Herbert
"Herb" Ritts (August 13, 1952 – December 26,
2002) was an American fashion photographer who concentrated on
black-and-white photography and portraits, often in the style of
classical Greek sculpture.
Early life and career
Born
in Los Angeles, to a Jewish family,[1] Ritts began his
career working in the family furniture business. His father, Herb
Ritts Sr., was a businessman, while his mother, Shirley
Ritts, was an interior designer. He moved to the East
Coast to attend Bard College in New York, where he
majored in economics and art history. Later, while living in Los
Angeles, he became interested in photography when he and
friend Richard Gere, then an aspiring actor, decided to shoot
some photographs in front of an old jacked up Buick. The picture
gained Ritts some coverage and he began to be more serious about
photography. He photographed Brooke Shields for the cover
of the Oct. 12, 1981 edition of Elle and he
photographed Olivia Newton-John for her Physical album
in 1981. Five years later, he would replicate that cover pose
with Madonna for her 1986 release True Blue.
Later notable photographs
During
the 1980s and 1990s, Ritts photographed celebrities such as Diana
Ross, Christopher Reeve, Belinda Carlisle, Michael
Jackson, Britney Spears, Madonna, Mariah Carey,Michael
Jordan, Dalai Lama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Francesco
Clemente, George Clooney, Cher, Mel Gibson, Elizabeth
Taylor, Brad Pitt, Ronald Reagan, Julia
Roberts, Stephen Hawking, Nicole Kidman, Edward
Norton, Tom Cruise, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dizzy
Gillespie, Elton John, Annette Bening, Antonio
Banderas, Richard Gere, Jack Nicholson, Cindy
Crawford, David Bowie[2] and Tina Turner.
He
took many fashion and nude photos of supermodel Cindy
Crawford and eventually set her up with his good friend,
actor Richard Gere, at a BBQ held at his mother Shirley's house.
The couple married four years later in 1991, but divorced in 1995.
He
also worked for the
magazines, Interview, Esquire, Mademoiselle, Glamour, GQ, Newsweek, Harper's
Bazaar, Rolling Stone, Time, Vogue, Allure, Vanity
Fair, Details, andElle. He photographed Prince for
his The Hits/The B-Sides greatest-hits package released in
1993. He published many books on photography for leading fashion
designers including, Giorgio Armani, Revlon, Ralph
Lauren, Chanel, Gianni Versace, Calvin
Klein, Elizabeth Arden, Donna
Karan, Cartier, Guess, Maybelline, TAG
Heuer, Lacoste,Gianfranco Ferré, Levi's, Victoria's
Secret, Gap, Acura, CoverGirl, Lancôme,
and Valentino. From 1996 to 1997 his work was displayed at
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, attracting more
than 250,000 people to the exhibit, and in 2003 a solo
exhibition was held at the Daimaru Museum, in Kyoto, Japan.
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