The daughter of designer Lucian Bernhard, Ruth Bernhard studied art in Berlin and worked in a commercial photography studio before moving to New York in 1927. There, she served as a darkroom assistant to Ralph Steiner and quickly established herself in Greenwich Village’s vibrant lesbian community, where she became close friends with photographer Berenice Abbott and her partner Elizabeth McCausland. Although she is best known for her abstract still lifes and sensual female nudes, Bernhard also worked for many leading architects and industrial designers, including the Austrian-born Frederick Kiesler, whose remarkable New York Film Guild building is pictured here.