Ruth Bernhard

Profile Ruth Bernhard

© Ruth Bernhard

“I look at ordinary objects, and I see things that other people don’t see.
That’s why I’m a photographer”
 Ruth Bernhard


─── by Josh Bright, August 21, 2019
  • Deemed “The finest photographer of the nude form”  by her friend and contemporary Ansel Adams, Ruth Bernhard, renowned for her striking monochrome compositions, was one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century.

    Nude black and white picture of a woman by Ruth Bernhard
    Hips Horizontal, 1975


    Born in Berlin in 1905, her father was a multidisciplinary designer, best known for his graphic and type work, which led to his renown as ‘
    The Father of the German Poster’. Though not always present during her early life, he remained an important influence, and it is therefore unsurprising that she chose to study typography and art history at the Berlin Academy of Art in 1925.

    She left in 1927, moving to New York to join her father who had emigrated some years before. It was here that her active interest in photography began, initially working as a darkroom assistant at the studio of renowned photographer and filmmaker Ralph Steiner. Although she would remain there barely a year, her experience influenced her to purchase her first camera, an 8X10, marking the beginning of a remarkable seven-decade long career.

    Black and white picture by Ruth Bernhard
    Untitled c. 1939


    The camera purchase coincided with her moving to Manhattan, specifically Greenwich Village, where she found a place among the lesbian artistic community (Bernhard had romantic relationships with both men and women throughout her life). It was here that she began experimenting with capturing the nude female form, though it would be some years before any such depictions were published.

    Black and white picture by Ruth Bernhard
    Hand in Hand, 1956
    Black and white picture by Ruth Bernhard
    Angelwing, 1943


    Her major breakthrough came in 1930, in the form of
    Lifesavers, a partially abstract composition depicting small circular mints rolling tentatively across a flat surface. Displaying some of the mastery of light and form for which she would later become synonymous, it caught the eye of Dr. M.F. Agha, then the art director of Vogue, who arranged for its publication in Advertising Art Magazine a year later. This in turn led to numerous similar assignments, primarily in advertising and industrial design.

    Lifesavers, 1930 © Estate of Ruth Bernhard


    Spring of 1934 marked an important point in Bernhard’s career. She was commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, to photograph their
    Machine Art exhibition for the accompanying catalogue (the first official exhibition catalogue the museum had ever produced).

    One of the exhibits was a large metal bowl, inside of which, in order to make the object more compelling, Bernhard captured one of her female friends, curled up naked, representing her first published depiction of the nude female form.

    Black and white picture by Ruth Bernhard
    Embryo, 1934 © Estate of Ruth Bernhard / MOMA


    A year later she moved to California where a chance meeting with Edward Weston would significantly alter the course of her career. Stunned by her fellow photographers’ artistic approach, Bernhard, for the first time,  realised the true potential of the medium
    “It was lightning in the darkness,” she said. “Here before me was indisputable evidence of what I had thought possible — an intensely vital artist whose medium was photography.” 

    Nude black and white picture of a woman by Ruth Bernhard
    Symbiosis, 1971
    Nude black and white picture of a woman by Ruth Bernhard
    Configuration, San Francisco, 1962


    The pair would form a close and long-lasting friendship, during the early stages of which, Weston acted as somewhat of a mentor to the younger artist. The imagery of both are pervaded with a palpable sense of drama, rich in symbolism, which at times flirts with the surreal, whilst both also shared a penchant for depicting the organic.

    Weston, also captured the nude form, though not with the same prolificacy, as Bernhard, who viewed subjects with an empathetic eye.  Images are tender, imbued with eroticism though not overtly sexual, in opposition to the widespread objectification of women in art during that time, and an approach which would be hugely influential on the feminist photography movement of the 1970s.

    Silk, 1968 © Estate of Ruth Bernhard
    Silk, 1968 © Estate of Ruth Bernhard


    She was, almost exclusively a studio photographer, patient and highly meticulous in her approach, often spending several days setting up a single composition and invariably shooting from a single, considered angle. Her mastery of light is remarkable, bestowing her subjects (both human and inanimate) with a delicate sculptural quality, in order to fully display the beauty of their form.

    At the pool, 1951© Estate of Ruth Bernhard
    At the pool, 1951© Estate of Ruth Bernhard
    Black and white picture by Ruth Bernhard
    Straws, 1930


    Despite garnering significant praise within photography circles, much like many of her female contemporaries, she remained relatively unknown to the wider public for much of her career. She made most of her money through private commissions, and from the turn of the 1960s from teaching, both privately and at several prestigious universities.

    She viewed this work as of greater importance than her photography, and, rather than the technical aspects of the medium, she focused her efforts on teaching students how to observe, and to harness the power of light, skills that made her own work so outstanding.

    Nude black and white picture of a woman by Ruth Bernhard
    Classic Torso with Hands, 1952 © Estate of Ruth Bernhard


    By the turn of the 1970s, the popularity of photography as a whole had begun to increase exponentially, and consequently, Bernhard’s work had finally begun to receive the recognition it so thoroughly deserved. By the end of the decade her images were incorporated into the permanent collections of both the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, whilst the first portfolio of her work, Collected Light was published in 1979.

    In 1986 “The Eternal Body” a monograph encompassing fifty of her nudes was published to widespread acclaim, cementing her place as one of the finest photographers of the naked form in the history of the medium. She died in 2006, two months after her 101st birthday, leaving behind a remarkable body of work that, to this day, continues to both delight and inspire viewers.

     

    All Images © Ruth Bernhard