Bernard Lee 'Bern' Schwartz was born in 1914 in New York, NY. His parents had migrated to the United States as children from Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine) and Russia, and they raised Bern in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Bern attended Lehigh University, but his studies were interrupted after a year due to the death of his father. He returned to New York to find employment and earn a living, taking a position working with his uncle at Electro-Chemical Engraving Co. in 1933. Schwartz formed his own company, Pilot Products, in 1937 and thereafter built a business career in industry. His early successes included buying and transforming a textile manufacturing company in 1954 and selling it to Standard Oil of Indiana in 1968. He acquired Sherman, Clay & Co., a California-based purveyor of musical instruments, in 1960. The company expanded into a national chain specializing in acoustic and electronic keyboard instruments. In late 1944 Bern met Rosalyn 'Ronny' Ravitch who had recently graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in Geology and was working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The two went on to marry and have three children.

Throughout his business career, Bern maintained a keen interest in photography as a hobby. After he and Ronny moved to La Jolla, California, in 1970, he decided to pursue his passion for the medium in earnest. Initially he learned the basics of portrait photography from New York photographer Antony 'Tony' di Gesu. In addition to conducting research and attending lectures, Bern commenced private lessons with celebrated photographer, Philippe Halsman, known for his iconic Life Magazine covers and his influential 'Jump' series of famous sitters like Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, shown leaping in the air. Of their lessons, Halsman recalled, 'I never had a more enthusiastic or dedicated student'*. Schwartz gradually developed his own unique style, incorporating technical skill with personal charm, qualities that he had developed in business. He favoured a Hasselblad 500C camera with a motor drive ‒ usually with an extension cord on the shutter release to photograph his subjects, typically in their own homes or offices. In collaboration with Ronny, he conducted extensive research before meeting his sitters and would engage them in a meaningful dialogue, photographing them while in conversation to create warm and animated portraits.

Schwartz soon established himself as a leading portrait photographer of the late 1970s. His sitters included the most influential cultural and political figures in the United Kingdom, Israel, and the United States. Among them were artists, musicians, actors, writers, philosophers, philanthropists, government officials, and royalty. By then Bern and Ronny divided their time between La Jolla and London, where they had a suite at the Berkeley Hotel and a flat in Eaton Square. The suite and the flat were sometimes used as galleries to showcase Bern's photographs for guests and for potential sitters. Occasionally, sittings took place at these locations, although his preference was to capture subjects in their own environments. Bern and Ronny worked as a team throughout his photographic career. Ronny arranged sittings, corresponded with the subjects, and oversaw the research and editing of diary entries. She also assumed a curatorial role in organising printing proofs, editing, cropping, indexing the portrait sessions, and writing and overseeing publications. The duo would supply prints to their sitters, asking only for a charitable donation to be made, usually to the Queen's Silver Jubilee Appeal Fund and the Development Fund of the Royal Opera House.

In 1977, the first official exhibition of Bern's work took place at Colnaghi Gallery in London. It featured his iconic portraits of sitters such as Margaret Thatcher, Harold Wilson, Angela Rippon, and David Hockney. A year prior to this, in the spring of 1976, Schwartz had been invited to Jerusalem. An exhibition of photographs from this trip was later held at Bryn Mawr College, PA, displaying his portraits of influential Israeli leaders, including Golda Meir and Theodor 'Teddy' Kollek. Schwartz worked prolifically and photographed over 200 subjects between 1977 and 1978, including, in June 1978, taking one of the last portraits of Pope Paul VI in the Vatican before his death two months later. In the foreword to the book Contemporaries: Portraits by Bern Schwartz (edited by Ronny Schwartz: London, Collins, 1978), Kenneth Clark wrote: 'Bern Schwartz's photographs portray for us a section of English society in the 1970's as vividly as the photographs of Mrs Cameron portrayed the society of the 1860's... I believe that the historian of England in the 1970's will find these photographs an invaluable guide to the intellectual life of the time; and meanwhile we can enjoy them as wholly admirable examples of the art of photography.'

In December 1978, Bern Schwartz died after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. Ronny continued to advance Bern's work, organising posthumous exhibitions in Washington D.C., New York, and San Diego, researching new colour printing methods, and maintaining relationships with Bern's sitters, which often developed into close friendships. She collaborated with the American printer Ctein to produce a series of dye transfer prints of Bern's key portraits. Ronny passed away in 2012, but her work is continued by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, that advocates for the advancement of public knowledge and appreciation of photography. Bern Schwartz's portraits were exhibited throughout the United States in the early 1980s and his work was most recently exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, London, (2008-2009) and two galleries in Jerusalem (2012). His portraits are held in museum and private collections worldwide.

* Philippe Halsman, 'Bern Schwartz. A Yankee Photographer who Became the Toast of England', American Photographer, July 1979, p.25