The Golden Hour: A Photographer’s Life and His World is a new book about Herb Ritts’ life and legacy. Among the most esteemed and well respected fashion and celebrity portrait photographers, as well as an acclaimed director of music videos, Herb Ritts’ images ranged from Masai warriors and angelic underwear models, to Olympic athletes and one-named superstars. Author Charles Churchward, a long-time and distinguished art director at publications including Vogue and Vanity Fair, spent the last five years interviewing Ritts’ family, and scores of his photographic subjects, business associates, curators, staff, closest confidants, and friends. Apart from text by Churchward, the book contains more than 200 photos by Ritts. Published by Rizzoli, The Golden Hour will be released in October priced at $65 / £40.

Rizzoli Press Release

HERB RITTS: THE GOLDEN HOUR

A Photographer’s Life and His World

By Charles Churchward
Foreword by Richard Gere
Introduction by David Fahey
Hardcover with Jacket / 8.5” x 11” / 320 pages with over 200 color and B&W illustrations / $65.00 U.S.
ISBN: 978-88-317-3472-3 / Rizzoli New York / Release date: October 2010

Rizzoli is pleased to announce THE GOLDEN HOUR: A Photographer’s Life and His World, an intimate look at Herb Ritts’ life and legacy in words and photographs, to be released in October. Among the most esteemed and well respected fashion and celebrity portrait photographers, as well as an acclaimed director of music videos, Herb Ritts’ indelible images ranged from Masai warriors and angelic underwear models, to Olympic athletes and one-named superstars.

For THE GOLDEN HOUR, first-time author Charles Churchward, a long-time and distinguished art director at publications including Vogue and Vanity Fair, spent the last five years interviewing Ritts’ family, and scores of his photographic subjects, business associates, curators, staff, closest confidants, and starspangled friends including Anna Wintour, Madonna, Annie Leibovitz, Cindy Crawford, Elton John, kd lang, Richard Gere, and Christopher Buckley.

Churchward also meticulously researched Ritts’ personal archive to select intimate portraits, images of extravagant Hollywood parties, travels to exotic locales, and other unforgettable moments from an extraordinary career. These mesmerizing images, and the colorful tales based on hundreds of hours of Churchward’s interviews result in a very personal look at the charmed life of the legendary photographer, and provide a bird’s eye look into the sexy world of glamour, celebrity, fame, and a life lived in the center of Hollywood royalty.

Churchward worked closely with Ritts throughout his career, and is thus in a special position to assemble this comprehensive oral and visual biography of a man who was not only one of photography’s great personalities, but also a close personal friend.

At the time of his far-too-early death in 2002, Ritts had created stunning images that embodied the cultural zeitgeist of celebrity, the era of supermodels, mega rock stars, and of Hollywood’s sacred monsters. In addition to being the go-to portraitist for the world’s most famous personalities, Ritts’ was also enlisted by Rolling Stone, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and glamour brands of the era including Calvin Klein, Versace, and Chanel, delivering not just portraits or fashion, but dreamy modern fantasies of visual pleasure that captivated male and female sensuality.

In the introduction to The Golden Hour, gallery owner and personal friend David Fahey summed up Herb Ritts as “…charismatic, disarming insightful and confident – a creative collaborator with an exceptionally discerning eye. He was a master of capturing iconic figures within their pop culture moment. He had the ability to look at the same things as everyone else – and see something different.”

About the Author: Charles Churchward is best known as a design and art director in the magazine world having worked on some of the most important and influential publications over the last three decades, most notably for Vogue and Vanity Fair. Churchward lives in New York City and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Gallery Director David Fahey has been a fine art photography dealer in Los Angeles since 1975. Richard Gere is an award-winning actor and a human rights activist.

HERB RITTS: THE GOLDEN HOUR
By Charles Churchward
Foreword by Richard Gere and Introduction by David Fahey
Hardcover with Jacket / 8.5” x 11” / 320 pages with over 200 color and B&W illustrations
$65.00 U.S., $76.00 Canadian, £40.00 UK
Rizzoli New York / ISBN: 978-88-317-3472-3
Release date: October 2010
www.rizzoliusa.com

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