"THEIR DEDICATION, THEIR JOY, THEIR PAIN, THEIR MASTERY IS WHAT MAKES EVERYONE CARE ABOUT THE OLYMPIC GAMES"

LEIBOVITZ, Annie. Olympic Portraits. Boston, New York: Bullfinch, Little Brown, (1996). Tall octavo (9 by 11-1/2 inches), original photographic paper boards, photographic endpapers. $450.

First edition of Leibovitz' beautifully produced volume of nearly 120 striking photographic portraits of American athletes in training for the 1996 Olympics, inscribed by her in the year of publication on the half title, "Annie Leibovitz July 1996 Atlanta, Georgia."

Leibovitz "revolutionized American portrait photography" (Grove Encyclopedia of American Art). She "made her name in the 1970s and early 1980s as chief photographer for Rolling Stone… [and] has done much to define the canon of contemporary portraiture, producing indelible and provocative images" (New York Times). In her introduction to this splendid volume of nearly 120 black-and-white images, most full and double-page, Leibovitz recalls the year she spent photographing American athletes in training for the 1996 Olympiad. "To photograph athletes when they are still preparing means to concentrate on the athletes themselves," she writes. "Their dedication, their joy, their pain, their mastery is what makes everyone care about the Olympic Games." The 1996 Olympiad, she also notes, was "the first for the women's triple jump, the women's soccer team and women's fast-pitch softball." Her book's vivid portraits include a double-page group portrait of the women whose team made Olympic history by winning the Gold Medal in fast-pitch softball. Also featured are images of athletes such as Amy Van Dyken, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, Dominique Moceanu, Mark Lenzi, Teresa Edwards, Justin Huish and David Reid. First edition, first printing: "First Edition" stated on copyright page. As issued without dust jacket.

A fine copy.