Herb Ritts – L.A. Style

This is a stunning collection of photographs - many never before published - celebrating the remarkable talent of Herb Ritts. "Herb Ritts" traces the life and career of the iconic photographer through a compelling selection of both renowned and previously unpublished, photographs and two insightful essays. Herb Ritts (1952-2002) was a Los Angeles-based photographer who established an international reputation for distinctive images of fashion models, nudes, and celebrity portraits. During the 1980s and 1990s, Ritts was sought out by leading fashion designers such as Armani, Gianfranco Ferre, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Valentino, and Versace, as well as magazine editors from "GQ", "Rolling Stone", and "Vanity Fair", among others, to lend glamour to their products and layouts. Largely self-taught, Ritts developed his own style, one that often made use of the California light and landscape and helped to separate his work from his New York-based peers. From the late 1970s until his untimely death from AIDS in 2002, Ritts' 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 synergistic union between art, popular culture, and business that followed in the wake of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

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About the Author

Paul Martineau is curator in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. He is the author of Rodney Smith (Getty, 2023), Imogen Cunningham (Getty, 2020), and Icons of Style (Getty, 2018).

 

James Crump is chief curator and curator of photography at the Cincinnati Art Museum. In 2007, Crump wrote, produced, and directed the documentary film Black White + Gray, featuring the influential curator and collector Sam Wagstaff and artist Robert Mapplethorpe.