Annie Leibovitz (American, b. 1949), Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rob Besserer, Cumberland Island, Georgia, 1990, chromogenic print, photograph © Annie Leibovitz, from Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990–2005

FROM THE VERY BEGINNING of her career, Annie Leibovitz has redefined the modern celebrity portrait, altering the way we think about the people who populate our cultural landscape. Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990–2005 includes more than 200 photographs, encompassing well-known work made on editorial assignment as well as images of her family and close friends. “I don’t have two lives,” Leibovitz says. “This is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it.”

The exhibition features many of Leibovitz’s best-known portraits of public figures, including actors Jamie Foxx, Nicole Kidman, and Brad Pitt; athletes preparing for the 1996 Olympic Games; George W. Bush with members of his Cabinet at the White House; and her famous images of Queen Elizabeth II of England, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and then-pregnant actress Demi Moore, one of the most recognizable photographs of its time.

The show also highlights portraits of artists, architects, and writers such as Richard Avedon, Brice Marden, Philip Johnson, Cindy Sherman, and Eudora Welty. Leibovitz’s assignment work includes reportage from the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s, the election of Hillary Clinton to the U.S. Senate, and the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. The artist has photographed landscapes from the American West, the Jordanian desert, and the wilds of upstate New York, and these are featured prominently.

At the heart of the exhibition, Leibovitz’s personal photography documents intimate moments from her life, including the birth and childhood of her three daughters, as well as vacations, reunions and rites of passage with her parents and extended family. A Photographer’s Life threads together the two sides of Leibovitz’s work both chronologically and creatively, projecting a narrative of the artist’s private world against the backdrop of her public image as one of America’s best-known portrait photographers.

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