College week 8/1 31st October Art History

Today's topic was 'Using People" and majored on the work of photographer Annie Leibovitz (b 1949, Connecticut, USA).  Art college trained, her work is carefully composed and thoughtful. She has worked in many spheres, including Rolling Stone magazine and lots of work with musicians, film stars and other celebrities.   Among her iconic images were some taken of Mick Jagger when she went on tour with the Rolling Stones in 1975.

 She also took a definitive photo of John Lennon, with Yoko Ono, only hours before Lennon was assassinated in New York in 1980, and which was used on the cover of the tribute edition of Rolling Stone magazine.

Some of her portraits refer back to previous painters, or to fairy tales or stories, even when the commissions are for fashion magazines or advertising.  Such as this 

She also has a body of very personal photos of her family, here her brother and father.

and here of her partner Susan Sontag.  

She famously photographed the Queen in 2006 and was filmed doing so by the BBC, who also recorded the fact that the Queen was less than happy with the photography session.  The results, though, were magnificent portraits of the queen, combining the sort of stately dignities she might have wanted, with the kind of fairy-tale mists and mystery of some of her other work.

She didn't like being the subject of photographs herself, as in this wonderful portrait by John Keatley in which she seems to be hiding from the camera, using her hand to shield her face but also mimicking the position she adopts, looking at the subject?viewer through one eye, when she is working the shutter.

More about her work in a Guardian article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2007/may/02/annieleibowitzoneofthemos