Born in Russia, Alexander Liberman studied fine art in Paris before moving to New York at the outbreak of WWII. Shortly afterwards, he joined Condé Nast, where he spent 21 years as art director of Vogue and a further 32 as editorial director of Condé Nast, in which capacity he oversaw their full list of titles which included Vogue, Vanity Fair and Condé Nast Traveller.  

Liberman’s spare time was dedicated to his fine art practice, which saw him explore photography, painting and sculpture. In 1959, the Museum of Modern Art held an exhibition of a series of photographs that he had taken of artists at work in their studio, including Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp and Constantin Brâncuși.  

He later took up painting and sculpture, working with large industrial materials. Of his experimental practice, Liberman said, “I came to believe in the unexpected, in chance, in doing things that haven’t been done before and didn’t conform to any established design principles.”  

Liberman’s artwork is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

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