Annie Leibovitz: Portraits 2005–2016

The Library Essay

The Face Is Given Time

Annie Leibovitz began at Rolling Stone in 1970 and became its chief photographer while still in her twenties, then carried her staged, saturated portraiture to Vanity Fair and Vogue. By the period this volume covers, 2005 to 2016, she was the photographer public figures sat for when they wanted the sitting itself to matter.

Phaidon published the collection in 2017 as a sequel to her earlier surveys. Politicians, athletes, artists and monarchs pass through it, but the constant is her method, which is patient and theatrical at once. Each subject is placed, lit and considered until the public face and the private one are visible in the same frame.