Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones Photographs

Collection Contents

This collection contains a selection of photographs by Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones, whose work visually documents the people and landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area during a time of enormous social, political, and environmental change.

Included here is the entirety of Baruch's work, from her earliest 1940s prints, taken during her time as a college student and novice photographer, to her later works in portraiture as a seasoned artist. Social consciousness permeated Baruch's themes centered around women, children, youth, and race, as evidenced by her most famous projects, such as The Black Panthers, Haight-Ashbury, and Walnut Grove, as well as her lesser-known works like Renaissance Faire, Zoo, and Children, They Grow in the City. In addition to Pirkle Jones' contributions to the Black Panther series of photographs, included here is his collaboration with Dorothea Lange, the photographic series, Death of a Valley.

Some image titles in this collection contain offensive terms that identify subjects by race, ethnicity, or physical appearance. These titles were supplied by the artist(s) or were derived from inventories provided by the donor. In publishing this metadata, we recognize that these terms do not align with current terminology and practice; we chose to retain them to reflect and preserve the context in which these images were created and named. Some photographs also contain nudity.

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