SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Ruth Bernhard, a pioneer among U.S. women photographers best known for her lovely abstract images of female nudes, has died. She was 101.
Bernhard, who was born on Oct. 14, 1905, in Berlin, died at her San Francisco home Monday of natural causes, her business manager, Mary Ann Helmholtz, said.
The Los Angeles Times said Bernhard had a chance meeting with influential photographer Edward Weston on the beach in Santa Monica in 1935 that would change her art and her life. She would later say: "I was unprepared for the experience of seeing his pictures for the first time. It was lightning in the darkness."
Bernhard added she had not previously truly respected photography, but after their meeting, she began to take herself seriously as an artist, focusing on her technique under Weston's influence
In a 2005 interview with The Times, Arthur Ollman, former director of the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, said:"Ruth saw photography as a way to heighten reality, as did Weston. She made the usual seem extraordinary."
