Background
Baruch was born in Berlin on June 15, 1922 in Berlin, Germany. Along with her parents, she emigrated to New York City in 1927.
Baruch was born in Berlin on June 15, 1922 in Berlin, Germany. Along with her parents, she emigrated to New York City in 1927.
She graduated from the University of Missouri in 1944 and received Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Journalism. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Photography from the School of Fine Arts, Ohio University, Athens ,and then from 1946 to 1949 she attended the San Francisco Art Institute. She studied with Ansel Adams, Minor White, Dorothea Lange, Homer Page, and Edward Weston at the California School of Fine Arts.
Baruch is a self-employed photographer and writer, making "statements on the human condition ... in a straightforward manner." She worked in 2lA and 4x5 formats in the 1940s and 1950s and since 1961 has worked in 35mm. Ruth-Marion Baruch is a photographer most famous for her pictures of the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s. These include series on the Black Panther Party and the hippies of Haight-Ashbury. Baruch's photographs were exhibited in Perceptions at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1954 as well as Edward Steichen's New York Museum of Modern Arts exhibition, The Family of Man in 1955.
A book of her poetry A Dangerous Thing was published in September 2002 by Apollo Press and Black Panthers 1968 in collaboration with Pirkle Jones, with an essay by Kathleen Cleaver was published by Greybull Press in October 2002.