Fembio Special: Famous Lesbians
Annie Leibovitz
born on October 2, 1949 in Waterbury, Connecticut, United States
US-American photographer
75th birthday on October 2, 2024
Biography
Annie Leibovitz, the “most important iconographer of American pop culture” (FAZ), has played a key role in shaping the collective visual memory since the 1970s. Her best-known images include John Lennon naked and curled up beside Yoko Ono, Whoopie Goldberg sprawled out in a bathtub filled with milk, Bette Midler in a bed of roses and Demi Moore nude and in an advanced stage of pregnancy on the cover of Vanity Fair. To be photographed by Annie Leibovitz is considered an honor. She stages “miniature dramas” of the public personas of musicians, actors, artists, politicians and athletes for portraits that both reveal and that mask. By playfully referencing the fame of the celebrity, she transforms it into an ironic mythos. Her celebrity portraits oscillate between what is pure glamour and what is genuine, and a new reality is created through her staging.
After studying painting at the San Francisco Art Institute, Annie Leibovitz submitted a portfolio of photographs to Rolling Stone in 1970. Two years later she was already its chief photographer and by 1981 she had been responsible for over 120 of its covers and for various reportages in the magazine. She photographed Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974 and was the concert-tour photographer for the Rolling Stones in 1975. The pictures from this tour bear witness to the intimacy and affinity that developed between her and the musicians; she was never again to get so close her models. It took her five years to recover from the drug and alcohol excesses of the tour. Her style changed, becoming more distanced, clearer and more controlled.
Annie Leibovitz has worked for Vanity Fair since her appointment as its chief photographer in 1983, and for Vogue since 1998. Her oeuvre includes portrait, nude and celebrity photography as well as advertising campaigns for American Express (1987), Gap (1988) and Dove (2006), landscape photography and reportages on the Kosovo war and the O.J. Simpson trial.
She has published numerous books, including Olympic Portraits (1996), American Music (2003) and the portrait collection Women (1999).
In 2006 and following upon the death of her long-time lover Susan Sontag, she published an intimate autobiography in pictures. A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005 contains commissioned works, very personal photos of their travels together, family gatherings, Susan Sontag's illness, the death of Annie Leibovitz's father and the birth of her own children. The collection is a memorial to Susan Sontag, a lament for the dead and at the same time a femmage to life.
(Text from 2007; translated with DeepL.com; edited by Ramona Fararo, 2024.
Please consult the German version for additional information, pictures, sources, videos, and bibliography.)
Quotes
Of her relationship with Susan Sontag, Annie Leibovitz wrote: “words like 'companion' and 'partner' were not in our vocabulary. We were two people who helped each other through our lives. The closest word is still 'friend'.” She also said: “Call us 'lovers'. I like 'lovers.' You know, 'lovers' sounds romantic. I mean, I want to be perfectly clear. I love Susan.” (added by Ramona Fararo¸ source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Leibovitz)
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