Annie Leibovitz is on a pilgrimage. Leibovitz is perhaps best-known for her portraits of people (an unclad John Lennon and Yoko Ono, a pregnant Demi Moore). But the famed photographer recently has been traveling around the country filming places and things that have always captured her imagination—Emily Dickinson’s dress, Virginia Woolf’s writing table, Elvis’ Graceland, among others. These iconic images, along with several treasures from the Library’s collection that Leibovitz recently came to shoot, will be part of her forthcoming book “Pilgrimage” due out from Random House this fall.
Left: Photographer Annie Leibowitz (right) meets with Library preservation scientist Fenella France. - Abby Brack Right: Prints and Photographs Division Chief Helena Zinkham shows Annie Leibovitz some of the Library’s rare photograph collections as Associate Librarian Deanna Marcum looks on. - Abby Brack
Leibovitz, deemed a “Living Legend” by the Librarian of Congress in 2000, came to the Library on Feb. 16 to shoot two rare Library treasures: a draft of the Gettysburg Address and a glass-plate negative image of Lincoln that was later used on the five- dollar bill.
Preservation Directorate Chief Dianne van der Reyden, Conservation Division Chief Diane Vogt O’Connor, Prints & Photographs Division Chief Helena Zinkham and members of their staffs facilitated the shoot, making sure the rare and unique items were transported and filmed under proper conditions. But they also took the opportunity to show her a bit of living history.
“Pilgrimage,” due out this fall, includes images of items housed at the Library of Congress. - Cover image courtesy Random House
Fenella France, a preservation scientist in the Library’s Preservation Research and Testing Division, demonstrated a recent discovery made on the Declaration of Independence. Through the use of the latest hyperspectral imaging equipment, the document revealed that Thomas Jefferson had originally written the phrase “our fellow subjects” but later scrawled over the word “subjects” and replaced it with the word “citizens.”
“It’s the perfect blending of art and science,” said van der Reyden about the technique. Leibovitz exclaimed, “And it comes out poetry!”
With an artist’s precision, Leibovitz spent approximately three hours photographing the two items while Andrew Robb of the Conservation Division monitored the proper handling of the rare items.
Still there was time for Zinkham to show Leibovitz a small display of items in the Prints & Photographs Reading Room that was assembled by Carol Johnson, the Library’s curator of photography, and reference specialist Jan Grenci. These included the first known photograph of Lincoln (a daguerreotype), Alexander Gardner’s “Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War” (1866) and the one photo by Leibovitz in the Library’s collection: an image of opera singer Jessye Norman performing in New York.
After a cadre of staff members whetted the photographer’s appetite for the Library’s treasures, Associate Librarian for Library Services Deanna Marcum invited her to return again to explore further the Library’s riches—now comprising more than 147 million items.
