I read this morning that she passed away Monday morning. A great artist that will be missed. Rest In Peace.

Here is alink to the story that I found: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c … ss.bayarea

Sigh. I was going to stay away but I came across this on the main page and couldn't resist. I met her 10 years ago. A tiny little woman who was a grande dame in the truest sense, she very definition of spry, with a mind like a steel trap, and a straight-shooting, matter-of-factual sense of humor. Even if you didn't know her photography, just meeting her you'd guess that she was great at something.

And "fine art nude" shooters have been blatantly ripping off her act for 50 years now. Like Ansel Adams, I think she's kind of the end of her line, creatively. The apogee of a particular tradition in art, from which there seems to be no evolution, (only mimicry), perhaps because the idea is now outdated.

Rest in peace, Ms. Berhard.

ahhhhhhh crap. I always had this belief that she, like her images, would really live forever. Marko, you're lucky to have met her. It was always a dream of mine.

A really great artist gone.... Sad but her work will live on forever...

so sad ::::

She had an excellent eye and imagination. I was surprised to read that her father was the noted type designer. Thanks for the link.

A sad day for the rest of us, but good grief what a wonderful life and career she had! Such a great artist.

I had the pleasure of spending a day with her, about 15 years ago.  That was a joyous, memorable day.  Here are some of the things I remember.

She spent 20 minutes looking at two eggs & noting how different they were from each other.

She loved my little portable, collapsable reflector.  I left it with her.

At one point, we were walking along the street & conversing, when suddenly, I noticed that she was no longer walking by my side.  I turned around & there she was, 10-15 feet behind.  She had picked up a pine cone from the ground & was holding it up to the sunlight, turning it this way & that.  Despite being well in her 80's at the time, she had a child-like wonder at everything.  She clearly was noticing stuff that never made it past my internal filter.

Her hands were always busy.  She was always touching things & people.

While she was well known for her nudes (and for good reason), she loved her still life images.  We talked more about those than the nudes.  She had a favorite of a silver teapot that had been run over by a truck.

When we were talking about the nudes, I asked her how many exposures did she make during her typical sitting.  Her answer was "Oh, just the one."  I was floored by that answer.  An exception:  her famous image of the nude lying in the box -- she made two exposures that day:  the horizontal one was the famous one, but she made a vertical one, too.  That box was the box that her enlarger was shipped in.

I don't think she ever used strobes, and used artificial lights rarely (if at all).  She came from an era where photographic materials weren't very "fast", so her style was developed based on long exposures.  Her nudes were still lives -- not much action, not much in terms of robust settings.

Another famous picture was of two models -- one white model with her back towards the camera & one black model behind the white one, with her hand wrapped around the white woman's waist, holding the small of her back.  Ruth had been working with the two models & was not finding what she wanted -- she asked the two models to stand close to each other, but the white model didn't hear her, so the black model was in the act of moving the white model closer when Ruth made the exposure.

At the end of the day, I was exhausted.  She wore me out.


She was from the golden age of photography.  This is sad news.

I must admit that I really didn't know her name, but I do know some of her work. Thank you all for the posts, without which I would have never know about this side of her.