Though you’d think it wasn’t so, this is the photographer’s first-ever collection of fashion images; she wanted to save them all for something special, as she states in the book. When Leibovitz returned to America in 1970, she worked for the recently launched Rolling Stone magazine. In 1973, publisher Jann Wenner named Leibovitz chief photographer of Rolling Stone. Leibovitz worked for the magazine until 1983, and her intimate photographs of celebrities helped define the Rolling Stone look. Now, these images at the cornerstone of Leibovitz’ career are brought together in a new book by Phaidon (on sale now at Matchesfashion’s Carlos Place store and online). Titled Wonderland, the book invites us, like Alice, to go down the rabbit hole, suspending reality for a much more interesting adventure. Edited and sequenced by Annie herself, the journey through the collected images shows just how the photographer has come to embrace the world of fashion, and bend it to her vision.

Legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz's surprising account of her encounters with fashion over five decades Annie Leibovitz began her career at Rolling Stone, shooting the world’s best loved musicians, and is now, decades later, one of America’s most highly regarded photographers, celebrated across the world, from The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, to Hauser & Wirth in Los Angeles, to Luma Arles in southern France.A compendium of her greatest hits ... Her pictures are big, colorful, beautifully composed, egregiously luxuriant, loaded with detail, and nearly always contain some kind of implied narrative.' – The New York Times Book Review Call to mind a seminal magazine photograph from the past 50 years and there’s a good chance Annie Leibovitz took it. Vogue and Vanity Fair would like to extend a special thanks to Hauser & Wirth, Phaidon, Hyundai, TriNet, and The Macallan for supporting our event.

Over the last 50 years, Annie Leibovitz’ eye has helped direct, guide and capture the fashion industry’s greatest talents; her hallmarks – theatrical staging, enchanting storytelling and a surrealist bent – working in creative dialogue with the designs they portray. Leibovitz started her career as a photojournalist at Rolling Stone in 1971, when the magazine was in its infancy. She was just 21 when her portrait of John Lennon made the cover. Her photographs helped shape the magazine and give it the unvarnished visual gumption it has become known for. In her 12 years at the magazine, she went on tour with the Rolling Stones, shot the final image of the Nixon presidency as the disgraced politician boarded a helicopter from the White House, and captured the iconic, much-copied image of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Much of the 72-year-old artist’s output blurs the line between photojournalism, which strives to document a fleeting moment to preserve reality, and editorial photography, which depicts its subjects in a stylised way to promote products, tell a story or attract attention. As a student, Ms Leibovitz found the friction between documentary photography and fashion shoots compelling. “The former was kept higher up while the other was considered commercial.”

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Annie Leibovitz. Wonderland’ is on view now through 23 December 2021 at Hauser & Wirth Southampton. Leibovitz is the recipient of many honors. In 2006, she was made a Commandeur in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. She has received the International Center of Photography’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the first Creative Excellence Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors, the Centenary Medal of the Royal Photographic Society in London, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art Award to Distinguished Women in the Arts, the Wexner Prize, and the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities. She has been designated a Living Legend by the United States Library of Congress. She lives in New York with her three children, Sarah, Susan and Samuelle.

To say this week is an exciting one for the fashion industry would be an understatement. There is much to celebrate, and high on that list is the release of the book Annie Leibovitz: Wonderland (Phaidon) which was the reason that a notable group gathered at Hauser & Wirth’s pop-up show at Studio 525 in Chelsea yesterday afternoon.Legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz’s surprising account of her encounters with fashion over five decades. This luxury edition is presented in a beautiful and elegant slipcase. I’d love to shoot Angela Merkel,” she says. “I’ve been trying to shoot her for a few years now but her office keeps pushing it out, asking me to wait until she retires. And every time I see that she has had her photo taken by someone else, it drives me crazy.”

A] gorgeous anthology of fashion images … Leibovitz is nothing less than America’s greatest living photographic portraitist … she has changed fashion photography forever.”– Anna Wintour In 1975, Leibovitz served as a concert-tour photographer for The Rolling Stones' Tour of the Americas. In high school, she became interested in various artistic endeavours, and began to write and play music. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute. She became interested in photography after taking pictures when she lived in the Philippines, where her Air Force father was stationed during the Vietnam War. For several years, she continued to develop her photography skills while she worked various jobs, including a stint on a kibbutz Amir in Israel for several months in 1969. This new title explores that side of her practice for the first time, by reproducing more than 350 photographs, featuring a wide array of subjects, including Cate Blanchett, Serena Williams and Nicole Kidman; as well as the Queen of England and a good few First Ladies (not to mention Nancy Pelosi).A compendium of her greatest hits ... Her pictures are big, colorful, beautifully composed, egregiously luxuriant, loaded with detail, and nearly always contain some kind of implied narrative. "– The New York Times Book Review