Ruth Bernhard

Ruth Bernhard (October 14, 1905 – December 18, 2006) was a German-born American photographer.

Bernhard was born in Berlin to Lucian Bernhard and Gertrude Hoffmann.

Lucian Bernhard was known for his poster and typeface design, many of which bear his name and are still in use.

Bernhard's parents divorced when she was 2 years old and she only met her mother twice after the divorce.

She was raised by two schoolteacher sisters and their mother.

Bernhard's father Lucian was a major proponent of Ruth's work, and advised her frequently.

By the late-1920s, while living in Manhattan, Bernhard was heavily involved in the lesbian sub-culture of the artistic community, becoming friends with photographer Berenice Abbott and her lover, critic Elizabeth McCausland.

Bernhard studied art history and typography at the Berlin Academy of Art from 1925 to 1927 before moving to New York City to join her father.

In 1927 Bernhard moved to New York City, where her father was already living.

She worked as an assistant to Ralph Steiner in Delineator magazine, but he terminated her employment for indifferent performance.

Using the severance pay, Bernhard bought her own camera equipment.

Her first realization that she was attracted to other women occurred on New Year's Eve 1928 when she met the painter Patti Light.

She wrote about her "bisexual escapades" in her memoir.

In 1934 Bernhard began photographing women in the nude.

It would be this art form for which she would eventually become best known.

In 1934 Ruth received a commission from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to photograph works for the Machine Art exhibition catalog.

Her father Lucian Bernhard set up the meeting with MoMA for her.

In 1935, she chanced to meet Edward Weston on the beach in Santa Monica.

She would later say;

"I was unprepared for the experience of seeing his pictures for the first time. It was overwhelming. It was lightning in the darkness ... here before me was indisputable evidence of what I had thought possible—an intensely vital artist whose medium was photography."

Bernhard was so inspired by Weston's work that, after meeting him in 1935, she moved to California (where he lived).

In 1939, Bernhard moved back to New York for eight years, during which time she met photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

Bernhard was inspired by the small things in her life.

In the 1940s she worked with the conchologist Jean Schwengel.

She worked almost exclusively in black-and-white, though there are rumours that she had done some color work as well.

By 1944 she had met and became involved with artist and designer Eveline (Evelyn) Phimister.

The two moved in together, and remained together for the next ten years in Carmel, California.

Here, Bernhard worked with Group f/64.

Soon, finding Carmel a difficult place in which to earn a living, they moved to Hollywood where she fashioned a career as a commercial photographer.

In 1953, they moved to San Francisco where she became a colleague of photographers such as Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Minor White, and Wynn Bullock.

Most of Bernhard's work is studio-based, ranging from simple still lifes to complex nudes.

She began teaching at the University of California in 1958, while also giving lectures, classes and workshops all over the United States.

She also is known for her lesbian themed works, most notably Two Forms (1962).

In that work, a black woman and a white woman who were real-life lovers are featured with their nude bodies pressed against one another.

A departure was a collaboration with Melvin Van Peebles (as "Melvin Van"), then a young cable car gripman (driver) in San Francisco.

Van Peebles wrote the text and Bernhard took the unposed photographs for The Big Heart, a book about life on the cable cars.

In the early 1980s, Bernhard started to work with Carol Williams, owner of Photography West Gallery in Carmel, California.

In an interview from 1999 with Photographers Forum, Ruth states," I’m most interested in—the little things that nobody observes, that nobody thinks are of any value".

In the same interview she stated that,"Everything is universal" and that she was "very much aware of that".

This idea of minimalism drove her passion for photography.