Works
  • Bruce Bernard, Leigh Bowery and Nicola Bateman posing for “And the husband” by Lucian Freud, 1993
    Leigh Bowery and Nicola Bateman posing for “And the husband” by Lucian Freud, 1993
  • Bruce Bernard, Leigh Bowery and Nicola Bateman posing for “And the Husband” by Lucian Freud, 1993
    Leigh Bowery and Nicola Bateman posing for “And the Husband” by Lucian Freud, 1993
  • Bruce Bernard, Lucian Freud’s ‘Naked Self-Portrait’ in the studio, 1993
    Lucian Freud’s ‘Naked Self-Portrait’ in the studio, 1993
  • Bruce Bernard, Lucian Freud Posing as ‘a Henry Moore’, 1985
    Lucian Freud Posing as ‘a Henry Moore’, 1985
  • Bruce Bernard, Francis Bacon in the Studio Doorway, 1983
    Francis Bacon in the Studio Doorway, 1983
Biography
Bruce Bernard was a leading curator and editor, but he was also an extraordinary photographer in his own right - a fact recognised two years after his death, by Tate Britain in their exhibition Bruce Bernard: Photographs of Painters.
 
Born in 1928, Bernard’s father was a scenic designer for operas and his mother was a singer. He moved from school to school throughout his youth meeting Lucian Freud when he was about fourteen – the beginning of a life long friendship. After school he went on to study painting at Saint Martin's School of Art, and from there drifting on to working in London's Soho neighbourhood. Originally a painter, he produced little in this medium despite having a studio for this purpose. Photographs, however, he took constantly - documenting the Bohemian scene of which he was a stalwart member. In 1949, he met Francis Bacon.
 
Bernard photographed Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach and Euan Uglow in the artist's heydays. His photographs are fascinating portraits for being those of an insider - portraits of the men with whom he regularly met to drink and socialise. Artists, who, despite the renowned privacy of their studios, admitted him into their creative spaces.
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