Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, New York
Irving Penn American
Person in photograph Ruth Bader Ginsburg American
Not on view
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.
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