The Corcoran

The lions at the entrance of the Corcoran Gallery

I don’t go to the Corcoran all that often. It’s not that there are not exhibits there that I wouldn’t mind seeing it is you have to pay to get in. With all the museums that are available for free it is sort of hard to pay to see are. I will also say that many times I find out there are exhibits I want to see at the Corcoran the last weekend they are there. Usually I have something else planned that weekend too.

So I’m very proud of myself that I got to both the Annie Leibovitz and Ansel Adams exhibits before they closed which is in January. Both were spectacular. It was interesting that the majority of both of their works are in black and white.

Adams is of course best know for his landscape pictures of the national parks. Many of these pictures are from Yosemite National Park. Another main body of his work is from the southwest. An especially wonderful photo is called Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. There is a description of how Adams got the picture. He was driving down the road and pulled over. He worked frantically before he would loose all of the light. The sun was setting and moon was rising at the same time. He was able to get the shot off just before the sun dipped below the horizon. The level of detail of this small town is breath taking.

Leibovitz is best know for doing portraits. Although she had landscapes as well. Several of them were blown up to a huge size (think a large part of a gallery wall). They were of the wilds of upstate New York. The main body of her exhibition was her portraits of her family and famous people. It seems she has photographed all of Demi Moore’s children including the one that was on the cover of Vanity Fair with Moore being very pregnant. There was also a picture of Bush, Cheney, Rich, Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tennat, Ashcroft. I was thinking the title could be picture of fools.

I found that the pictures of Leibovitz family were the most interesting. Many of them were taken at the beach. I also liked the fact that there were two walls with many pictures. Most of them were blown up and put in the exhibit. These smaller and what I have to assume original versions of the pictures were broken down by year taken. It gave an excellent sense of how Leibovitz’s career has progressed over time.