Biography of Annie Leibovitz

About the Artist

Annie Leibovitz began her career as a photojournalist for Rolling Stone in  1970, while she was still a student at the San Francisco Art Institute. Her pictures have appeared regularly on magazine covers ever since, and her large and distinguished body of work encompasses some of the most well-known portraits of our time. She became Rolling Stone's chief photographer in 1973. By the time she left the magazine, ten years later, she had shot one hundred and forty-two covers and published photo essays on scores of stories, including her memorable accounts of the resignation of Richard Nixon and of the 1975 Rolling Stones tour. At Vanity Fair, and later at Vogue, she developed a large body of work-portraits of actors, directors, writers, musicians, athletes, and political and business figures, as well as fashion photographs-that expanded her collective portrait of contemporary life. In addition to her editorial work, Leibovitz has created influential advertising campaigns, including her award-winning work for American Express and the Gap. She has also collaborated with many arts organizations. Several collections of Leibovitz's work have been published. Pictures from the first twenty years of her career were collected in a retrospective book and exhibition, Annie Leibovitz: Photographs 1970-1990. The exhibition was organized by the International Center of Photography in association with the National Portrait Gallery. More recently, A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005 brought together her assignment and personal work in a book and an exhibition that opened at the Brooklyn Museum and is touring internationally. In 2008, she published Annie Leibovitz at Work, a first-person commentary on her career, from her coverage of the resignation of Nixon to the commissioned portraits of Queen Elizabeth II.