Paulette Tavormina: Seizing Beauty

Paulette Tavormina's photographs are held in museum, corporate, and private collections and have been exhibited in museums and galleries globally. She is a former prop and food specialist whose work can be seen in seven feature films, including Nixon, The Astronaut’s Wife, and The Perfect Storm. She photographs works of art for Sotheby’s New York, food for cookbooks, and commissions for National Geographic and The New York Times, among others. Tavormina lives in New York City, where she can often be found at one of its many farmers markets or antiques stores, searching for the perfectly imperfect objects that distinguish her work.

"The photographer Paulette Tavormina began her professional career working with antiques, food styling and photographing works of art for an auction house. She’s also spent many years collecting bits and pieces - the insects, objects and flowers that fill her studio - from markets and little shops. Her new book took six years to photograph and brings together all these experiences: It features 65 sumptuous color images inspired by old master still lifes. At first glance, you might easily mistake one of Tavormina’s images for a Zurbarán or a work from the Dutch Golden Age of painting - many of the book’s photographs are built up with flowers, fruit, insects, objects, jewelry, butterflies and broken bits of porcelain. Others are inspired by the symbolic Vanitas paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries, with skulls and the reminder of death and the passing of all worldly goods." - The New York Times' T Magazine "In her new book, Seizing Beauty, the New York-based photographer has compiled a collection of carefully crafted vignettes of astounding beauty, combining fruit, flowers, and unexpected fauna (a monarch here, a grasshopper there) in moody compositions that seem to glow from within." - Architectural Digest