Ruth Bernhard (1905–2006, b. Berlin,
American) is best known for her studio-based
photography work of nude women. Moving to
New York from Berlin in the late 1920s, the artist
was deeply rooted in the lesbian subculture
of her artistic community. Treating all of her
subjects as worthy of detailed observation,
Bernhard’s close-up rendering of the female
form, shells, or advertisement products aligns
her work with Modernist photography. Her
expanded focus, which included images of
doll heads and architectural containers for
the human body, as in In the Box - Horizontal
(1962), lends a psychological element that
has categorized her work as a prototype of
Surrealist photography. Bernhard’s graphic
and evocative subject matter sets a precedent
to photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe
as well as renowned contemporary artists
working in photography, such as Zoe Leonard
and Cindy Sherman.
–Affinities and Outliers: Highlights from the University at Albany Fine Art Collections