?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
THE LARGEST EXAMPLE OF THIS ICONIC WORK EVER MADE RUTH BERNHARD (1905-2006) Nude in the Box - Horizontal. Oversize silver print, the image measuring 19x33⅞ inches (48.3x86 cm.), the sheet 25x35¾ inches (63.5x90.8 cm.), with notations in pencil on verso. 1962; printed 1992
Provenance: Gifted by Bernhard to a close friend
Ruth Bernhard is best-known for her sumptuously lit and sensuously composed female nudes. "My quest, through the magic of light and shadow, is to isolate, to simplify and to give emphasis to form with the greatest clarity," she said. "To indicate the ideal proportion, and reveal sculptural mass and the dominating spirit, is my goal."
Bernhard moved to New York from Berlin in 1927. She worked briefly in Ralph Steiner's studio, after which she purchased her first camera, working successfully on advertising and industrial photography assignments. A chance encounter with Edward Weston left her intensely inspired by his work and the creative potential of photography, and she changed the trajectory of her career, moving to California in 1935 in order to study with Weston in Carmel. Eventually settling in San Francisco, Bernhard joined Group f/64 in the 1940s along with other Modernist West Coast photographers such as Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Wynn Bullock, and Minor White. Detail, precision, and photographic clarity defines their imagery, and Bernhard didn't deviate from this mission, though her work has also been described as a prototype for Surrealist photography. Bernhard's careful compositions, all made in the studio, often took days to formulate. This image, one of her most iconic, epitomizes Bernhard's blend of careful, detailed, observant work with sensuous psychological investigation and evocatively rendered prints.
A print this size of Nude in the Box has never appeared on the market. There is another example in the collection of Princeton University, the repository of Bernhard's Estate.
