Ruth-Marion Baruch (1922 – October 11, 1997),[1] was a German-born American photographer, remembered for her pictures of the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s.[2]

Ruth-Marion Baruch
Self portrait
Born1922 (1922)
Berlin, Germany
DiedOctober 11, 1997(1997-10-11) (aged 74–75)
San Rafael, California, United States
EducationUniversity of Missouri,
Ohio University,
California School of Fine Arts
Known forPhotography
SpousePirkle Jones

Early life and education

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Baruch was born into a Jewish family in Berlin on June 15, 1922.[3] She and her family migrated in 1927 to the United States. She was raised in New York City, her father Max Baruch was a neurosurgeon.[1]

She received a BA degree in 1944 in English and journalism from the University of Missouri. She studied photography at Ohio University, and received an MFA degree in 1946;[4] and she attended classes from 1946 to 1949 at the California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute) in San Francisco,[5] in the first class of students taught by Ansel Adams, Minor White, Dorothea Lange, Homer Page, and Edward Weston after World War II.[6]

Photography

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Baruch's works, in collaboration with photographer and husband Pirkle Jones, including Illusion For Sale,[7] and a series on the Black Panther Party taken from July to October 1968,[8] and a series on the hippies of Haight-Ashbury.

Baruch's photographs were exhibited in Perceptions at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1954, as well as Edward Steichen's New York Museum of Modern Art exhibition, The Family of Man in 1955.[9]

Donated by the Marin Community Foundation, The Pirkle Jones and Ruth-Marion Baruch Collection, an archive of photographs documenting the people, landscape, and politics of California in the mid-20th century, is the largest single gift in history, to U.C. Santa Cruz, with an estimated value of $32 million.[10][11]

Exhibitions

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  • “Walnut Grove: Portrait of a Town," collaboration with Pirkle Jones, exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Art, 1964.
  • “Illusion For Sale,” San Francisco Museum of Art, 1965.[12][7]
  • Haight Ashbury, San Francisco's M.H. de Young Museum, 1968
  • A Photographic Essay on the Black Panthers, collaboration with Pirkle Jones, exhibited de Young Museum, December 1968 through February 1969. This exhibition travels to the Studio Museum of Harlem in 1969.[13] The Vanguard: A Photographic Essay on the Black Panthers, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970).

References

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  1. ^ a b Sward, Susan (1 November 1997). "OBITUARY - Ruth-Marion Baruch". SFGate. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
  2. ^ Mann, Margery (1966-03-01). "Ruth-Marion Baruch's Illusion For Sale At The San Francisco Museum Of Art". Artforum. Retrieved 2024-04-05.
  3. ^ Baruch, Ruth-Marion; Jones, Pirkle (1970). The Vanguard: A Photographic Essay on the Black Panthers. Boston: Beacon Press. p. 11. ISBN 9780807005521.
  4. ^ "Ruth-Marion Baruch is Believed First to Get Master's Degree in Photography," Ohio University Post, Athens, Ohio, June 5, 1946
  5. ^ "Ruth-Marion Baruch", Lumière. Retrieved 4 April 2013.
  6. ^ Comer, Stephanie; Klochko, Deborah; Gunderson, Jeff (2006). The Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
  7. ^ a b Baruch, Ruth-Marion; Jones, Pirkle. "Ransohoff salesgirl dreaming, #9 from Illusion For Sale, San Francisco". digitalcollections.library.ucsc.edu.
  8. ^ "The Black Panthers 1968: Photographs by Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones", University of California/Berkeley Art Museum, http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/press/release/TXT0061 accessed December 14, 2011
  9. ^ Heick, William; Latour, Ira; Macauley, Cameron (2016). The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts, 1945-1955. Steidl.
  10. ^ Rappaport, Scott (7 October 2016). "UC Santa Cruz receives largest-ever gift". University of California. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
  11. ^ "Pirkle Jones photos of Panthers, Summer of Love on exhibit". Marin Independent Journal. 12 May 2011. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
  12. ^ Frankenstein, Alfred (December 21, 1965). "Illusion for Sale Exhibition: San Francisco Museum of Art". San Francisco Chronicle.
  13. ^ Black Power Flower Power: Photographs by Pirkle Jones and Ruth-Marion Baruch. The Pirkle Jones Foundation. 2012. pp. 11, 12, 13. ISBN 978-0-9819933-8-6.
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