New Exhibition Celebrates the Art of the Paparazzi

The first the paparazzi rode their Vespas around Rome in the 1950s, stalking celebrities on the Via Veneto. They photographed the intimate details of stars’ lives, and numerous shots of an off-duty Brigitte Bardot, walking down the streets in cigarette pants. “And now, in Brigitte Bardot and the Original Paparazzo—which opens at the James Hyman Gallery on London’s Savile Row on Thursday—the public will have a chance to see them all. “There is a wonderful innocence to these early Bardot shots,” Hyman says of the photographs. “Certainly there was complicity between the subject and the photographer. Bardot was usually aware of the camera and was clearly happy for her picture to be taken. Between them, they created a whole new image of womanhood, female sexuality, and youth fashion.”