Entertainment News
2007-05-03
Leibovitz's photo
of Elizabeth II is unveiled
Queen Elizabeth
II blends regal formality and royal bling in a new
portrait by American celebrity photographer Annie Lei
Queen Elizabeth
II blends regal formality and royal bling in a new
portrait by American celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz.
Leibovitz
photographed the U.K. monarch to commemorate her six-day
visit to the United States. The queen's May 3–8
trip will be her fourth state visit to the United
States and comes 50 years after her first, when she
was a guest of President Eisenhower.
Leibovitz, 57, is
perhaps best-known publicly for her photograph of a
naked John Lennon hugging a fully clothed Yoko Ono for
Rolling Stone magazine. Privately, Leibovitz was
romantically attached to author Susan Sontag, who died in
2004.
Leibovitz's
portrait of Queen Elizabeth II is considerably more formal.
The photo, unveiled to the public Wednesday, shows the queen
in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace, gazing
out toward the palace lawns and dressed in a white fur
stole, gold-embroidered evening dress, and diamond
tiara.
Leibovitz said
before the photo sessions in March that she wanted to take
''a very simple portrait.''
The picture is
reminiscent of the formal portraits of the monarch's
mother, the Queen Mother Elizabeth, by U.K. photographer
Cecil Beaton.
''I like
tradition,'' Leibovitz said. ''Cecil Beaton's
pictures—they're very important to me.''
The queen will be
in Virginia to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the
Jamestown settlement, the first permanent English settlement
in the New World.
She will attend
the Kentucky Derby on Saturday and then travel to
Washington, D.C., to meet President Bush and his wife,
Laura. (AP)
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