LEIBOVITZ, ANNIE

LEIBOVITZ, ANNIE (Anna-Lou; 1949– ), U.S. photographer. Born in Westbury, Conn., to an Air Force lieutenant and a modern dance instructor, she was one of six children. In 1967 she enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute (she earned her degree in 1971) and developed a love of photography. In 1969 she lived on a kibbutz in Israel and participated in an archeological dig at the site of King Solomon's temple. Her career started in 1970 when she sent pictures of a group of ladders, taken in an apple orchard on the kibbutz, to the start-up rock magazine Rolling Stone, which hired her right away. Within two years the 23-year-old Leibovitz was named chief photographer, a title she would hold for ten years. At the magazine she developed her trademark technique, which involved the use of bold primary colors and surprising poses. She accompanied the Rolling Stones rock group on its international tour in 1975 and captured weeks of strung-out nights and unmade beds. Jann Wenner, publisher of the magazine, credited Leibovitz with making many Rolling Stone magazine covers collector's items, most notably an issue that featured a nude John Lennon of the Beatles curled around his fully clothed wife, Yoko Ono. The photo was taken on December 8, 1980, just hours before his death. In 1983 Leibovitz left Rolling Stone for the entertainment magazine Vanity Fair in part to learn about glamour. "I admired the work of photographers like Beaton, Penn, and Avedon as much as I respected the grittier photographers such as Robert Frank," she said. "But in the same way that I had to find my own way of reportage, I had to find my own form of glamour." With a wider array of subjects and generous budgets, Leibovitz photographed presidents, literary icons, and all manner of celebrities. A number of her covers provided startling images of well-known figures: the actress Demi Moore, nine months pregnant and nude except for a diamond ring, in 1991; the black comedian Whoopi Goldberg, half submerged in a bathtub of milk; and the late artist Keith Haring, who painted himself like one of his canvases for the photograph. During the late 1980s Leibovitz started to work on a number of high-profile advertising campaigns. The most notable was for American Express; her portraits of celebrity cardholders like Elmore Leonard, Tom Selleck, and Luciano Pavarotti earned her a Clio award in 1987. In 1991 her collection of more than 200 black-and-white and color photographs were exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. She was the second living photographer and first woman to have that honor. In 1996 she was chosen as the official photographer of the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Ga., and a compilation of her black-and-white portraits of American athletes was published in the book Olympic Portraits. In 1999 she published the book Women, accompanied by an essay by the novelist susan sontag . Included were an array of female images, from Supreme Court justices to Las Vegas showgirls to farmers and coal miners. In the early years of the 21st century, she was probably the most famous photographer or portraitist in the United States. (Stewart Kampel (2nd ed.)