Palazzo Roverella, for the first time in Italy, hosts a major exhibition dedicated to Rodney Smith, one of the most iconic New York photographers of the twentieth century, from October 3rd to February 1st 2026.
The exhibition, titled “Rodney Smith: Photography Between Real and Surreal,” is curated by Anne Morin and will allow the public to be transported into the universe of this iconic New York photographer.
Over one hundred images trace his career and celebrate his refined combination of classic elegance, surreal irony, and compositional enchantment. The son of an American fashion magnate, Smith did not follow in his father's footsteps, graduating with a degree in Theology from Yale in 1973. His early portfolios do not feature posing models, but rather photographs that can be defined as a spiritual portrait of the people of Jerusalem, documented in a diary of one hundred days in the so-called Land of Light.
His photographs evoke worlds suspended between reality and dream, with references to the surrealist paintings of René Màgritte. Long appreciated for his black-and-white images that blend portraiture and landscape, Rodney Smith has created enchanting and visionary worlds, full of surprises. His dreamlike images are created using only film and natural light, never retouched, and are distinguished by their artisanal care and formal precision.
He studied under Walker Evans and was influenced by colleagues such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Margaret Bourke-White, Anselmo Adams, and William Eugene Smith. His photographs have appeared in prestigious magazines and newspapers such as Time, Vanity Fair, and the Wall Street Journal.
In fact, Smith's aesthetic also shows parallels with the cinematic tradition of directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Terrence Malicke and Wes Anderson.
The images captured by Smith's lens are never digitally retouched and are illuminated only by natural light, in which the use of black and white becomes a form of sentiment, architectural and essential. We recall works such as "Danielle in Boat" from 1996, where the woman's dress appears to be the sail that finds no wind; in "Woman with Hat Between Edges" the woman's hat blooms in the labyrinth. In "Skyline" from 1995, against the backdrop of the Twin Towers, a diverse humanity participates in a procession. Each room invites the viewer to slow their gaze and linger on the mysterious nature of images that open a passage between the real and the imaginary. The exhibition is divided into six sections and leads the visitor through suspended scenarios, rich in grace and mystery, accompanying them in the discovery of an artist who has succeeded in transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary.