Remembering Renate Ponsold

The Dedalus Foundation remembers Renate Ponsold (1935-2023), who was married to Robert Motherwell from 1972 until his death in 1991.

Ponsold was a noted photographer who specialized in portraits of artists and writers. She collaborated with Motherwell on the illustrations for APROPOS: Robinson Jeffers, edited by Constance W. Glenn (1981), and was the author of Eye to Eye: The Camera Remembers (1988), a collection of her photographs of which Motherwell wrote, “She can listen to poets, composers, painters, and sculptors endlessly, and with complete comprehension, because she herself is wholly creative, not only in photography but in everything on every level.”