Billy Kidd framed photograph by Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz Portrait of Billy Kidd

This framed and autographed Steamboat Magazine cover was donated by Olympian Billy Kidd, specifically for the benefit
of the Steamboat Symphony Orchestra.

After attending the San Francisco Art Institute, Annie Leibovitz started her career as a staff photographer for Rolling Stone magazine. Within two years, she was promoted to chief photographer—a title she held for ten years. Many of her covers for Rolling Stone have become collector’s items, most notably a nude John Lennon curled around his fully clothed wife, Yoko Ono taken just hours before his death in December 1980.

In 1983, Leibovitz left Rolling Stone and began working for the entertainment magazine Vanity Fair. There she created stunning, and often controversial cover portraits of celebrities—including a very pregnant and very nude Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg half-submerged in a bathtub of milk.

In the late 1980s, Leibovitz began working on high-profile advertising campaigns, including the Ogilvy Group’s award-winning “Portraits” campaign for American Express. The campaign featured portraits of some of the most notable people in the world, using the slogan “Achievers, visionaries, icons...all with one thing in common.” The series included Ella Fitzgerald, Sofia Loren, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tip O'Neill, Eric Heiden, Ray Charles, Willie Shoemaker, and Wilt Chamberlain, in addition to Olympic skier Billy Kidd.

When Leibovitz came to Steamboat Springs with her team of three or four to photograph Billy Kidd for the campaign, they spent a few days shooting at various locations around the area. And then Billy invited her to his ranch south of Stagecoach Reservoir. It was there she took this iconic photo of Billy that “made the cut” and was used in the final advertising campaign.

Because Steamboat Springs was “just a small Cowtown” that had treated her family and crew so warmly during the time they were here for the photo shoot, Leibovitz gave Steamboat Magazine and Deb Olsen permission to use the photo, at no cost, for the cover of the Winter/Spring 1991 edition of Steamboat Magazine.

Billy Kidd was the first American man to win an Olympic skiing medal, taking the silver in slalom at the 1964 Innsbruck, Austria Olympics. He went on to win the gold medal in the combined and a bronze in the slalom at the 1970 World Championships at Val Gardena, Italy, making him the first American man to be World Champion in skiing. Two weeks later, after turning pro, Billy won the World Pro Ski Tour World Championship in Verbier, Switzerland, becoming the only ski racer in history to win both amateur and professional World Championships in the same year.