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Herb Ritts Gallery
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| Herb Ritts, 1952-2002 - News - Brief Article Genevieve WallerOn December 26, 2002, renowned American photographer Herb Ritts passed away after the sudden onset of pneumonia complicated by HIV. continued below... |
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Ritts was born in 1952 in Brentwood, California, and after studying art history and economics at Bard College, became interested in photography while working at his family's furniture and design company. The photograph that launched his career was an image of Richard Gere taken in 1978 that was chosen as a publicity still for the film American Gigolo. Ritts began doing work for various magazines soon after, including Harper's Bazaar, Interview, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Vogue, shooting distinctive fashion images and celebrity portraits that built his reputation as a photographer. He also shot images used for advertising campaigns for designers such as Goprgop Armani, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Gianni Versace.
Herb Ritts' first solo exhibition was held at the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles in 1988. He published various books of both his commercial and independent work throughout the 1990s, including Duo (1991), featuring studies of a gay couple; Africa (1994), made up of images of the Masal people; and Herb Ritts; Work (1997), a compilation of his photographs of celebrities and nudes. A major retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1996 and another was launched in Paris in 2000. Ritts continued to work on commercial and personal projects up until December 2002 when he was taken ill.