WONDERFUL PHOTOBOOK CLASSIC by legendary American photographer Annie Leibovitz - with the most important photos by the artist from 1970 till 1990. MUCH MORE UNCOMMON FIRST HARDCOVER EDITION (there was also a paperback variant published same time) Schirmer and Mosel, Munich, Paris, London. 1991. First German edition, first printing. Hardcover. 287 x 337 mm. 232 pages. 78 photos in color, 164 in duone. Photos: Annie Leibovitz. Text: Ingrid Sischy. Text in German. Condition: Book inside and outside fresh and clean with no marks and with no foxing; light trace of use, no remarkable defects. Lacks the jacket. Overall very fine condition. Fantastic overview of the famous Annie Leibovitz work - here in the scarce hardcover variant. "Anna-Lou Leibovitz, born 1949, is an American portrait photographer best known for her portraits, particularly of celebrities, which often feature subjects in intimate settings and poses. Leibovitz's Polaroid photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, taken five hours before Lennon's murder, is considered one of Rolling Stone magazine's most famous cover photographs. The Library of Congress declared her a Living Legend, and she is the first woman to have a feature exhibition at Washington's National Portrait Gallery. Leibovitz was a student in the 1970s when her photos were published for the first time: pictures of Vietnam War protesters in Israel, taken on assignment for Rolling Stone, one of which landed on the cover. Since then, she has captured film stars, politicians, athletes, royalty and artists for features and cover stories in other major publications, including Vanity Fair, Vogue and Time. Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on October 2, 1949, Anna-Lou Leibovitz is the third of six children of Marilyn Edith (née Heit) and Samuel Leibovitz. She is a third-generation American. Her father was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force of Romanian-Jewish heritage and her mother was a modern dance instructor of Estonian-Jewish heritage. Her love for photography began at a young age when her father gave her a camera. The family moved frequently with her father's duty assignments, and she took her first pictures when he was stationed in the Philippines during the Vietnam War. After her family's return from the Philippines, she attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied painting and photography. Leibovitz's passion for art was born out of her mother's engagement with dance, music, and painting. While attending Northwood High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, she became interested in various artistic endeavors and began to write and play music. Leibovitz attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied painting with the intention of becoming an art teacher. At school, she had her first photography workshop and changed her major to photography. She was inspired by the work of Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson. For several years, she continued to develop her photography skills while holding various jobs, including a stint on a kibbutz in Amir, Israel, for several months in 1969. Leibovitz attended the San Francisco Art Institute from 1967 until 1971. By the time Leibovitz received her bachelor of fine arts degree in 1971, her photographs of Israel and a picture of the poet Allen Ginsberg at a San Francisco peace march had already landed her a job at the music magazine Rolling Stone. When Leibovitz returned to the United States in 1970, she started her career as staff photographer for Rolling Stone magazine. In 1973, publisher Jann Wenner named Leibovitz chief photographer of Rolling Stone, a job she would hold for 10 years. Leibovitz worked for the magazine until 1983, and her intimate photographs of celebrities helped define the Rolling Stone look. While working for Rolling Stone, Leibovitz learned that she could work for magazines and still create personal work of her family, which for her was the most important: "You don't get the opportunity to do this kind of intimate work except with the peo ple you love, the people who will put up with you. They're the people who open their hearts and souls and lives to you. You must take care of them." Leibovitz photographed the Rolling Stones in San Francisco in 1971 and 1972, and served as the concert-tour photographer for the Rolling Stones' Tour of the Americas '75. Her favorite photo from the tour was a photo of Mick Jagger in an elevator.The mid-1970s brought Leibovitz an increasing amount of notoriety and its concomitant tribulations. In 1975, the Rolling Stones invited Leibovitz to document their six-month concert tour. Living in the world of her subjects, her camera did not shield Leibovitz from the rock 'n' roll life-style. She began using cocaine on tour and struggled for years afterward to recover. On December 8, 1980, Leibovitz had a photo shoot with John Lennon for Rolling Stone, and she promised him he would make the cover. She had initially tried to get a picture with just Lennon alone, as Rolling Stone wanted, but Lennon insisted that both he and Yoko Ono be on the cover. Leibovitz then tried to re-create something like the kissing scene from the couple's Double Fantasy album cover, a picture Leibovitz loved. She had Lennon remove his clothes and curl up next to Ono on the floor. Leibovitz recalls, What is interesting is she said she'd take her top off and I said, "Leave everything on"—‌not really preconceiving the picture at all. Then he curled up next to her and it was very, very strong. You couldn't help but feel that he was cold and he looked like he was clinging on to her. I think it was amazing to look at the first Polaroid and they were both very excited. John said, "You've captured our relationship exactly. Promise me it'll be on the cover." I looked him in the eye and we shook on it. Leibovitz was the last person to professionally photograph Lennon‍—‌he was shot and killed five hours later. About a month later, Rolling Stone gave grieving music fans his "last image". The photograph was subsequently re-created in 2009 by the couple's son Sean Lennon posing with his girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl, with male/female roles reversed (Lennon clothed, Kemp naked),[16] and by Henry Bond and Sam Taylor-Wood in their YBA pastiche on October 26, 1993. Leibovitz's new style of lighting and use of bold colors and poses got her a position with Vanity Fair magazine in 1983. Leibovitz photographed celebrities for an international advertising campaign for American Express charge cards, which won a Clio award in 1987. In 1991, Leibovitz mounted an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. She was the second living portraitist and first woman to show there. That same year, Leibovitz was also made Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. Also in 1991, Leibovitz emulated Margaret Bourke-White's feat by mounting one of the eagle gargoyles on the 61st floor of the Chrysler Building in Manhattan, where she photographed the dancer David Parsons cavorting on another eagle gargoyle. Noted Life photographer and picture editor John Loengard made a gripping photo of Leibovitz at the climax of her danger (Loengard was photographing Leibovitz for The New York Times that day). In 1994, Leibovitz photographed Carl Lewis for Pirelli's famous Power Is Nothing Without Control ad campaign. The most well-known advertisement featured Lewis crouched in a sprinting position sporting bright red stilettos. In 1998, Leibovitz began to work regularly for Vogue. In 2007, a major retrospective of Leibovitz's work was held at the Brooklyn Museum.[24] The retrospective was based on her book, Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990–2005 and included many of her professional (celebrity) photographs and numerous personal photographs of her family, children, and partner Susan Sontag. This show, which was expanded to include three official portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, then went on the road for seven stops. It was on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., from October 2007 to January 2008 and at the Palace of the Legion of Honor[25] in San Francisco from March 2008 to May 2008. In February 2009, the exhibition was moved to Berlin, Germany. The show included 200 photographs. This exhibition and her talk focused on her personal photographs and life." (Wikipedia)