20/02/20
Half Term
Annie Leibovitz

Leibovitz was born on October 2, 1949, in Waterbury, Connecticut, United States of America. She is considered as one of America’s best portrait photographs.

In 1970 she applied  for a job with the start-up rock music magazine Rolling Stone. The editor Jann Wenner offered her a job as a staff photographer. Within two years, the 23-year-old Leibovitz was promoted to chief photographer, a title she would hold for the next decade. Leibovitz developed her trademark use of bold colours and poses while at ‘Rolling Stone’. Her position with the magazine afforded her the opportunity to accompany the Rolling Stones band on their 1975 international tour. Leibovitz is credited with making many Rolling Stone covers collector’s items, including an issue that featured a nude John Lennon curled around his fully clothed wife, Yoko Ono. The photograph was taken on December 8, 1980 and polaroid of the former Beatle was shot just hours before his death.

In 1983 she began working for the entertainment magazine ‘Vanity Fair’, continuing to produce images that would be deemed as iconic and provocative. With a wider array of subjects, Leibovitz’s photographs for the magazine ranged from presidents to literary icons to teen heartthrobs. In 1998 she also began working regularly for Vogue. Leibovitz’s shoots also became known for over-the-top budgets that would later be at the center of major financial challenges.

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Exhibitions of her photographs have appeared at museums and galleries all over the world, including the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.; the International Centre of Photography in New York; the Brooklyn Museum; the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris; the National Portrait Gallery in London; and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.In 1991, Leibovitz’s collection of more than 200 photographs were exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C where she was the first women to showcase her work.

In addition to her magazine editorial work, Leibovitz has created several award-winning advertising campaigns. She has also collaborated with many arts organizations, including American Ballet Theatre, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Mark Morris Dance Group, and with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Her books include Annie Leibovitz: Photographs (1983), Photographs: Annie Leibovitz 1970–1990 (1991), Olympic Portraits (1996), Women(1999), American Music (2003), A Photographer’s Life: 1990–2005 (2006), Annie Leibovitz at Work (2008), Pilgrimage (2011), and Annie Leibovitz, a limited-edition, oversized volume published by Taschen in 2014

In 1996, Leibovitz’s worked as the official photographer of the Summer Olympics. In 2007 she became the first American to make an official portrait of the Queen. In 2016 Leibovitz’s was chosen as one of the 10 photographs to take photographs of the Queen for her 90th birthday.