste.
Listed in 1968 by the magazine Stern as one of the fourteen best fashion photographers in the world, his genius was acknowledged once again when he became the recipient of the 2018 Lucie Award for Achievement in Fashion. His works have been showcased at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, MAMM in Moscow, Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art in Saint Petersburg, and at Shanghai Museum, to name just a few. Moreover, some of his works belong to the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery of London, Kunstforum of Vienna, Musée du Quai Branly of Paris.
In 2017 Barbieri established his own Foundation, whose mission is to preserve, safeguard, protect, acquire, archive, catalogue, authenticate, and promote the archive and the works of its founder, for the purpose of spreading photographic culture in Italy and the rest of the world.
More recently, Barbier’s work has been purchased by one of the most important fashion photography collections in the world, the Nicola Erni Collection, as well as by one of the largest contemporary art collections in the world, the Pinault Collection.
A docu-film about the artist’s life was presented to the public in 2022. Produced by Moovie in collaboration with the Foundation, directed by Emiliano Scatarzi and based on a scriptment by Federica Masin and Emiliano Scatarzi, the film traces back over the artist’s life and opens a window onto the world that he has been a witness to. Gian Paolo Barbieri, l’uomo e la bellezza was shown for the Biografilm Festival in Bologna where it received the Audience Award for Best Film. It was also shown at the Master of Art Festival in Bulgaria, where it won two prizes: the Best Debut Documentary on Art and the award for the best documentary in the Photography category.
