American fashion photographer and director known for his photographs of celebrities, models, and other cultural figures throughout the 1980s and 1990s. His work concentrated on black and white photography and portraits, often in the style of classical Greek sculpture, which emphasized the human shape. He also directed television commercials and music videos, including Madonna’s “Cherish” and Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.”
Ritts attended Bard College in New York but returned to his home state of California and began taking informal portraits of friends in the movie industry. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, he photographed men’s and women’s fashions for magazines, and his well-known work includes covers for such prestigious publications as Interview, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and Elle magazines.
In 1988, he published his first book simply entitled Pictures, immediately followed by Men/Women in 1989. In 1994 he released his last of several books, Africa, in which he featured shots of Massai people. Ritts photographed some of the world’s political and cultural leaders, providing intimate portraits of the likes of Ronald Reagan, Stephen Hawking and the Dalai Lama.
Herb Ritts died at age 50 on 26 December 2002 at the University of California Los Angeles Medical Center of complications from pneumonia.
Link to Wikipedia biography