Artist Biography

ORIGINS

MATTHEW ROLSTON IS AN ARTIST WHO WORKS IN PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO; his practice centers on portraiture, most notably subjects drawn from celebrity culture. Rolston, who lives and works in Los Angeles, studied drawing and painting at the Chouinard Art Institute and at Otis College of Art & Design in Los Angeles, California, as well as at the San Francisco Art Institute. Rolston studied illustration, photography, imaging and film at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California, where in 2006, he received an honorary doctorate.

While still a student at ArtCenter, Rolston was ‘discovered’ by American artist Andy Warhol, who immediately commissioned portraits for his proto-celebrity magazine, Interview, of then-emerging Hollywood director Steven Spielberg. Thus began an extensive career; over the last 30 years, Matthew Rolston’s photographs have been published prominently in numerous magazines, including Interview, Vogue, W, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, and over 100 covers of Rolling Stone.

“Matthew has a unique beat on our culture,” said Jann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone magazine. “The very images we have ingrained in our minds when we think of music, movies, and celebrities are quite often Matthew’s creations.”

PHOTOGRAPHER

Along with his friend Herb Ritts, Rolston was a member of an influential group of photographers, among them, Bruce Weber, Annie Leibovitz and Steven Meisel, to emerge from the 1980’s magazine scene. Rolston’s photographs from this era are distinguished by their distinctive and glamorous lighting style, surrealistic tableaus, and detail-rich sets. His imagery has helped define the contemporary aesthetics of American portrait photography and truly embodies modern glamour.

Said Warhol of a young Rolston in a September 1984 entry from The Andy Warhol Diaries, “Matthew wears brooches. He’s the one who started Michael Jackson wearing them. When he photographed Michael for Interview, he gave him his own brooch, and then Michael started wearing them all the time. But Matthew must like women, because when he photographs them, he makes them look gorgeous.”

Robert Sobieszek, the former curator of photography for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, compared Rolston’s work to the “four mega-greats of the ‘50s and ‘60s: Avedon, Hiro, Penn and Skrebneski… I think Rolston is one of the foremost editorial, glamour/fashion photographers working,” he said, “giving us immensely sophisticated, exciting, glamorous shots and portraits that surround us daily.”

In 2024, a key set comprising twenty selections of Rolston’s work was gifted to the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. The acquisition was led by Getty Curator of Photographs Paul Martineau. The selection highlights influential images from Rolston’s early work.

DIRECTOR

Matthew Rolston is also a filmmaker who works in video. Known for his signature lighting techniques, Rolston has directed award- winning music videos for artists as diverse as Madonna, Janet Jackson, Beyoncé Knowles and Miley Cyrus, as well as extensive print and television campaigns for a wide variety of internationally recognized brands including Campari, Bacardi, L’Oréal, Revlon, Esteé Lauder, Elizabeth Arden, Gap, Polo Ralph Lauren and Burberry.

Rolston’s short film The Most Beautiful Woman in the World (2011, color, 3:00 min) screened as part of SF Shorts: The San Francisco International Festival of Short Films (2013). The Whitney Museum of American Art (as part of Blues for Smoke) screened Whatta Man (1994, color, 4:52 min) in Through the Lens of the Blues Aesthetic: An Evening of Short Films Selected by Kevin Everson (April 2013). Other short films of note include Foolish Games for musical artist Jewel (1997, color, 3:57 min), which received a nomination for Most Stylish Music Video at the 1997 VH1 Vogue Fashion Awards; The Power of Good-Bye for musical artist Madonna (1998, color, 4:11); Every Time for musical artist Janet Jackson (1998, color, 4:22); Bootylicious for musical group Destiny’s Child, featuring Beyoncé Knowles (2001, color, 3:30); Be Without You for musical artist Mary J. Blige (2005, color, 4:09 min), which received a nomination as “Best R&B Video” (MTV Video Music Awards, 2006); and Candyman for Christina Aguilera (2007, color, 3:18 min), which earned Rolston a nomination for “Best Director” (MTV Video Music Awards, 2007).

Rolston has directed over 100 music videos, 200 television commercials, and conducted literally 1000’s of photo sessions over the course of his career.

FINE ARTIST

Rolston has created four photographic fine art projects that have led to a series of publications and exhibitions.

Talking Heads: The Vent Haven Portraits, consists of monumental portraits of ventriloquial figures housed in the Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, and was Rolston’s first self-assigned photographic series. The work debuted in 2014 at the Diane Rosenstein Gallery in Los Angeles, California, and has since traveled to venues in Miami and Berlin, among others. Rolston’s third published monograph accompanied the exhibition.

Hollywood Royale: Out of the School of Los Angeles, which includes Rolston’s fourth monograph as well as a traveling exhibition, is a retrospective of his editorial portraits from 1977 to 1993. Edited by long-time Los Angeles–based gallerist and curator David Fahey, this series presents an array of portraits that capture the 1980s and its myriad talents. From Michael Jackson and Madonna to Prince, George Michael and Cyndi Lauper, the selection of images reflects the era.

Art People: The Pageant Portraits is a series of emotionally intimate portraits of the volunteer participants in “Pageant of the Masters”, a tableaux vivants show that is part of an annual arts festival that has been held in Laguna Beach, California for over 80 years. The project features dramatically scaled color prints: one installation alone is over thirty feet wide. Ralph Pucci International first exhibited this series in its Los Angeles gallery in 2017, and this work became Rolston’s first solo institutional exhibition on the West Coast when it opened Summer 2021 at Laguna Art Museum. The exhibition was accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalog.

Vanitas: The Palermo Portraits is yet another dramatically scaled portrait series, this depicting Christian mummies housed in the Capuchin Catacombs of Sicily. The project, which has not yet been published or exhibited, represents Rolston’s continuing evolution as an artist and is an attempt to elevate his portraiture to a conceptual level.

Rolston has stated his purpose with artmaking is to “pose questions about the things that make us most human.”

HIGHLIGHTED EXHIBITION HISTORY

Rolston’s photographs have been exhibited at museums and institutions. Selected group shows include Beauty CULTure (with Lauren Greenfield, Herb Ritts, Andres Serrano, and Carrie Mae Weems, 2011), The Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles; The Warhol Look: Glamour, Style, Fashion, curated by Mark Francis and Margery King (with Richard Avedon, David Bailey, Robert Mapplethorpe, Steven Meisel and others), The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1997); and Fashion and Surrealism, FIT Gallery, New York, 1987 (with David Bailey, Horst P. Horst, Man Ray, Bruce Weber and others), which traveled to the Victoria & Albert Museum, London in 1988. Rolston’s first solo institutional exhibition on the West Coast opened Summer 2021 at Laguna Art Museum, titled Matthew Rolston, Art People: The Pageant Portraits.

Rolston’s works are in the permanent collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, NY, and the National Portrait Gallery (Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture at The Smithsonian, Washington D.C.) among others.

SCHOLARSHIPS

In 1998, Rolston endowed the “Matthew Rolston Scholarship for Film and Creative Direction,” at his alma mater, ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. According to Rolston, ‘the scholarship is intended to promote cross-disciplinary studies between film and other creative practices”. Rolston remains actively involved in this program as a mentor and lecturer on the subjects of modern communication techniques, fashion aesthetics, luxury brand strategies and social impact messaging in the public interest.

To recognize the significance of Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, a key Southern California institution in Rolston’s artistic development, he established the “Matthew Rolston Scholarship Fund for Product and Fashion Design at Otis College” in 2024. This fund is dedicated to supporting the education of students in product and fashion design at Otis, with a particular emphasis on communication and creative direction practices. Rolston also participates actively in the scholarship program as a mentor.

EDUCATOR

Since 2015, Rolston has served as an adjunct professor and curricular advisor to ArtCenter’s Undergraduate and Graduate Film Departments. At ArtCenter, Rolston currently teaches two classes in communications; they are original courses, entirely conceived of and written by Rolston. Although both classes are situated formally in ArtCenter’s Film program, they invite class members from diverse disciplines including photography and imaging, creative direction, fine art and other departments of the college.

Rolston’s first class, introduced at ArtCenter in 2015, is called The Power of Pleasure. It centers on fashion communication. The second, a newer class that Rolston introduced in the fall of 2020, is called Conscious Communication; it revolves around social impact messaging. In both classes, students create short films in a classroom atmosphere not unlike that of a professional communications agency. Rolston’s role is both educator and chief creative officer of this ‘agency’. The students enact the roles of individual writer/director ‘makers’.

Rolston is currently at work developing an illustrated textbook of The Power of Pleasure, based on his original syllabus and lectures.

Expanding his arts education activities, in 2024, Rolston was appointed senior lecturer at Otis College. There, he has turned his attention to object design and development, authoring an original class entitled Vessel of Dreams: The Packaging of Perfumery in collaboration with Otis’ Assistant Chair of Product Design, Jonathan Fidler. The class explores the narrative possibilities of luxury fragrance packaging.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Once again expanding and redefining the scope of his practice, Rolston has added the title of creative director to his résumé, developing innovative projects in the area of experiential design, including hospitality and brand development.

Rolston’s first hospitality brand creation, developed for Los Angeles-based hotel and restaurant owner Sam Nazarian’s company SBE Entertainment Group, opened in 2010. Called The Redbury, Rolston was deeply involved in every aspect of the project, from the naming to the logo, from design concepts to marketing strategies. As creative director, he oversaw an extensive team that included architects, interior designers, graphic designers, music and scent experts – even the uniform company that created the staff wardrobe.

Since that time, Rolston’s other hospitality clients have included Mahmood Khimji’s Highgate Holdings, Richard Branson’s Virgin Hotels and Barry Sternlicht’s SH Hotels & Resorts.

With a 2024 project, The Portal: An Art Experience by Jewel, Rolston expanded his creative direction practice into the museum world. Serving as the creative director for multiplatinum recording artist Jewel, he oversaw the creation of a life-size hologram for the artist’s collaboration with the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas. This hologram, positioned in the atrium lobby of the museum, acted as the centerpiece of an immersive installation, greeting visitors to the site.

MICHAEL JACKSON / THE LAST SITTING

Matthew Rolston was surprised and deeply saddened by the 2009 death of entertainer Michael Jackson, whom he had known and worked with from the earliest days of their careers. By a strange twist of fate, it appears that Matthew Rolston is officially the final photographer to shoot Michael Jackson in a formal sitting. Rolston’s images of Michael Jackson from a September 24, 2007 shoot are literally “the last sitting” of the legendary performer’s career.

REPRESENTATION

Rolston’s representatives for his commercial still photography work is FOURELEVEN, based in New York. His fine art photography is represented by the Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, and Camera Work Photogalerie, in Berlin. Rolston’s touring fine art shows are represented by Curatorial Assistance Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles.

PERSONAL

Rolston’s production offices are in Beverly Hills, California. He continues to divide his professional time between photography, fine art, publishing, filmmaking, creative direction and arts education. Rolston resides in Beverly Hills.

PODCAST APPEARANCE

At the start of its third season, Rolston appeared on ArtCenter College of Design’s Change Lab podcast. The show, hosted by ArtCenter’s then-president Dr. Lorne M. Buchman, features intimate interviews with leading artists and innovators.

In that episode, entitled Matthew Rolston on “Art People,” Glamour, Death Anxiety, and the Unity of Opposites, Buchman and Rolston discuss the artist’s creative influences, his aesthetic of the unity of opposites, his self-commissioned fine art projects, his ambivalence about the fashion industry’s unrealistic standards of wealth and beauty and his fortuitous meeting, as a young ArtCenter student, with his childhood hero, Richard Avedon.

The total running time for the podcast is approximately 42 minutes. To listen, please click this link.