For the past twelve years, Paola Gianturco has worked as a photojournalist, documenting women’s lives in forty countries. Women Who Light the Dark (September 2007) is her fourth to be published by powerHouse Books.

In 2006, Gianturco co-authored with David Hill, ¡Viva Colores! A Salute to the Indomitable People of Guatemala, a bilingual book met with critical acclaim.

Her previous book, Celebrating Women (October 2004) was the subject of the first exhibit ever curated by the International Museum of Women, San Francisco. Celebrating Women was shown by the Field Museum in Chicago (March-September 2008) and seen by 195,000 visitors. The exhibit was chosen to represent the United States during the month of March 2009, at UNESCO’s international headquarters, Paris.

Paola is the co-author/photographer with Toby Tuttle of the best seller, In Her Hands: Craftswomen Changing the World (powerHouse Books, paperback, 2004; Monacelli Press, hardcover, 2000). This was Gianturco’s first book, inspired by the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

All of Gianturco’s books are philanthropic projects, for which she donates her royalties to carefully selected nonprofit organizations that relate to each book's content. For Women Who Light the Dark, Gianturco is giving 100% of her author royalties to the Global Fund for Women, which advocates for and defends women’s human rights by making grants to support women-run groups around the world.

Gianturco’s photographs have appeared in Marie Claire (US, Greek, Taiwan editions), Essence Magazine, Harpers Bazaar-Australia, Spirituality and Health, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, and many other periodicals.

Paola has been a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, NPR and Voice of America programs, and interviewed on many local radio and television shows.

Her work has been exhibited at the United Nations, New York; UNESCO, Paris; the United States Senate; The Field Museum, Chicago; The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Washington DC; The Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena; the International Museum of Women, San Francisco; and the San Jose Museum of Art. More than 40 of her photographs are on display in the permanent collection of The Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco.

Gianturco has lectured all over the country, including at The American Craft Museum, The Peabody Museum, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, and The Smithsonian Renwick Gallery.  

Paola Gianturco’s involvement with women’s issues is long-standing. She was senior vice president of the first women-owned advertising agency in the United States; co-developed and taught executive institutes about women and leadership at Stanford University and Mills College; served on the Board of Directors of The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (1999-2000). Her board work in the international arena also includes serving as Chair (2000-2001) of the Board of the Crafts Center in Washington DC, which works with low-income artisans in 79 countries.

Prior to 1995, Gianturco worked for 34 years in advertising, public relations, corporate communications and marketing. Her conversion from businesswoman to photographer is described in A Matter of Choice: 25 People Who Have Transformed Their Lives, edited by Joan Chatfield-Taylor (Seal Press, November 2004), and Retirement Is Only a Word: Women Redefine What’s Next by The Transition Network and Gail Rentsch (Springboard Press, June 2008).

Gianturco graduated from Stanford University in 1961 and lives in Mill Valley, California.

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Read Diana Serbe's article in the "One Good Thing" section about Paola at inmamaskitchen.com

Paola was honored by two photographers in Bob Sacha’s course at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops in New Mexico, June 2007. One classmate made a mini-film about her; the other wrote a poem.
Follow Your Heart, Don Spears
The Silver Haired Woman, Julie Skarrat