Jill Greenberg

Biography

Greenberg was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and grew up in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan.

Greenberg has been taking photographs since she was 9 years old. In a 1998 New York Times article on female gamers, Greenberg's mother was a computer programmer and her father was a doctor.

Greenberg said she has always taken pictures of animals, such as her dog, Plato, when she was young.

Greenberg took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art and the Detroit Institute of Arts. In 1984, she attended the Photography Summer Session held by Parsons School of Design in Paris. In 1985, she won a Traub Memorial Scholarship Travel Fund from Andover High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

In 1988, Greenberg completed coursework on “Semiotics in Media” with Mary Ann Doane at Brown University. In 1989, she graduated with honors from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Photography.

Photography career

In 1992, Greenberg applied to the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study program, but didn’t get it that year. She began working for Sassy magazine, doing commercial photography while working on getting her artistic career off the ground.

Greenberg has done a large number of celebrity portraits. She specializes in portraiture and uses painterly effects that are drawn using computer technology. Greenberg says that commercial photography influenced and provided inspiration for her portrait work.

2011's Glass Ceiling series involved shooting under water, using scuba gear. She hired professional synchronized swimmers and photographed them in a pool in Culver City. The Glass Ceiling series was featured as a billboard installation in Los Angeles, on the northwest corner of Sunset Boulevard at Fairfax (viewable while driving east).

In October 2012, Greenberg published a book of photographs called Horse that features images of horses. Writer A. M. Homes wrote the introduction. Greeenberg built photo studios within horse rings to take the photographs. Shooting took place in Los Angeles in an area called Walker’s Basin and also in Vancouver at Danny Virtue’s ranch, a man who supplies horses to the film industry.

In January 2014, Greenberg had an exhibition in Canada of images from "Horse." Greenberg said she has had a lifelong love of horses that began at the age of six. Greenberg wanted to explore the connection between how horses have been tamed and feminist theory.

She is frequently employed by well known companies including Sony Pictures, Interview, Rolling Stone, Time, GQ and even DreamWorks. Her list of clientele also encompasses big name brands such as Target, Microsoft, and HBO.

Artistic style

Greenberg is credited by some within the commercial photography industry as having produced several unique styles that have since been emulated by other photographers. "Like LaChapelle and Avedon, Jill has pioneered a new style of photography, and her impact can be seen throughout the entertainment industry", the creative director of a Los Angeles creative agency told Brief magazine, with the publication itself characterizing her work as employing "distinctive ethereal backlighting." A president of NBC Entertainment Marketing who has employed Greenberg on a number of occasions due to what he terms her "distinct and innovative aesthetic" observed that "many other photographers follow her lead."

In 1995, Greenberg branded her first website the moniker “The Manipulator” after the 80s German photography magazine'

Greenberg has acknowledged having made particular use of digital post production, adapting the nickname "The Manipulator" early in her career due in part to her relatively early adoption of Photoshop, a product she has used since its release in 1990. Nonetheless, she told an interviewer in 2011 that some of what her fans believe to be post production is instead the result of close attention to lighting, merely supplemented with minor "flourishes" afterwards.

Feminist theory

Greenberg's work and career has focused intermittently on feminist issues, starting with her senior thesis at RISD, "The Female Object". Her more recent Glass Ceiling series stems from a commercial shoot in which Greenberg was asked to photograph members of the U.S. Olympic Synchronized Swim Team swimming in high heels, an element that heightens sexuality while also hampering ability. According to a press release/bio released ahead of an exhibition and talk, "The result is a sadly relevant series of shots depicting women struggling to keep head above water in a context defined by the constraints pressed upon them by others."

Awards

End Times

Greenberg's End Times, a series of photographs featuring toddlers, was the subject of controversy in 2006 (April 22 – July 8). The work featured stylized hyper-real closeups of children's faces contorted by various emotional distresses. The pieces were titled to reflect Greenberg's frustration with both the Bush administration and Christian Fundamentalism in the United States.

The children were either professionally hired or were the children of friends (and included her daughter). All were accompanied by their parents, who assisted in getting the children to cry.

The series resulted in active, often heatead online discussion and news coverage, and resulted in hate mail which continued for several years.

The images, meanwhile, have been imitated and used without permission for unrelated campaigns.

John McCain

In August 2008, The Atlantic asked her to photograph John McCain for the magazine's October 2008 cover. Greenberg said they didn't have enough money to pay her so she gave them license to use one of her photos for the cover (while she retained ownership of the photo) for free, for one time use. Greenberg decided to make some personal images of the pictures. "I really didn't want there to be another Republican in the White House, so I decided to put my McCain pictures out on voting day." Saying she saw the work as political cartoons. "I thought it was the Artist Jill Greenberg appropriating the work of the Commercial Photographer Jill Greenberg."

Once the magazine hit the newsstands, Greenberg discussed in an article in a photo industry magazine that she had shot additional images, using lighting to depict McCain in stark shadow, so that she could create her own political art. Greenberg also posted to her website versions of photographs that she had created artwork from. On the cover of the magazine the presidential candidate is featured appearing to be tired, battle-worn and focused but on her website, McCain is shown in the way Greenberg views him. In one of the photos, the senator is shown with bright pink lipstick clumsily applied across his lips, beneath the statement “It was really fun to cheat on my car-injury-disabled first wife.” Another shot from the photo shoot displayed on her website shows McCain in dramatic lighting with his mouth severely altered. His teeth are replaced with sharp, predatorily, pointy teeth and blood is dripping out of his mouth.

Personal life

Greenberg was based in New York for about 12 years. She moved to Los Angeles in 2000 where she met her husband Robert "Rob" Green. Greenberg moved back to New York City in 2013 with her family for her husband's position as SVP, Creative-Digital at Condé Nast Entertainment.

Greenberg and Green have two children, daughter Violet and son Zed.

Books

Videos

Selected exhibitions