HERB RITZ: L.A. STYLE
April 3 - August 26, 2012
Herb Ritz revolutionized fashion photography, modernized the nude, and transformed celebrities into icons.
Stephanie, Cindy, Christy, Tatjana, Naomi, Hollywood (1989), an iconic image that has come
to define the era of the Supermodel.
LOS ANGELES - Herb Ritts (American, 1952–2002) was a Los Angeles-based photographer who established an international reputation for his distinctive photographs of fashion models, nudes, and pop icons. From the late 1970s until his untimely death from AIDS in 2002, Ritts's ability to create photographs that successfully bridged the gap between art and commerce was not only a testament to the power of his imagination and technical skill but also marked the synergy between art, popular culture, and business that followed in the wake of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This exhibition features a selection of Ritts's vintage prints, magazine covers, Polaroids, and commercial video projects.
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| Cindy Crawford by Herb Ritts, Ferre 3, Malibu, 1993. |
Through hard work and a distinctive vision, Herb Ritts fashioned himself into one of the top photographers to emerge from the 1980s. Ritts's aesthetic incorporated facets of life in and around Los Angeles. He often made use of the bright California sunlight to produce bold contrasts, and his preference for outdoor locations such as the desert and the beach helped to separate his work from that of his New York-based peers. Ritts's intimate portraiture, his modern yet classical treatment of the nude, and his innovative approach to fashion brought him international acclaim and placed him securely within an American tradition of portrait and magazine photography that includes Richard Avedon, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Irving Penn.
From the late 1970s until Ritts's untimely death from AIDS-related complications in 2002, his ability to create images that successfully bridged the gap between art and commerce was not only a testament to the power of his imagination and technical skill but also marked the synergistic union between art, popular culture, and business that followed in the wake of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Following its presentation at the Getty, this exhibition will be on view at the Cincinnati Art Museum from October 6 to December 30, 2012, and at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Florida from March 1 to June 2, 2013.
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| Veiled Dress, El Mirage (1990), a photograph first used in Versace’s couture catalogue. |
Fashion
For his fashion photographs, Ritts drew inspiration from painting, sculpture, film, and the work of such leading fashion and portrait photographers as George Hurrell, Horst P. Horst, Louise Dahl Wolfe, Irving Penn, and Richard Avedon. Ritts's ability to synthesize and incorporate these influences into a new style that was easily recognizable was nothing less than extraordinary.
As hundreds of magazine spreads demonstrate, Ritts kept top fashion editors happy by providing a dazzling mix of pictures designed to sell clothes with others that simply celebrated beauty. Ritts cherished his creative freedom and pushed picture editors to use the photographs that he knew would capture people's attention. Once seen, his best fashion pictures are impossible to forget.
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| Versace Dress, Back View, El Mirage, 1990, Herb Ritts, gelatin silver print. Gift of the Herb Ritts Foundation.© Herb Ritts Foundation. |
This masterpiece of fashion photography unites several of Ritts's favorite elements: architectonic shapes, unusual adjacencies, and warm light. To create the black tunnel-like shape that surrounds the model, Ritts hung a tarp on a large metal frame and used wind machines to blow it out. The contrast between the matte dress fabric and the slightly reflective sheen of model Christy Turlington's skin gives the nude areas dimension.
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| Naomi Campbell, Face in Hand, Hollywood, 1990, Herb Ritts, gelatin silver print. Gift of the Herb Ritts Foundation.© Herb Ritts Foundation |
Ritts took chances with his work, and sometimes his clients did not accept his decisions. This high-contrast fashion photograph was part of a series of pictures rejected by American Vogue. Confident that these photographs were among his best, Ritts arranged to have them published in Interview magazine. This pinkish/brown print is the result of partially bleaching it and then adding color back in using a double strength sepia-toning solution.
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| Wrapped Torso, Los Angeles, 1989, Herb Ritts, platinum print. © Herb Ritts Foundation |
To show off this dress by Issey Miyake, Ritts selected a dark backdrop and had model Karen Alexander adopt a ballet-like pose. Lighted from above, the semitranslucent fabric both reveals and obscures the contours of the model's body. The photographer's choice of the platinum printing process over the less expensive and more common gelatin silver process gives the photograph a significantly wider range of tones and a luxurious matte surface.
Source: J.Paul Getty Museum
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