Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990–2005 includes more than 200 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 recognizable 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, the election of Hillary Clinton to the U.S. Senate, and the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. The artist has photographed landscapes from the American West, the Jordanian desert, and the wilds of upstate New York, and these are featured prominently. 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 America’s best-known portrait photographers.

Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990–2005 was organized by the Brooklyn Museum and debuted there in 2006 before an international tour that includes stops at the San Diego Museum of Art, Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, San Francisco’s de Young Museum, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, and London's National Portrait Gallery. The exhibition is accompanied by a book of the same title, published by Random House. Charlotta Kotik, the Brooklyn Museum’s John and Barbara Vogelstein Curator of Contemporary Art, is the exhibition curator.

Biography of the Artist Annie Leibovitz has photographed figures from American popular culture since the early 1970s, when her work began appearing in Rolling Stone. She became the magazine's chief photographer in 1973, and ten years later began working for Vanity Fair, and then Vogue, creating a celebrated body of work. In addition to her magazine work, Leibovitz has created influential advertising campaigns for American Express, Gap, Givenchy, the Milk Board, and the television show The Sopranos. A touring retrospective of her work from the years 1970 to 1990 was presented in 1991 at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The Corcoran Gallery of Art premiered her popular traveling exhibition Women in 1999. Leibovitz is the recipient of many honors, including the rank of Commandeur in the French government's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the Barnard College Medal of Distinction. She was named a Library of Congress Living Legend in 2000 and one of the 35 “Innovators of Our Time” by Smithsonian magazine in 2005.

Annie Leibovitz
A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005