Afternoon:
10°c
Sue Steward's rating
Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage, Hamiltons Gallery - review
By
Sue Steward
20 Dec 2011
Roaring, foaming water cascading over Niagara Falls opens this surprising collection. Its power, drama and breathtaking beauty helped launched Annie Leibovitz's rebirth after her catastrophic financial crisis. Taking her three children on that visit, she says, contributed to this "exercise in renewal. It taught me to see again."
The close-up of a dress belonging to American writer Emily Dickinson marks a break in the Leibovitz practice. The subject here is invisible (and long dead) and the focus is on the simple, puritanical gown. It emphasises the contrast with those celebrities and outfits which made the photographer's reputation through Vanity Fair and Vogue. By turning her back on those infamously extravagant photoshoots, she embarked on the Pilgrimage with just a compact camera, the children, and the vehicle she drove around the US and England. With no agenda and no commissions, she headed for the people, places and associated objects which inspired and shaped her life and tastes - from Elvis to Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin to Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition's 28 small, carefully printed images offer an honest exposure. Ansel Adams's dark-room illuminated by glowing red-light links Leibovitz back to her early years of printing for Rolling Stone. With Georgia O'Keefe, she hones in on the artist's New Mexico house, its adobe walls and flat shadows, with a Constructivist's eye. By then, she had been seduced into more professional productions, working with an assistant and more sophisticated cameras. At Sigmund Freud's consulting room in Hampstead, she captured the claustrophobia of the carpet patterns by blurring the background and sharpened the foreground to suggest the mental focus demanded by the couch.
The Pilgrimage (and eponymous book, published by Jonathan Cape) is a fascinating revelation of Leibovitz's personal aesthetic and interests. But is this the new direction or is she now yearning for the celebrity market?
Until January 20 (020 7499 9494, hamiltonsgallery.com)
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
