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| Mario Testino | Spanish |
If today was the year 1976 and one of you was an aspiring model then it could be said that you were very fortunate given that Mario Testino would sell you a portfolio, with make-up and hairstyling included, for only £25.
But it is 2009 and Mario Testino is one of the most renowned photographers in the world of fashion and further beyond. His curriculum includes collaborations with the magazines Vogue (in its American, Italian, French and British versions), L’uomoVogue and Vanity Fair; advertising campaigns for Givenchy, Christian Lacroix, Valentino, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Versace, Missoni, Calvin Klein, Burberry’s, Clinique and Davidoff amongst many others.
Of Peruvian nationality, Mario Testino was born in 1954. He grew up in the city of Lima within a family of Irish, Spanish and Italian origin.
Previous to discovering the world of photography, Testino studied Economics in the Universidad del Pacifico, Law in the Universidad Catolica, and International Relations in the University of San Diego. Finally, he moved from Lima to London, where he rented a flat in an abandoned hospital near Trafalgar Square. Precisely here Testino would start his training in photography and his life would take a determinant turn that with time would transform him into, amongst other things, the favourite portrait artist of Diana, the Princess of Wales.
Not only did the publication of the photographic session with Lady Di connect Testino with British Royalty, he is also responsible for the portraits of both princes William and Harry.
Hollywood, in a way the American royalty, was not left behind with stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Kim Basinger, Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz hiring Testino’s services to immortalise them. In the case of Madonna, she chose him for the cover shot of her album “Ray of Light”, and she also demanded to the magazine Vanity Fair that Testino became responsible for the pictorials in which the singer would appear with her daughter Lourdes, officially for the first time.
But Testino does not only work by commission. He himself is the author of four books of incredible success in the world of artistic photography. The first one, “Any Objection?” was published in September 1998, followed in 1999 by “Front Row/Backstage”. Two years later “Alive” and “Portraits” were edited.
Testino refuses to define his art and prefers presenting it as a visual experience more than an intellectual one. In spite of his humility, he’s been noted as responsible for the end of the supermodel era at the beginning of the ‘90s, pushing aside Linda Evangelista and Noami Campbell from their exclusive pedestals of stratospheric pay and replacing them with a new proposition of urban beauty incarnated in the figures of Stella Tennant and Kate Moss.
The glamour, the glitter, the fame, the excess and the sensuality are captured by the lens of this man that said that his images are like his eyes: “I photograph what I see, sometimes, what I want to see”. His work, previously published or not, is available to the public in art galleries in America, Japan, Brazil, Holland, Italy, Scotland and also England. One of his most significant projects is perhaps a book of children’s photos of which all proceeds are donated to charity.