Rodney Smith exhibition in Rovigo: between reality and surrealism

Need a breath of light and enchanted air? From October 4, 2025, to February 1, 2026, Palazzo Roverella opens the doors to a parallel world, made of dazzling blacks and whites, elegant figures suspended between reality and fantasy, gentle humor, and breathtaking beauty. This is the world of Rodney Smith, a New York photographer with poetic talent, who is being celebrated for the first time in Italy with a retrospective that can only be described as wonderful.

This exhibition is for you, who love to lose yourself in details, who seek art that makes you smile, think, and… fly.

Enter the enchanted world of Rodney Smith.

Woman with Hat between Hedges, Parc de Sceaux, France, 2004 © Rodney Smith

Rodney Smith (1947–2016) was not simply a photographer, but a creator of worlds, an image craftsman, and a poet of natural light. His photographs, strictly taken on film without digital retouching, combine surgical formal precisionwith a sense of the absurd reminiscent of the lovers of Magritte, Hitchcock’s films, Chaplin’s silent comedies, and even Wes Anderson’s cinema.

Smith has worked for magazines such as Time, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair, as well as for major fashion brands such as Ralph Lauren and Neiman Marcus. However, what makes his images truly unique is that blend of classic elegance and playful surrealism that is rarely found in photography.

Rodney Smith was cultured, introverted, passionate about philosophy and theology, and it was in photography that he found his ideal language to give shape to emotions and bring order to everyday chaos.

What you will see in the Rovigo exhibition

Curated by Anne Morin and promoted by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo, the exhibition presents over one hundred photographs, many of which are iconic, others unexpected. The exhibition is divided into six thematic sections:

The Divine Proportion

Gravity

Ethereal Spaces

Through the Looking Glass

Time, Light, and Permanence

Passages

You will find yourself observing men in bowler hats precariously balanced, isolated figures in enchanted landscapes, perfect compositions that defy logic. Black and white images dominate, but there are also forays into color, which Smith began exploring only in 2002, with surprising results.

His black and white, however, remains a universe apart: it is not just an absence of color, but an abstraction charged with emotional nuances, capable of transporting you to a dimension where time seems suspended.

Skyline, Hudson River, New York, 1995 © Rodney Smith

Why you can’t miss this exhibition

Because this is the first time Italy has hosted such a comprehensive exhibition on Rodney Smith. Because his images are balm for the soul: they make you smile, move you, and bring light. And also because each photograph is crafted with the meticulousness of a goldsmith, as curator Anne Morin says. Each shot is a silent microcosm where everything is in harmony, even in disorder.

If you love fashion, arthouse cinema, fine art photography, and that subtle boundary between dream and reality… well, this exhibition seems to have been created especially for you.

EXHIBITION INFORMATION

RODNEY SMITH

Photography between the real and the surreal

Rovigo, Palazzo Roverella

October 4, 2025 – February 1, 2026

Tickets: reservations are recommended.

The exhibition also features a beautiful catalog published by Silvana Editoriale, with texts by Anne Morin, Susan Bright, and Leslie Smolan.

Rodney Smith doesn’t just photograph what he sees, but also what he feels, and visiting this exhibition means entering a world that is a mixture of wonder, order, melancholy, and lightness. You will come out enriched, and perhaps a little more willing to find poetry even in the details of your everyday life.

I’ve already marked the date in my diary.

How about you, will you come and dream with me?