Splitting her time between New York and Florida, the photographer and artist is now working on bringing a show about Andy Warhol to Broadway. Photo: Bristol Foto
BONNIE LAUTENBERG has had a longstanding career as a photographer of politicians and celebrities. She’s also an artist, with various shows this past year in New York, Connecticut, Chicago, and this November, will be featured in a show at the Jewish Museum of Florida in Miami Beach. She’s also working on producing a musical about the life of Andy Warhol to Broadway.
Lautenberg’s interest in photography began when she met acclaimed photographer Erika Stone, who photographed her while she was pregnant. “Erika took these beautiful pictures of me. I was photographing my kids with a point and shoot, and I think she inspired me to take better pictures,” Lautenberg says. She enrolled in classes at the International Center of Photography. Over the last 25 years, Lautenberg’s photography has taken her to places including Antarctica, Israel, Cambodia, South Africa, Cuba, and other locations.
Lautenberg speaks fondly of her years being married to the late longtime New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, who served from 1982 to 2001, and then again from 2003 until his death in 2013. They dated for 16 years prior to marrying in 2004. “I’m thrilled that I married him. It’s just such an honor to be his wife. He was such an accomplished, fabulous man.” Lautenberg accompanied him on trips to China, Greenland, and congressional retreats.
As a Washington insider, Lautenberg was able to capture many unique moments and figures in American politics through her camera lens. Her life in close proximity to the epicenter of U.S. government action prompted her to write a book on the experience with co-writer Dick Olin to be released by Rutgers University Press next year. Of all of her experiences photographing moments in Washington, her most profound was getting the chance to photograph every Senator in the 109th Congress.
Lautenberg recalled, “I said to Frank I want to photograph all of your colleagues and ask them what their legacy piece of legislation is. He said you’ll never photograph them all.” Proving her husband wrong, Lautenberg managed to get every member of the senate to agree to be photographed in the span of four months. She went as far as going to the offices of both the Democrat Minority Leader, Harry Reid, and the
LAUTENBERG’S LADY LIBERTY is on display at the New-York Historical Society.
Republican Majority Leader, Bill Frist, to convince them to be a part of the project. The project was titled How They Changed Our Lives: Senators As Working People, which was exhibited at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, New Jersey in September 2008 shortly before the November 2008 Presidential election. Currently, the project is in the Library of Congress in Washington, D. C. where it can be viewed online.
In addition to photographing politicians, Lautenberg has photographed many pop stars in a series entitled Pop Rocks. In 2010, Lautenberg got front-row seats with her husband to see Lady Gaga at Radio City Music Hall, where
she photographed the singer. Over the years Lautenberg has been able to add to her project, photographing musicians such as Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, and Katy Perry.
Of all her projects, Lautenberg’s ARTISTICA! series has put her on the map as an artist. Created over the span of five years, the series consists of 90 individual collages that juxtapose movie scenes against famous works of art. For instance, Lautenberg plays matchmaker to the 1957 movie Funny Face, by combining Audrey Hepburn’s bold pose with Clifford Still’s painting PH971, both glamorous and majestic.
ARTISTICA! eventually caught the eye of one of South Florida’s leading cultural landmarks, the Boca Raton Museum of Art. The museum gave her a show called Bonnie Lautenberg: Art Meets Hollywood that displayed 28 digital collages in an exhibit this past year. “This museum show has been extraordinary for me. I would say that it’s put me on the map as an artist. Every artist needs something to put them on the map and I’d say this is the project that has done that.”
Lautenberg’s various works are currently in eight museums. Her work was recently shown at the Jean Albano Gallery in Chicago, and at David Benrimon Fine Art in New York, and in the show Rethinking America alongside works by Warhol, Lichtenstein, Longo, Kass, and Ed Ruscha. Another series of hers, Lady Liberty, which depicts the Statue of Liberty wearing an American Flag Mask is on display at the New- York Historical Society. Lautenberg also had a showing of ARTISTICA! At Monika Olko Gallery in Sag Harbor, N.Y., and will have additional ARTISTICA! and Lady Liberty displays in October at C. Parker Gallery in Greenwich, C.T. Further, due to the success garnered from her Art Meets Hollywood show, Lautenberg was able to secure another upcoming show at the Jewish Museum of Miami in November.
Next, she is co-producing a new Broadway musical about the life of Andy Warhol with her current partner, veteran entertainment agent Steve Leber, who knew Warhol personally. The inspiration behind the musical, Lautenberg explained, was that upon Senator Lautenberg’s death, he left behind lithographs of Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, which his children placed up for auction. Leber and Lautenberg attended the auction of the lithographs, which prompted Leber to write the musical. Approved by the Warhol Foundation, the show is in development and is slated to premiere in 2023 and be directed by Sir Trevor Nunn, with a book by Rupert Holmes. “We’ve been working on this Warhol musical for all these years, sitting with the creative people that are involved in Warhol, Trevor Nunn, Rupert Holmes, etc… It’s been a joy.”
Driven by new projects, Lautenberg feels gratitude. “I feel very blessed that I have this passion, this creative bone in my body, that I want to do this, at this stage of life. When you’re creative, it just keeps going; you can’t stop it.” DT
For more information on Bonnie Lautenberg, visit bonnielautenberg.com.
LAUTENBURG’S ARTISTICA! SERIES juxtaposes movie scenes against famous works of art. Here, 1952’s Singing in the Rain with Yayoi Kusama’s The Sea.