A selection of photographs from renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz’s Pilgrimage project featuring images of significant historic American sites are on display through January 20, 2013 at the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center. The exhibition features more than 70 photographs, includes 2 images from Gettysburg.

“From the beginning, when I was watching my children stand mesmerized over Niagara Falls, this project was an exercise in renewal,” said Leibovitz. “It taught me to see again.” The pictures, although there are no people in them, are in a certain sense portraits of subjects that have shaped Leibovitz’s distinctly American view of her cultural inheritance. Visiting the homes of iconic figures, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, Pete Seeger, and Elvis Presley, as well as places such as Niagara Falls, Gettysburg and the Yosemite Valley, she let her instincts guide her to related subjects—hence the title Pilgrimage.

“Gettysburg is such an important place in American history,” said Gettysburg Foundation President Joanne M. Hanley. “Millions of people make their own pilgrimage of sorts here every year, to stand on these fields and reflect on the battle of Gettysburg’s effect on our nation—an effect we are still feeling today. The Pilgrimage exhibition helps people understand that Gettysburg is very much relevant in our lives today.”

Pilgrimage is an evocative and deeply personal statement by an artist whose career spans more than 40 years, encompassing a broad range of subject matter, history and stylistic influences. Together, the pictures show Leibovitz at the height of her powers and pondering how photographs, including her own, shape a narrative of history that informs the present.

Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage is presented at Gettysburg by the Gettysburg Foundation; the exhibition is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Bernie Stadiem Endowment Fund provided support for the exhibition, and the C.F. Foundation of Atlanta supports the museum’s traveling exhibition program, Treasures to Go. The prints were made by David Adamson Editions in Washington, D.C.

The Gettysburg Foundation is a private, non-profit educational organization working in partnership with the National Park Service to enhance preservation and understanding of the heritage and lasting significance of Gettysburg. The Foundation raised funds for and now operates the Museum and Visitor Center at Gettysburg National Military Park, 1195 Baltimore Pike, in Gettysburg. In addition to operating the Museum and Visitor Center, the Foundation has a broad preservation mission that includes land, monument and artifact preservation and battlefield rehabilitation — all in support of the National Park Service’s goals at Gettysburg.