If you happened to see pretty much any fashion and lifestyle magazine in the 80’s and 90’s then you most likely saw the iconic work of Herb Ritts. He was known for his black and white portraits of fashion, film, music, and political celebrities, using clean lines and strong forms to challenge conventional notions of race and gender.  Recently, I was lucky enough to be invited to the opening of the Herb Ritts exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum and was blown away by his “body” of work (see what I did there?).  Ritts exemplified the cross section of design, fashion and fine art and shaped the way we looked at celebrities in publications like ‘harper’s bazaar’, ‘vogue’, ‘elle’, ‘vanity fair’, ‘rolling stone’, and many more for nearly two decades.   

Learn more about Herb Ritss at http://www.herbritts.com/ or go pick up one of these beautiful books by Paul Martineau with an essay by Cincinnati’s James Crump.