LA photographer known for nude self-portraits dies at 58

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles photographer who chronicled the patrons of a working-class lesbian bar in the 1990s and captured her own body like a sculpture amid desert landscapes, has died. She was 58.

Friends tell the Los Angeles Times that Laura Aguilar died peacefully Wednesday at a nursing home in Long Beach after one last day with “loving visitors.”

Chon Noriega, director of the Chicano Studies Research Center, says Aguilar’s loss is profound. He says she had a unique ability to cut through biases and express the beauty of the human body.

Sybil Venegas, an independent curator and friend, says Aguilar was doing lesbian portraits at a time when many Latinos were not open to homosexuality.

The Times reports that her series of poetic nude self-portraits drew widespread critical attention.

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Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com/