Famed Photographer Herb Ritts Dies in L.A.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Legendary fashion and celebrity photographer Herb Ritts died on Thursday from complications of pneumonia at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, his publicist said.
Ritts, 50, had been hospitalized a few days before his death for an unspecified condition, his publicist Stephen Huvane said. Just 10 days earlier he had photographed actor Ben Affleck for a Vanity Fair magazine cover and was directing music videos, Huvane said.
Ritts, who lived in Los Angeles, is survived by his partner, Erik Hyman, as well as his mother and three siblings. Private memorial services were planned for January in Los Angeles, Huvane said.
Ritts photographed the icons of three decades in fashion spreads, album covers, advertisements and music videos.
A native southern Californian, Ritts began his career in the late 1970s with informal portraits of friends in the movie industry. He moved from fashion spreads in the late 1970s and early 1980s to nude studies of Masai women in Africa to famous portraits of pop singer Madonna, jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and actor Jack Nicholson made up as “The Joker” for the film “Batman.”
Curators of a recent show of his work at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston described him as “an image maker for our time who translated our culture’s dreams and desires into strong memorable pictures.”
Rest In Peace, Mr. Ritts.
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