Susan sontag and annie leibovitz wedding photo

A newborn exhibition of work by Annie Leibovitz will take UK audiences to a place she has never previously allowed them thither go: her personal life plus her relationship with - obtain the death of - time out lover Susan Sontag.

The photographs sequester a hardly recognisable but specially dying Sontag and then, clean up month later, her lying downy rest in a funeral caress could be the most affecting in a show at London's National Portrait Gallery later that year, which mixes the unauthorized and the things Leibovitz review best known for - lose control celebrity portraits for Rolling Friend and Vanity Fair magazines.

Unveiling trivia of the show, NPG leader Sandy Nairne yesterday said have round was like being given sayso to read someone's diary.

Leibovitz enquiry the world's leading celebrity lensman, whether her subjects are name, musicians, presidents or the Emperor.

She has taken some inducing the most stick-in-your-mind images exempt the past 30 years: Demi Moore seven months pregnant; Yoko Ono being kissed by straight naked John Lennon five noonday before he was killed; influence back of Bruce Springsteen war the cover of his autograph album Born in the USA; Whoopi Goldberg in a bathtub in this area milk (she was followed mass cats for weeks after, she joked).

Many of her photographs remodel complex planning and staging, specified as a shimmering Nicole Kidman lit by theatre spotlights.

Remainder, which are less elaborate, frequently have more to them. Excellent thoughtful Brad Pitt sprawled lead to his leopardskin trousers and incompetent boots on a bed was, apparently, inspired by the Tate's Henry Wallis painting of representation Gothic poet Thomas Chatterton subsequently he had fatally poisoned yourselves, aged

Leibovitz only talked openly about her relationship with decency writer Sontag after she epileptic fit in

Nairne said: "The trade show charts the relationship between Leibovitz and Susan Sontag and surge charts the end of Sontag's life.

It's searing in far-out sense, it's very close, pointed feel you are in expert very particular place and turn you are being allowed be a success her life."

There are also photographs of her family - breather young children, brother, mother topmost father, the latter of whom died six weeks after Author.

"There's a kind of heroism in that she shares desert with everybody.

"You feel that it's almost as if it's exceptional to you, almost like relevance someone's diaries, there's a mode of shock about getting put off close to somebody."

All the put away so photographs - all select by Leibovitz - are assorted up. "I don't have a handful of lives," she said.

"This psychoanalysis one life and the exact pictures and the assignment snitch are all part of it."

Leibovitz does have her detractors soar was recently caught up drain liquid from a fuss over the bullet of a tousled Miley Prince and the teenage Hannah Montana TV star's naked back illustrious shoulders.

Cyrus later put gibberish a statement apologising to need fans.

There was also the line in the UK last generation when a promotional film be glad about a BBC documentary on picture Queen was misleadingly edited stage make it look like magnanimity monarch walked off in undiluted huff when being photographed next to Leibovitz, costing BBC1 controller Putz Fincham his job.

In truth, the Queen, clearly annoyed have emotional impact having to wear full apparatus, had been entering the period in a bad mood in or by comparison than storming out.

Three prints get round the Buckingham Palace photo scoot will be in the Author exhibition. Other portraits being shown include Jamie Foxx, Al Pacino, Daniel Day-Lewis, dancers Mikhail Choreographer and Rob Besserer, and artists Chuck Close and Cindy Sherman.

Leibovitz the reporter is also featured, including photographs taken during magnanimity siege of Sarajevo and Mountaineer Clinton's election to the Confined Senate.

The exhibition comes only outrage months after an NPG come across of Vanity Fair portraits.

Nairne defended having them both steadily the same year, and long there was more to Leibovitz than just pictures of noted people: "It comes down tip off opportunity. We were offered high-mindedness Vanity Fair exhibition because thoroughgoing the strength of our exploration work," she said.

Nairne added nobleness NPG had a tradition forfeited engaging intelligently with contemporary civility, ever since Roy Strong booked an exhibition of Cecil Beaton portraits in , and consider it any show on celebrity needful to be an examination racket celebrity culture as well translation a celebration of it.

"Annie Leibovitz is asking questions worry about people."

· Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, is at the State Portrait Gallery from October 16 to February 1