This Tuesday, the portraits of the kings of Spain, Felipe VI and Letizia, were presented. They were ordered at the end of 2023 from the famous American photographer Annie Leibovitz and cost 136,000 euros. They are part of the exhibition The tyranny of Kronosvisible at the Bank of Spain until March 29, 2025.
Annie Leibovitz is one of the most recognized and appreciated photographers in the world. At 75, he has immortalized historic figures in music, sport and politics. Among them stand out Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, a pose of John Lennon and Yoko Ono nakedGeorge W. Bush, Gorbachev or Queen Elizabeth II in the United Kingdom.
One of his most recent, most viral works was the pose of Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo playing chess on a Louis Vuitton briefcase. On the occasion of a campaign by the luxury fashion entity just before the opening of the World Cup in Qatar in 2022. The image revolutionized social networks and It is one of the publications with the most tastes from Instagram story.
But not everything was easy in the photographer’s life. Leibovitz was born in Connecticut, United States. Belongs to a Jewish family and is the third of six siblings. Her father was a lieutenant colonel in the armed forces, which required Annie to move to other countries from time to time.
Due to the Vietnam War, they had to move to the Philippines. He spent part of his adolescence there and It was here that Leibovitz’s passion for photography was born. His first portraits were of wounded soldiers which reflected the harshness of battle.
Upon his return to the United States He studied Fine Arts at a high school in San Francisco. And his debut at the professional level happened in the magazine Rolling stone. She became responsible for photography and After 10 years he went to Vanity fair. Even if the photographer has participated in countless projects alongside the magazine.
On a personal level, the photographer had a relationship with Susan Sontag, a renowned essayist and writer. Susan was 16 years older than Leibovitz. They met when the photographer photographed Sontag for her book AIDS and its metaphors.
The relationship lasted until 2004, when Susan Sontag died of leukemia at the age of 71. Leibovitz photographed the writer on her deathbed, although he captured many images of Susan before her death: “It was part of mourning: I had anticipated the loss and this was my way of leaving it here,” revealed to the Guardian.
Susan Sontag and Annie Leibovitz They have never expressed their relationship openly. They referred to each other as “companion” or “friend”. The first time the photographer spoke openly was in 2006, In an interview for his book, he acknowledged that “it was a love story.”
Leibovitz became a mother in 2001, while she was still with Susan. Their daughter, Sarah Cameron, was born via in vitro fertilization. After the writer’s death, Annie had two twin daughters through surrogacy: Susan and Samuelle.
The photographer had to take care of her three children as a single mother, but her economic situation forced her to apply for a loan from Art Capital Group. Leibovitz was unable to repay it and this debt dragged her into 2014. When he sold a mansion in New York for more than 26 million euros.
