As provided by the artist:
Mr. Liepke was born and raised in St. Louis Park Minnesota. After finishing high school he enrolled at the University of Minnesota in order to study art history. In 1979 he moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles California, attending the Art Center College of Design as a photography major.
Upon completion of his college education he opened an advertising photography studio in Los Angeles. For many years during that time his client roster included prominent agencies such as Chiat/Day, Daily &Assoc, J Walter Thompson etc., while photographing products for American Honda, Sunkist, FTD, to name a few.
In 1987 a major earthquake hit the LA metropolitan area causing considerable damage to Mr. Liepke’s building and studio. The building needed considerable repair, so it was at that time Mr. Liepke decided to close his LA based studio and make a radical change in his life. In one bold stroke he decided to move to New York City, and in 1988 started from scratch, this time instead of a product photographer, reinventing himself as a fine art portraitist.
A major turning point and opportunity came when legendary CBS News journalist Walter Cronkite granted Liepke a private portrait session, after many months of requests, and letter writing on the part of Mr.Liepke. Mr.Cronkite was in turn so pleased with the resulting portrait from that session, that the image went on to grace the cover of his biography “ A Reporters Life” a 32 week New York Times best seller published by Alfred Knopf. The photograph also then spawned additional portrait sittings with many other celebrities and journalists. His first solo exhibition was held in 1997 at The Museum of Television and Radio in New York.
Presently, Mr. Liepke resides in upstate New York with his wife, and two sons. He continues to draw upon his own wonderful childhood growing up in Minnesota for the inspiration, and subject matter contained within his fine art work. While at the same time producing finely crafted prints with paper negatives, he enjoys using early turn of the century alternative printing processes for his medium such as Bromoil, Platinum Palladium, and Gum Bichromate.
His commercial work today still includes portraits. Many book covers now utilize his fine art wp-content/uploads/2015/04 such as Simon & Schuster, Knopf, Bantam Doubleday, and Penguin books. Both his fine art and commercial work have been profiled often in PHOTOGRAPHIS, GRAPHIS Showcase, Photo District News, Town & Country magazine, and numerous others.
Growing up in St. Louis Park, Peter Liepke lived at 3901 Alabama Ave.