ANNIE LEIBOVITZ

Photographer
Benaroya Hall, 7:30 pm
Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Underwritten by Goldman Sachs & Co. and Reed, Longyear, Malnati & Ahrens, PLLC

Biography
Excerpt
Selected Works
Links

Biography

Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz was studying painting at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1970 when she signed up for a night class in photography. Not long after, she shot a photograph of some ladders in an apple orchard, sent the image to Robert Kingsbury, then the art director of Rolling Stone, and was hired immediately and quickly promoted to chief photographer. In 1975 she went on the road with the Rolling Stones, photographing Sly Stone, Tammy Wynette, and the life of rock n’ roll on the open road. By the end of the decade she was irrevocably cool.

In 1983 Leibovitz moved from Rolling Stone to Vanity Fair and in 1998 added Vogue to her resumé. Larger budgets gave her significantly more leeway to conceive her imagination’s desires, and with them she shot the luminaries of the time in settings of intense and informal glamour. Movie stars, artists, athletes, and politicians have all come under her gaze, and in each image she has revealed something between nothing and everything. ''I don't mind doing something obvious,'' she said in an interview with the New York Times. ''I'm not looking for the ultimate image, the ultimate essence of someone. The chances of that happening are far and few between.'' What she sets up, time and again, are images that bring the viewer into some sort of intimacy with the subject, even if only imagined: John Lennon curled around Yoko Ono; Demi Moore naked and pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair; Bruce Springsteen’s backside; Whoopi Goldberg in a bathtub of milk.

With otherworldly celebrities Leibovitz uses bright light to frame bodies, underexposes backgrounds to create a supernatural cast. For Olympians she shoots grainy silver gelatins, bronzing muscles, and bodies in flight with Grecian splendor. “A Leibovitz shot of a famous man or woman languishing on a settee or shaving in front of a bathroom mirror owes more to a Thomas Gainsborough portrait of a smirking earl seated in his lovely study, one foot resting on his knee, than it does to any recognizable photographic reference,” noted Ginia Bellafante for the New York Times. “Unlike Avedon, who shoots his subjects against blank backgrounds, her emphasis is almost completely on context.” Her background in painting may have given her this specific sense of light and composition, but that alone does not explain her signature style, so infused with intuition. Perhaps it is something she says to her subjects, or perhaps it is her own privacy that lets people expose themselves to her. Regardless, while her set-ups may be the most imitated of any photographer, no one has yet to achieve her intimacy.

In addition to her magazine editorial work, Leibovitz has created advertising campaigns for American Express, the Gap, Givenchy, The Sopranos, and the Milk Board. She has exhibited widely, and her journalistic and personal work has been collected in six books: Photographs, Photographs 1970-1990, Olympic Portraits (from the Atlanta games), Women, American Music, and A Photographer’s Life 1990-2005, a catalog for the traveling exhibit that debuted at the Brooklyn Museum in October 2006. Of the last, featuring personal photographs of her family, her three daughters, and her lover, Susan Sontag, Leibovitz said, “With Susan it was a love story. With my parents it was the relationship of a lifetime. And with my children it’s the future. I just tried to create an honest work that had all those things in it.”

Excerpt

Annie Leibovitz at Work will be out in November 2008. We look forward to providing an excerpt as soon as we receive our advance copy. The following is a brief synopsis of the book from Random House, Ms. Leibovitz’ publisher.

In Annie Leibovitz at Work over one hundred photographs are accompanied by a narrative by Leibovitz discussing the circumstances under which the work was made, both logistically and thematically, and her relationships with and thoughts about many of her subjects.

Leibovitz began her career as a photographer for Rolling Stone in 1970. In the ensuing four decades she has produced a large and distinguished body of work that encompasses portraiture, reportage, advertising work, and some of the most famous covers in magazine history. In 2004, the American Society of Magazine Editors named Leibovitz’s portrait of John Lennon with Yoko Ono taken the day he was killed, which appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone, the best magazine cover of the last forty years. Her portrait of the nude and pregnant Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair was number two on ASME’s list.

Leibovitz’s new book documents the arc of her career, beginning with an account of working with Hunter S. Thompson on the story of Richard Nixon’s resignation. The photographs include portraits of the Rolling Stones, Bette Midler, Meryl Streep, the Blues Brothers, Whoopi Goldberg, Keith Haring, Joan Didion, Ella Fitzgerald, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Patti Smith, Nicole Kidman, Johnny Depp, Cate Blanchett, William S. Burroughs, Agnes Martin, Queen Elizabeth II, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. There are discussions of photojournalism, fashion photography, the dilemmas presented by magazine covers, photographing nudes, working with writers, and making the transition from shooting film to using digital cameras. Technical information and the publishing history of each picture are provided, along with answers to the ten questions Leibovitz is most often asked.

“When I’m asked about my work, I try to explain that there is no mystery involved. It is work. But things happen all the time that are unexpected, uncontrolled, unexplainable, even magical. The work prepares you for that moment. Suddenly the clouds roll in and the soft light you longed for appears.” —Annie Leibovitz

Selected Works

Annie Leibovitz at Work (2008)
A Photographer’s Life 1990-2005 (2006)
American Music (2004)
Women (2000)
Olympic Portraits (1996)
Photographs 1970-1990 (1991)
Photographs (1983)

Web Links

Corcoran Gallery bio:
http://www.corcoran.org/leibovitz/Page2.html

PBS American Masters: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/leibovitz_a.html

Powell’s interview:
http://www.powells.com/authors/leibovitz.html

In conversation with Jane Sarkin O’Connor of Vanity Fair: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/annie_leibovitz/audio.php