Bettina Rheims

Bettina Rheims is a French photographer born in 1952 whose work examines femininity, gender and identity. After working as a model and journalist, she began her professional photographic career in 1978. Early portraits of Pigalle performers were exhibited in Paris in 1981.

Alongside magazine, advertising and film commissions, she developed series including Female Trouble, Modern Lovers and Naked War. In 2021 she donated her photographic collection to the Institut pour la photographie in Lille, which preserves her archive and has presented exhibitions and research on her work.