Hugo Redivo is of Italian-German descent and came from Switzerland, where he was employed for 2½ years by the Italian Foreign Ministry at the Italian Legation in Bern, to Penticton, Canada in 1949. He is a 1953 graduate of the New York Institute of Photography and has been a teacher, lecturer and judge of professional photography since 1958. His work has been exhibited, published and winning prizes and awards internationally since 1952. His photographs have been published in newspapers, TIME, Canadian Geographic, Beautiful B.C. Magazine and other publications too numerous to mention. He was featured in a B.C. book, "Sun, Sage and Sand" and, in 1978, Oxford University Press published his own photo book "THE OKANAGAN," of which 15,000 copies were sold. In 1985 and 1986 he published his "Sunny Okanagan" calendars, with scenic colour photographs.

Hugo Redivo's work has been exhibited in Canadian galleries in Toronto, Vancouver, Midland, Ont., and Calgary, and more than once in Penticton, the most recent showing, entitled "The Photogenic Grape," being in 1994, in conjunction with the Okanagan Wine Festival. One exhibition was mounted in Roveredo in Piano, Italy.

Hugo Redivo received two special awards, a Silver and a Bronze Medal, from the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair. He was twice named Photographer of the Year of B.C. and was honoured with a Fellowship of the Professional Photographers of British Columbia. (PPABC). In 1978 the Professional Photographers of Canada (PPOC) awarded him the designation Master of Photographic Arts. For two years, 1970 and 1971, he was president of PPABC. In 1979 and 1980 he held the office of president of PPOC, the Canadian national professional photographers association. In July 1986, he received the prestigious Photographic Craftsman (Cr. Photog.) award of the Professional Photographers of America, PPA. In September 1990, the PPA conferred Life Membership on him. He is also an Honorary Life Member of PPOC and of PPABC. For 12 years he was a CBC cameraman and news reporter.

Hugo Redivo is well known as a portrait artist and for his scenic photographs. His fine-art black and white photographs, printed on fibre-based paper, processed to archival standards, are collectors' items, some in limited editions. They are in private collections in North America and Europe. Some of his work is in the permanent collections of the Professional Photographers of America and in the National Archives of Canada.

In 1986 he exhibited in the Art Gallery of the South Okanagan black and white photographs taken during a trip through Italy in 1984, featuring the medieval city of Gubbio in Umbria and Roveredo in Piano (Venezia-Giulia), his paternal village. On another trip through southern Italy he added photographs of Le Puglie, the south easternmost region of Italy, to his collection. These are areas off the familiar tourist track.

In the Spring of 1986 Hugo Redivo was commissioned by the Italian Cultural Centre in Vancouver, BC to produce a photographic exhibition of black and white photographs of sculptures, monuments and buildings in Vancouver created and designed by Italian-Canadian artists and artists of Italian descent to show the influence these Italian-Canadians have had on Vancouver. The exhibition of 80 photographs was on display for more than two months in the Italian Cultural Centre gallery during Expo 86 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of City of Vancouver. Later, another exhibition was mounted in the same Italian Cultural Centre consisting of a series of black and white photographs of the Le Puglie region in southern Italy. This was the third time his photographs were exhibited there.