Bettina Rheims (French, b.1952) is a photographer best known for her erotic images of women. Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, Rheims worked as a model before turning to photography in 1978. Her earliest series titled
Portraits (1981) featured striptease artists and acrobats posing in her studio. In 1990, she photographed
androgynous youths for her series
Modern Lovers. She has collaborated with the novelist Serge Bramly on several projects, including the book
Chambre Close, published in 1992, which accompanied the fictional narrative of “Monsieur X” with Rheims’s photographs of
women posing in hotel rooms.
Her series
I.N.R.I. (1998), another collaboration with Bramly, is a biblical narrative illustrated by fashion models. Rheims has photographed
fashion and
celebrities for magazines and newspapers such as
Elle,
L’Officiel, and
Marie Claire, and she has shot campaigns for
Chanel and
Lancôme, among other brands. In 1994, she was awarded the Grand Prix de la Photographie of the City of Paris. Her work has been exhibited at the Musée de l´Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Musée d´Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany. She currently lives and works in Paris.