Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, New York
The renowned portraitist Irving Penn made this photograph of Ruth Bader Ginsburg at his New York studio the day before she left for Washington, D.C., where she would take the oath of office to become the second woman justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents, Ginsburg studied at Cornell, Harvard, and Columbia universities before embarking in 1959 on a brilliant teaching and judicial career. She appears here wearing a traditional black robe, leaning into the camera—emphasizing her reputation as a force of nature (at just over five feet tall) who fought for civil liberties and women's rights, among other progressive causes. Justice Ginsburg died at age eighty-seven on September 18, 2020, after serving for twenty-seven years on the Supreme Court.
Artwork Details
- Title: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, New York
- Artist: Irving Penn (American, Plainfield, New Jersey 1917–2009 New York)
- Person in Photograph: Person in photograph Ruth Bader Ginsburg (American, Brooklyn 1933–2020 Washington, D.C.)
- Date: August 9 1993, printed May 2002
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 10 5/8 x 10 9/16 in. (27 x 26.8 cm.)
Sheet: 14 x 11 in. (35.5 x 28 cm.)
Overall: 14 x 11 in. (35.5 x 28 cm.) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation, 2021
- Object Number: 2021.72.28
- Rights and Reproduction: © Condé Nast
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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