Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York is pleased to present Portraits in Bloom, a new series of photographs by Paulette Tavormina. In her second solo exhibition with the gallery, Tavormina takes inspiration from 17th-century Old Master still life paintings, transforming their rich symbolism into contemporary photographic portraits of flowers.
Tavormina races against time to stage and curate each portrait in her studio after hand picking various fresh florals. Thus, rather than presenting flowers in traditional vases, she captures peonies, lilacs, dahlias, roses, tulips, foxglove, and more, in various stages of life, from tightly furled buds to petals in decline. Butterflies and insects often appear within her compositions, reinforcing the interconnectedness of the natural world while echoing the allegorical depth of Old Master paintings.
For Tavormina, flowers are not only symbolic but deeply personal. Her lifelong love of flora stems from childhood days spent in her grandparents’ garden on Long Island, where her grandfather’s plum, fig trees, and plate sized dahlias alongside her grandmother’s award-winning roses, left a lasting impression. Today, Tavormina continues that tradition, cultivating many of the flowers featured in her photographs from her own Connecticut garden. In Portraits in Bloom, Tavormina elevates these homegrown specimens into elegant, timeless compositions. Each work is both a meditation on beauty’s transience and a tribute to the enduring, intimate bond between memory, family, and the natural world.
Paulette Tavormina lives and works in New York City and Connecticut. Her photographs are held in museum, corporate and private collections and have been exhibited in Paris, London, Moscow, Lugano, Madrid, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Palm Beach, Boston, Palm Desert and San Francisco. Tavormina also has a successful career as a commercial photographer, photographing Gucci’s Alchemist’s Garden Perfume campaign. She has photographed works of art for Sotheby’s, fragrances for GOOP, and recipes for The Del Posto Cookbook (Hachette) with chef, Mark Ladner. She has been commissioned by National Geographic Magazine and The New York Times, among others. Previously, Tavormina was a prop and food stylist in Hollywood, her work seen on the silver screen in seven films such as Nixon, The Astronaut’s Wife and The Perfect Storm. Most recently, she was invited to show her works at the Château des Joncherets showcase in Saint Lubin des Joncherets, France, which opens to the public in January 2026.
