Emanuela Gardner was born in Verona, Italy, in 1952 and was raised in Rome. She studied philosophy at the University of Rome and continued to develop her skills as a painter and photographer.

In 1981 Emanuela arrived in New York after spending a few years in London and India. There she joined the Art Student League to continue developing her painter’s research. Photographing Jeff Koons for Vogue Italia was the beginning of her career as a portrait photographer, which over the past 20 years has included Raul Julia, Carl Bernstein, Leo Castelli, and Walter Cronkite to name a few. Aside from portraits, she has an extensive body of work as a landscape photographer. She has exhibited her landscapes in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Rome and Paris.

For the past 10 years Gardner has been living in Todos Santos, Baja California.