Wednesday 5 December 2012

Annie Leibowitz



"I sometimes find the surface interesting. To say that the mark of a good portrait is whether you get them or get the soul - I don't think this is possible all of the time."                              
 Annie Leibovitz
http://www.biography.com/people/annie-leibovitz-9542372

Annie Leibovitz was born on October 2, 1949, in Waterbury, Connecticut. While studying painting at the San Francisco Art Institute, she took night classes in photography, and in 1970, she began doing work for Rolling Stone magazine. She became Rolling Stone’s chief photographer in 1973. By the time she left the magazine, 10 years later, she had shot 142 covers. In 1983, she joined the staff at Vanity Fair, and in 1998, she also began working for Vogue. In addition to her magazine editorial work, Leibovitz has created influential advertising campaigns for American Express and the Gap and has contributed frequently to the Got Milk? campaign. She has worked with many arts organizations, including American Ballet Theatre, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Mark Morris Dance Group, and with Mikhail Baryshnikov.
http://www.vanityfair.com/contributors/annie-leibovitz 

http://www.nytimes.com/library/photos/leibovitz/bourgeois.html

Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990–2005 includes over 150 photographs by the celebrated photographer, encompassing well-known work made on editorial assignment as well as personal photographs of her family and close friends. "I don't have two lives," Leibovitz says. "This is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it."


The exhibition features many of Leibovitz's best-known portraits of public figures, including actors such as Jamie Foxx, Nicole Kidman, and Brad Pitt; athletes preparing for the 1996 Olympic Games; George W. Bush with members of his Cabinet at the White House; and her famous 1991 image of then-pregnant actress Demi Moore, one of the most recognisable photographs of its time. The show also highlights images of artists and architects such as Richard Avedon, Brice Marden, Philip Johnson, and Cindy Sherman. Leibovitz’s assignment work includes reportage from the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s and the election of Hillary Clinton to the U.S. Senate.

At the heart of the exhibition, Leibovitz's personal photography documents scenes from her life, including the birth and childhood of her three daughters, and vacations, reunions, and rites of passage with her parents and extended family.

Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990–2005 threads together the two sides of Leibovitz's work both chronologically and creatively, projecting a narrative of the artist's private life against the backdrop of her public image as one of the world's best-known portrait photographers.

http://www.npg.org.uk/annieleibovitz/index.htm

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/09/annie-leibovitz-photography-exhibition-wexner#slide=1

Breaking the mold: In 1991 Leibovitz captured this portrait of actress Demi Moore, then 28, standing nude and pregnant for Vanity Fair

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2207704/Annie-Leibovitz-Master-set-exhibit-showcases-iconic-personal-photos-40-years.html

Famous celebrity photographer Annie Leibowitz took the official portraits of Queen Elizabeth II in March 2007. One of the photos, shows a very serene Queen sitting in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace dressed in a pale gold evening dress, fur stole, and diamond tiara. Inspired by the portrait of Queen Charlotte that hangs in the National Gallery, the wide shot captures the Queen gazing towards a large open window and reveals some of the room’s furnishings and a reflection of a chandelier in a mirror. The room is dark except for the soft light flooding through the open window.


The photo-shoot was going smoothly until Leibowitz asked the Queen to take off her tiara (crown) to look “less dressy” for the next photo. The Queen flew into a huff and replied: “Less dressy? What do you think this is?” Contrary to some press accounts, Queen Elizabeth did not storm out of her session with Leibovitz; she more or less stormed in, brisk and impatient–the queen never enjoyed being photographed in her robes of state.
http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/queen-elizabeth-by-annie-leibowitz/


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