Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life

This spring, San Diego Museum of Art will be the first West Coast and only Southern California venue for an internationally touring exhibition of approximately 200 photographs by leading contemporary photographer Annie Leibovitz. The exhibition features family photographs and portraits of public figures, such as Colin Powell, Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt, Merce Cunningham, and Bill Clinton. The compelling photographs, in both black and white and color, provide a rare glimpse into the wide range of subjects captured by Leibovitz, who is counted among the most celebrated photographers of our time.
The exhibition encompasses work Leibovitz made on assignment as a professional photographer, as well as personal photographs of her family and close friends. Her personal material, images that many are less familiar with, reflect Leibovitz’s talents in a way that differs from her public career. They document the birth of her three daughters and many events involving her large family, including the death of her father.
Leibovitz’s recognizable portraits of public figures include the pregnant Demi Moore, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rob Besserer, George W. Bush with members of his Cabinet at the White House, Michael Moore at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, William S. Burroughs, and Agnes Martin. Her assignment work includes searing reportage from the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s and a series of landscapes taken in the American West and in the Jordanian desert.
Annie Leibovitz has been making witty, powerful images documenting 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 legendary body of work. In addition to her magazine work, Leibovitz has created influential advertising campaigns for American Express, Gap, Givenchy, The Sopranos, and the Milk Board.

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