A classy, eggplant-colored sans-serif font on a dijon-hued wall introduces “Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005,” an exhibition of the preeminent portrait photographer’s work that opens tomorrow at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Throughout five lofty rooms, 200 photographs blend Leibovitz’s professional portraits, reportage, and personal experience. Leibovitz initially intended to separate them, but found that she couldn’t. “I don’t have two lives,” she wrote in the book that accompanies the exhibition. “This is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it.”
Leibovitz’s chromogenic and gelatin-silver prints are displayed in simple, 3/4-inch wooden frames, with those of her family, snapshot-size, in poignant quartets—which together seem like little films, the photographer wrote.The celebrity images—some in black-and-white, others in full color—are large and bold: Demi Moore, pregnant and nude; Brad Pitt, sprawled out in boots and leopard-print pants; Queen Elizabeth II, in her crown, looking out the door. “Throughout her career, from Rolling Stone to Vanity Fair and Vogue, Annie Leibovitz has reinvented the modern celebrity portrait, altering the way we think about the famous people who populate our cultural landscape,” said Paul Roth, the Corcoran’s host curator.
In the final room of the exhibit, on deep-gray walls, are giant, dry-mounted, unframed images of landscapes: desert, woods, water. Across the way, visitors can step onto a block to take their own digital photos. The images—crisp black-and-whites, about 10 feet across—scroll across the walls.
The exhibit, which debuted at the Brooklyn Museum in 2006, runs through January 13, in conjunction with an Ansel Adams exhibit. Adult admission is $14.
Leibovitz’s chromogenic and gelatin-silver prints are displayed in simple, 3/4-inch wooden frames, with those of her family, snapshot-size, in poignant quartets—which together seem like little films, the photographer wrote.The celebrity images—some in black-and-white, others in full color—are large and bold: Demi Moore, pregnant and nude; Brad Pitt, sprawled out in boots and leopard-print pants; Queen Elizabeth II, in her crown, looking out the door. “Throughout her career, from Rolling Stone to Vanity Fair and Vogue, Annie Leibovitz has reinvented the modern celebrity portrait, altering the way we think about the famous people who populate our cultural landscape,” said Paul Roth, the Corcoran’s host curator.
In the final room of the exhibit, on deep-gray walls, are giant, dry-mounted, unframed images of landscapes: desert, woods, water. Across the way, visitors can step onto a block to take their own digital photos. The images—crisp black-and-whites, about 10 feet across—scroll across the walls.
The exhibit, which debuted at the Brooklyn Museum in 2006, runs through January 13, in conjunction with an Ansel Adams exhibit. Adult admission is $14.
Photo: Courtesy of Vanity Fair, from Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005
Photo: Courtesy of Vanity Fair, from Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005
Photo: Courtesy of Vanity Fair, from Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005