Ruth Bernhard, San Francisco, CA Photograph - Limited Edition of 1

Photographer Ruth Bernhard did still lifes and many other kinds of photographs, but she became particularly well-known for her nudes that she did in the 1940's and early 1950's of women in cardboard boxes. I made this image of Bernhard in a friend's photo studio with an Asian woman who was his girlfriend at the time. Ruth was probably in her early eighties, but she kept bragging about the fact that she had a boyfriend who was ten years younger than she was, and black, who kept her quite active. That didn't stop her from liking women. She couldn't stop talking about what a beautiful ass this Asian girl had. Ruth enjoyed her walks on both sides of the street. It made me appreciate and understand Ruth's photographs of nudes, since while they're beautifully composed and fairly restrained, there's definitely an undercurrent of sexual feeling.