Of Greatness and Grief

Leibovitz had her first child, Sarah, at age 51. Her twins, Susan and Samuelle, arrived 3 1/2 years later. She was raising three young daughters in the midst of all that death.

"Susan," she writes, "used to complain that that I didn't take enough pictures . . . I would take a few rolls of film and throw them in a box and they wouldn't be developed for months. Sometimes I wouldn't even look at the contact sheets. But after Susan died . . . I began searching for photographs of her . . . because it made me feel close to her and helped me to begin to say goodbye. I found so many things I didn't remember or perhaps had never even seen before. I also began looking at all the photographs I had taken of the rest of my family."

Her father's last good years, his slow decline, his grave. Her lover's last good years, her slow decline, her corpse. Her family on the beach, her family in mourning. Pictures of this sort take up nearly half the show.

They don't look much like polished art. They look much more like snapshots soaked in love and hurt. None of them are bad. She doesn't take bad pictures. But they mean much more to her than they'll ever mean to us.

Susan on Mount Vesuvius, Susan at her desk, Susan in bed, Susan in the bathtub, Susan's computer, her shell collection, her notebooks, Susan getting her hair cut, Susan in Paris, Susan in Venice, Susan getting sicker, Susan's body bloating, and finally, Susan dead.

The best of Leibovitz's portraits are polished to a fare-thee-well. Here the surface splinters. Too much Susan, too much family, too much Annie, too. Usually her subjects absorb all your attention. Not here. This is like standing in the memoir department at the bookstore: too much me, me, me.

Leibovitz is walking through her Corcoran exhibition. No, not walking, striding. She says, "I can't believe I did this."

"What did I do?" she asks herself. Then she answers her own question.

"I was crazy," says Annie Leibovitz. "The grief leaked out of me."

"Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005" Tickets are required for admission to "Annie Leibovitz" at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The cost at the museum is $14 for adults, $12 for seniors and members of the military and $10 for students. Tickets can be purchased through http://www.ticketmaster.com. The show is supported by American Express. The museum, at 17th Street and New York Avenue NW, is closed on Tuesdays. On other days the hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except on Thursdays when it remains open until 9 p.m. For information call 202-639-1700 or go to http://www.corcoran.org/leibovitz. Many more photographs than the 195 on view are reproduced in the $75, 472-page hardcover catalogue. The show closes Jan. 13.