Queen row photographs go on show

The Scotsman – October 15, 2008

Annie Leibovitz’s photographs of the Queen that became drawn into a row after a false impression was given that the monarch had stormed out of the shoot are being publicly displayed in central London.

The National Gallery is showing Annie Leibovitz : A Photographer’s Life, 1990 to 2005, which opens to the public on Thursday.
The exhibition includes four images of the Queen, which were indirectly involved in a furore after a trailer for TV documentary A Year With The Queen left a false impression that the Queen had stormed out of a photoshoot with the photographer.  

A scene of the monarch walking out of a photocall after being asked by celebrity Leibovitz to remove her crown because it was “too dressy” was, in fact, the Queen walking in.

The BBC and RDF, the company which made the clip, both apologised after a complaint from Buckingham Palace.

The gallery said it was the first time the photographs of the Queen have gone on display together in the UK.

The exhibition draws together for the first time well-known assignments and rarely-seen personal work, according to the gallery.

Leibovitz’s work began appearing in Rolling Stone in the early 1970s and 10 years later she began working with Vanity Fair and then Vogue.

At the heart of the exhibition of more than 150 photographs are scenes from Leibovitz’s life, including the birth and childhood of her three daughters.

The deeply personal photographs also show her experiences of the illnesses and deaths of her father and her long-term partner, the writer Susan Sontag.