Lorenzo Mattotti was born in Brescia and lives and works in Paris.
Since his debut in 1984 with Fires, he has won major international awards. His work evolves under the constant sign of great consistency and eclecticism of an artist who chooses to continuously explore new territories. His books are translated worldwide and his drawings appear in magazines and newspapers, The New Yorker, Le Monde, Das Magazin, Süddeutsche Zeitung, le Nouvel Observateur, Corriere della Sera, and la Repubblica.
He illustrates various children’s books, including Pinocchio and Eugene.
He has had numerous solo exhibitions, including a retrospective at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, and, more recently, the Musei di Porta Romana in Milan. Mattotti creates covers, advertising campaigns and posters, among others for Cannes 2000 and the Roman Summer.
Numerous of his publications including Jekyll & Hyde, The Sound of Frost for Einaudi, Hansel and Gretel for Orecchio acerbo/Gallimard.
Collaborates with Lou Reed on The Raven and assiduously with cinema: Kar-wai’s Eros, Soderbergh and Antonioni’s Peur(s) du noir. He works on the animated sequences for Charles Nemes’ film, Il Etait une fois.. and creates the characters for Enzo D’Alò’s animated film Pinocchio. The Fonds Hélène et Edouard Leclerc pour la Culture dedicated a major retrospective to him at Landerneau (Dec. 6, 2015-March 6, 2016).
In 2017, with Jerry Kramsky, he published the graphic novel Garland published by Logos editions and Blind. From Darkness to Light in support of CBM Italy Onlus (Logos editions, 2017). In February 2018, an exhibition celebrating his 20-year collaboration with the New Yorker magazine is dedicated to him at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, and, to mark the occasion, the volume Lorenzo Mattotti. Covers for the New Yorker (Logos Editions). In March 2018, one of his first comic novels with texts by Lilia Ambrosi, Lilia Ambrosi’s L’uomo alla finestra, was reprinted-again with Logos Edizioni, while in May 2018 it was the turn of Stigmate, produced together with Claudio Piersanti (Logos Edizioni).
Recently, Lorenzo Mattotti directed the French-Italian animated film The Famous Invasion of the Bears in Sicily. The film, based on Buzzati’s book of the same name, was released in October 2019 and was selected to be screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Mattotti’s universe now seamlessly spans comics, painting, illustration and film animation.
His latest book, published in 2021 by Rizzoli Lizard, is Peripheral. Stories at the margins.
