Annie’s Classic Portraits
The epic collection of Annie Leibovitz’s work, now available with a signed and numbered ChromaLuxe metal print
For over 50 years, Annie Leibovitz has been creating a body of work that is unequaled in breadth and influence. From the viscerally immediate reportage made for Rolling Stone magazine in the 1970s and extending through the more stylized portraiture of her work for Vanity Fair and Vogue, her pictures make up what is essentially a family album of our time.
In 2014, in close collaboration with Annie, TASCHEN published a SUMO edition of her work: over 200 photographs, many of them famous (the naked John Lennon entwined in a last embrace with Yoko Ono, Patti Smith on fire) and some rarely, if ever, seen before. In 2022, to accommodate a wider audience, this volume was recreated as an unlimited XXL edition.
The XXL volume is now available as an Art Edition in four different versions, each accompanied by a signed, numbered and framed dye-sublimation ChromaLuxe aluminum print. Whoopi Goldberg, Berkeley, California, 1984 is included in an edition of 450 copies.
Annie’s most well-known portraits are based on ideas that come from studying the subject’s work. “It didn’t have to be a big idea,” Annie says. “It could be simple. There’s a case to be made that the simpler idea the better.” The Whoopi Goldberg portrait is based on a character in Whoopi’s one-woman show, which in early 1984 was playing at a small downtown club in New York. The character is a little African-American girl who bathes in Clorox, trying to become white. Annie was told that milk photographs well as white, so she filled up a bathtub with warm milk and Whoopi got in. Annie remembers that she thought that Whoopi would be sitting up in the bath and scrubbing herself. Whoopi remembers that Annie told her to fight her way through the milk. Annie says that Whoopi sat back and suddenly they had the image. Whoopi remembers that it took seven hours.
Art Edition “Whoopi Goldberg” (No. 1–450). Hardcover volume in a slipcase, accompanied by the portrait Whoopi Goldberg, Berkeley, California, 1984.
Also available: the Art Editions “Keith Haring” (No. 1–1,000); “David Byrne” (No. 1–275), and “Patti Smith” (No. 1–275). ChromaLuxe prints are numbered and signed by Annie Leibovitz. Total copies of the four Art Editions: 2,000.
The epic collection of Annie Leibovitz’s work, now available with a signed and numbered ChromaLuxe metal print
For over 50 years, Annie Leibovitz has been creating a body of work that is unequaled in breadth and influence. From the viscerally immediate reportage made for Rolling Stone magazine in the 1970s and extending through the more stylized portraiture of her work for Vanity Fair and Vogue, her pictures make up what is essentially a family album of our time.
In 2014, in close collaboration with Annie, TASCHEN published a SUMO edition of her work: over 200 photographs, many of them famous (the naked John Lennon entwined in a last embrace with Yoko Ono, Patti Smith on fire) and some rarely, if ever, seen before. In 2022, to accommodate a wider audience, this volume was recreated as an unlimited XXL edition.
The XXL volume is now available as an Art Edition in four different versions, each accompanied by a signed, numbered and framed dye-sublimation ChromaLuxe aluminum print. Whoopi Goldberg, Berkeley, California, 1984 is included in an edition of 450 copies.
Annie’s most well-known portraits are based on ideas that come from studying the subject’s work. “It didn’t have to be a big idea,” Annie says. “It could be simple. There’s a case to be made that the simpler idea the better.” The Whoopi Goldberg portrait is based on a character in Whoopi’s one-woman show, which in early 1984 was playing at a small downtown club in New York. The character is a little African-American girl who bathes in Clorox, trying to become white. Annie was told that milk photographs well as white, so she filled up a bathtub with warm milk and Whoopi got in. Annie remembers that she thought that Whoopi would be sitting up in the bath and scrubbing herself. Whoopi remembers that Annie told her to fight her way through the milk. Annie says that Whoopi sat back and suddenly they had the image. Whoopi remembers that it took seven hours.
Art Edition “Whoopi Goldberg” (No. 1–450). Hardcover volume in a slipcase, accompanied by the portrait Whoopi Goldberg, Berkeley, California, 1984.
Also available: the Art Editions “Keith Haring” (No. 1–1,000); “David Byrne” (No. 1–275), and “Patti Smith” (No. 1–275). ChromaLuxe prints are numbered and signed by Annie Leibovitz. Total copies of the four Art Editions: 2,000.
The artist
Annie Leibovitz is one of the most influential photographers of our time. She began working as a photojournalist for Rolling Stone in 1970 while she was still a student at the San Francisco Art Institute. By 1983, when she left Rolling Stone for the revived Vanity Fair, she was already closely identified with the conceptual, theatrical style that is her hallmark. In subsequent decades, at Vanity Fair and Vogue and in independent projects, she has worked across many photographic genres and 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. She has published several books and has exhibited widely. She is a Commandeur in the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and has been designated a Living Legend by the U.S. Library of Congress.
Annie Leibovitz is one of the most influential photographers of our time. She began working as a photojournalist for Rolling Stone in 1970 while she was still a student at the San Francisco Art Institute. By 1983, when she left Rolling Stone for the revived Vanity Fair, she was already closely identified with the conceptual, theatrical style that is her hallmark. In subsequent decades, at Vanity Fair and Vogue and in independent projects, she has worked across many photographic genres and 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. She has published several books and has exhibited widely. She is a Commandeur in the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and has been designated a Living Legend by the U.S. Library of Congress.
