APAA Client Spotlight: In Conversation with The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation
American photographer Bern Schwartz (1914-1978) photographed some of the most creative and powerful personalities of the 20th century – from artists (David Hockney, Henry Moore), actors (John Gielgud, Alec Guinness) and dancers (Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev) to heads of state (Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir) and royalty (King Charles). His lively and colorful portraits are veritable time capsules, providing fascinating insights into the 1970s era. Today they feature in museum and private collections worldwide. In 2021 The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation donated the photographer’s archive to the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford.
Bern Schwartz, Self-Portrait with Ronny Schwartz and Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, 1978 © The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation
The APAA talks to the photographer’s son, Michael Schwartz, chairman of The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, to learn more about Bern and Ronny Schwartz, their remarkable legacy and the role of art advisor, Dr. Anne Varick Lauder, in ensuring that legacy lives on.
At age 60 Bern Schwartz took up photography as a second career. In just over four years his portfolio included the most famous people of the day. Could you tell us briefly how that came about?
Following a successful forty-year career in business, Bern moved to La Jolla, CA in 1970. There he met portrait photographer Antony (“Tony”) di Gesu, whose clients included Truman Capote, Irving Berlin and J.D. Salinger. They shared a studio where Tony taught Bern the fundamentals of color portrait photography. In 1975, Bern met Philippe Halsman, who shot more than 100 covers for Life magazine, after his lecture at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. He politely asked the master photographer to take him on as student, which evolved into private sessions. Halsman later remarked, “I never had a more enthusiastic or dedicated student.” Bern’s first projects were portraits of Bryn Mawr College professors, which then led to taking portraits in the UK, Israel and France. In 1976, Bern was invited by Colnaghi Gallery in London to take portraits for a special exhibition of eminent Britons to commemorate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee (1977). In a whirlwind of activity, Bern photographed over sixty luminaries to great acclaim. His jump photo of newsreader Angela Rippon landed the cover of The Sunday Times Magazine. This led to other commissions and a book of Bern’s portraits (1978) edited by Ronny (my mother), his wife and partner in photography. After the book launch at Covent Garden and an invitation from the Vatican to photograph the new pope (John Paul II), we learned that Bern had advanced pancreatic cancer. Tragically, his life and second career as a photographer came to a sudden end.
Bern Schwartz, King Charles III, 1977 © National Portrait Gallery, London
Could you comment on Bern Schwartz’s approach to portraiture?
Bern was interested in doing pleasing visual biographies. In many ways, he applied his business skills to photography. He came to every sitting prepared, having done extensive research on each subject, his/her field of expertise and interests. They were often photographed in their home or office, settings that were familiar and comfortable. Relating to his subjects was key; the goal was to have them forget they were being photographed. As British journalist and broadcaster Alistair Cooke once said, “it was as it we weren’t even having our picture taken, just talking to a friend.” Indeed, some of the sitters became life-long friends. They included Louis Mountbatten, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, who invited Bern and Ronny to Broadlands, his country home, on three different occasions to be photographed. Our archive contains many letters between my parents and Lord Mountbatten and attest to the strong friendship that evolved.
Do you have a story about the portraits that you’d like to share?
At Lord Mountbatten’s recommendation, Bern photographed his nephew, King Charles, then the 29-year-old Prince of Wales, at Buckingham Palace. It was 1977, a year after he left the navy and founded The Prince’s Trust, a charity that supports young people. During the sitting they discussed Philippe Halsman’s famous “jump” photographs of celebrities. Prince Charles turned to Bern and said, “you’re not going to ask me to jump, are you?” He did not. The final image shows the young Prince seated in a chair, relaxed and smiling. We were pleased to learn that it was among the fifty-nine portraits featured in Charles III: The Making of the King (National Portrait Gallery, London, 2023).
Bern Schwartz, David Hockney, 1977 © National Portrait Gallery, London
Do you have a favorite work in the collection? Are there any hidden gems?
Bern enjoyed ballet and was pleased to photograph Dame Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, probably the greatest dance partners in the history of ballet. Poised and majestic, Dame Margot takes tea in front of her portrait by Pietro Annigoni while an exhausted Nureyev rests in between marathon performances at the London Coliseum. A firm favorite is the portrait of David Hockney in his studio in Notting Hill Gate (1977). With paint brushes in hand, he poses with his recently completed My Parents (Tate, London) and Self-Portrait with Blue Guitar (Mumok, Vienna). Among the highlights of the archive are the unpublished digital contact sheets, which allow us to follow the course of each sitting like a cinematic storyboard. The Hockney and King Charles sheets are particularly illuminating.
Could you tell us how and why you chose to donate the archive to the Bodleian Library in Oxford?
As the sitters were mostly British, a UK institution was the natural choice. Bern already had considerable presence in the UK with our gift of 143 dye transfer prints to the National Portrait Gallery in 2006, the largest gift in the gallery’s history. Since then, the Foundation has continued to support museums and photography exhibitions, including the Daniel Meadows show at the Bodleian’s Weston Library in 2019.
Building on the relationship with the Bodleian, our advisor, Dr. Anne Varick Lauder, recommended that we gift the entire photographic and documentary archive to the library, which we did in 2021, following an earlier donation of prints. The timing was ideal as the Bodleian was consolidating and expanding their holdings, making photography central to their mission. It was a great fit as several of Bern’s sitters have their papers there, including former prime ministers Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher and Edward Heath. It also joined other artists' archives in the library, such as that of pioneering British photographer, Henry Fox-Talbot.
We’re keen that the material be accessible to all. To this end, we supported a Bodleian cataloguer to systematize the collection within two years followed by a Bern Schwartz exhibition in 2025. In doing so it is our hope that the unseen treasures of the archive – the elegantly composed letters between my parents and their famous subjects, their insightful journal entries detailing conversations, the lesson diaries with Philippe Halsman, will be brought to light and enrich our appreciation of Bern’s work and the era in which he lived.
Non-profits have a long history of working with APAA advisors from curating and managing their collections and archives to finding permanent homes for them. Can you describe your experience of working with APAA Executive Member, Dr. Anne Varick Lauder?
Anne (or “Vara”, as we fondly know her) has been the Foundation’s Curator and Senior Advisor for well over a decade. Given her academic background in art history and extensive experience working in museums and galleries, we initially brought her on to conceive and execute the Bern Schwartz exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery in London (2008-09) and two others in Jerusalem (2012) along with their accompanying catalogues. We soon realized that her abilities extended well outside the curatorial realm. Always bringing creative ideas and fresh perspectives, she has been invaluable in promoting the collection as well as the varied philanthropic interests of the Foundation. Placing collections is an important part of her offering as an advisor. We are delighted that the Bern Schwartz Archive has found a permanent home at the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford and we have Anne to thank for making this happen.
