Ruth Bernhard

Ruth Bernhard (1905-2006) was a German-American photographer whose luminous images of the female nude, still lifes, and everyday objects made her one of the most celebrated photographers of the twentieth century. Born on October 14, 1905 in Berlin, she was the daughter of the influential graphic designer Lucian Bernhard, and she was raised primarily by two aunts while her father established his career in advertising. She studied briefly at the Berlin Academy of Art before moving to New York in 1927 to join her father, where she began her professional life as a commercial photographer.

The transformative encounter of Bernhard's career came in 1935, when she met the West Coast photographer Edward Weston. Weston's rigorous, contemplative approach to the still life and the nude showed Bernhard what photography could be as a serious artistic practice, and she eventually relocated to California, where she became part of the vibrant West Coast photography community that included Weston, Ansel Adams, and Imogen Cunningham. Ansel Adams later called her "the greatest photographer of the nude."

Bernhard's images are marked by their meticulous composition, their exquisite tonal range, and the deep reverence with which she approaches her subjects. Her nudes are treated with a sculptural purity that has nothing to do with eroticism, and works such as In the Box - Horizontal and Perspective II have become among the most reproduced photographs of their era. Alongside her photographic practice, Bernhard was a beloved teacher and mentor for decades, and she lived openly as a lesbian at a time when this was unusual for a public figure. She died on December 18, 2006 in San Francisco at the age of 101.