Herb Ritts: L.A. Style

Paul Martineau
With an essay by James Crump

Herb Ritts's iconic images capture sensuality, celebrity, and artistry at the intersection of fashion and culture.

“Ritts was L.A. style.”
—Vogue

"Cindy, Naomi, Christy. All the supermodels are front and center in this stunning roll call that is Herb Ritts: L.A. Style.”
—Harper's BAZAAR

Herb Ritts: L.A. Style charts the life and legacy of one of photography’s most influential image-makers through iconic and previously unpublished works, paired with incisive essays. His lens shaped how we see fashion, celebrity, and the human body.

Largely self-taught and rooted in Los Angeles, Ritts developed a signature style, one that often made use of the California light and landscape which helped to separate his work from his New York-based peers. From the late 1970s until his untimely death from AIDS in 2002, he bridged fine art and commercial photography, collaborating with leading fashion designers and magazine editors while redefining visual culture in the post-Pop era.

• Examines the confluence of art, commerce, and celebrity culture in late twentieth-century photography.
• Positions Ritts among other photographers noted for artfully capturing the male nude like Edward Weston, Bruce Weber, and Robert Mapplethorpe, among others.
• Features a large selection of photographs spanning Ritts’s entire career.

Within these pages, you’ll be seduced by an artist who transformed photography into timeless glamour. This compelling volume is for lovers of fashion, art, and cultural history.

An exhibition of the same name was on view at the Getty Center April 3 through August 12, 2012; at the Cincinnati Art Museum October 6 through December 30, 2012; and at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, February 23 through May 19, 2013.

Paul Martineau is associate curator in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. He is the author of Paul Outerbridge: Command Performance (Getty Publications, 2009) and Still Life in Photography (Getty Publications, 2010). James Crump is chief curator and curator of photography at the Cincinnati Art Museum. In 2007, Crump wrote, produced, and directed the documentary film Black White + Gray, featuring the influential curator and collector Sam Wagstaff and artist Robert Mapplethorpe.

“[This book] draws from the archives of one of the most influential and celebrated fashion photographers of the late 20th century, offering an impressive collection of Ritts’s sumptuous nudes and portraits of supermodels and celebrities.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Herb Ritts’s use of light, form and composition to communicate strength and poise evince his true genius.”
—Resource

“[This book] should appeal to a wide audience, from arts and photography holdings to those interested in fashion history and California artists. It’s a dynamic gathering of all of Herb Ritts’s images and is not be missed.”
—The Midwest Book Review

“[This book] explores the life and legacy of this icon.”
—Metrosource

224 pages
9 1/2 x 12 inches
30 color and 135 tritone illustrations
ISBN 978-1-60606-100-8
hardcover

Getty Publications
Imprint: J. Paul Getty Museum

2012