Light, like running water and electricity, is easy to take for granted. But to legendary photographer Ruth Bernhard, it's vital. "Light is the real teacher," she declares in the foreword to Margaretta Mitchell's illustrated biography Between Art & Life; it is her inspiration, her intangible "paint and brush." Now 95, the American icon lauded by Ansel Adams as "the greatest photographer of the nude" has spent the better part of her life manipulating light to create unparalleled works of art. Provocative yet classically refined, her images caress the lines and curves of the human form, revealing a devotion to technical precision without subduing what she describes as the "innate life force and spirit" of her subjects. A comprehensive retrospective of her work, "Ruth Bernhard: Life Behind the Lens," opens Saturday at the J.J. Brookings Gallery.
Revealing and subtle at the same time, Wet Silk, one of Ruth
Bernhard's less famous nudes, leaves much to the imagination.
Details
Opens July 21 with a reception from 5 to
8 p.m.
Admission is free
Call 546-1000 to RSVP
She will also be honored at the opening
of the print exposition "Photo San
Francisco 2001" on Thursday, July 26,
from 6 to 9 p.m. at Herbst Pavilion, Fort
Mason Center, Marina & Buchanan, S.F.
Admission is $35; call 552-9201.
J.J. Brookings Gallery, 669 Mission (at
Third Street), S.F.
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A resident of the Bay Area since the '50s, Bernhard has been feted on numerous occasions, her work included in permanent collections of major museums worldwide. But with more than 130 photographs spanning 1929 to 1976, the Brookings exhibit is one of few to capture the breadth and depth of Bernhard's prolific career. Born in 1905, she left her native Germany at 22 and moved to New York City, where she dabbled in photography. But it wasn't until a fateful meeting with modernist photographer Edward Weston in 1935 that Bernhard realized the full potential of the medium. There was no turning back: As she asserts in the photo essay Ruth Bernhard: The Eternal Body, capturing a form or an object on film was comparable to a "heightened emotional response, most akin to poetry and music."
Distilling a life's work into a limited number of images is a challenge -- one that Nini Gibert, director of the Brookings Gallery, tackled with relish. Conferring with Bernhard and her longtime assistant, Mary Ann Helmholtz, Gibert sought to create a show that "wouldn't be limited to her most famous nudes." It includes select pictures from each of Bernhard's "important years" as a photographer, sentimental snapshots of the artist at work and at play, several of her most famous nudes, including Perspective II and In the Box (Horizontal), and some lesser-known pieces. Ten vintage prints that have never been shown publicly share wall space with non-nudes and still lifes.
A teacher all her life, Bernhard stopped shooting in 1976 because of a case of carbon monoxide poisoning that left her unable to produce the quality of work she demanded of herself. The loss has been her "greatest regret," a tragedy for one who feels her "enjoyment of life began with [her] eyes." Fortunately, "Life Behind the Lens" goes a long way toward capturing her tremendous spirit and brilliance.
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