Ruth Silverman, photographer, curator and dealer, dies
Ruth Silverman, a respected photographer, curator and dealer in photographs, died at her Berkeley home on April 10 from complications of Parkinson’s disease.
Ms. Silverman arrived in the Bay Area in 1990 with a distinguished career in the photography field already behind her.
Taking a cue from her, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art later hosted retrospectives of camerawork by Daido Moriyama and Shomei Tomatsu, two outstanding artists whom some Americans in the field regarded as her discoveries, although they were well known in Japan.
The U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity commissioned work by her, and she enjoyed a brisk business as a portrait photographer in Washington, D.C.
Women curators at arts institutions were comparatively rare then, but Ms. Silverman justified her mentor’s confidence by initiating or participating in the organization of more than 100 exhibitions, including surveys devoted to Bernice Abbott and to dance photography.
[...] no less characteristic were the “Dog Grids,” arrays of color images of objects pertaining to dogs, for which she had a passion.