Annie Leibovitz’s ‘Women’ Book Is a Daring Quest Into the Heart of Contemporary Womanhood

Annie Leibovitz’s ‘Women’ Book Is a Daring Quest Into the Heart of Contemporary Womanhood For Annie Leibovitz, there is perhaps no more fruitful of a subject than women. “Women are a work in progress,” the photographer remarked in a 2016 interview with the New York Times. “To my dying day, I’ll be doing these photographs.” If the work of photographing women is forever ongoing, then Phaidon’s reprint of her […] READ: Annie Leibovitz’s ‘Women’ Book Is a Daring Quest Into the Heart of Contemporary Womanhood

Art Nov 28, 2025 0 3 Add to Reading List

Annie Leibovitz’s ‘Women’ Book Is a Daring Quest Into the Heart of Contemporary Womanhood

Portrait of Gloria Steinem by Annie Leibovitz

Gloria Steinem, journalist, women’s rights activist, New York City, 2015. (Photo: Annie Leibovitz)

For Annie Leibovitz, there is perhaps no more fruitful of a subject than women. “Women are a work in progress,” the photographer remarked in a 2016 interview with the New York Times. “To my dying day, I’ll be doing these photographs.” If the work of photographing women is forever ongoing, then Phaidon’s reprint of her 1999 classic, Women, is an ambitious continuation of that mission.

Packaged as a slipcased set, the 2025 edition pairs Leibovitz’s original 1999 book with a brand-new volume of photographs from 1993 to the present day. Taken together, both volumes span more than 250 portraits, documenting women in classrooms and coal mines; spread out on grassy fields and posing on city streets; playing baseball and running track; and at desks, preparing to draft up architectural plans or an essay. And, given Leibovitz’s reputation, it should come as no surprise that many photographs center around trailblazers and luminaries. Throughout, readers visit Rihanna at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, pregnant and draped over a turquoise couch. We take a peek into journalist and activist Gloria Steinem’s apartment in New York, her desk overflowing with books and papers. We encounter a stunning, black-and-white image of Louise Bourgeois, in which she firmly shuts her eyes and extends a wrinkled hand toward the camera. Other portraits feature Malala Yousafzai, Billie Eilish, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Queen Elizabeth II, Oprah Winfrey, and many more.

Without question, these are remarkably intimate glimpses into the lives and personalities of some of the world’s most renowned figures. But what makes Women truly compelling is its equal focus on everyday scenes. One photograph, for instance, showcases the Girls Choir of Harlem sitting on the stoop of an apartment building, their faces bright and beaming. Not only is it a tender image, but it also doesn’t presume celebrity as a precursor for being photographed by Leibovitz. One composition sees Californian farmer Karen Fedrau tending to her fields, while yet another depicts a home-care attendant and her sister right outside of a Texas convenience store.

In Leibovitz’s photographs, it’s clear that what constitutes a “woman” or “womanhood” is as expansive as it is original. There are countless stories being told throughout Women, and each is treated with the same level of dignity. The essays included in both volumes testify to that fact as well, written by such prominent writers as Susan Sontag, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Steinem.

“Annie’s images demanded that women be seen,” Steinem argues. “Women isn’t just a collection of women, it’s a history of our time, with women included. It’s a documentation of the people it captures, and the environments they thrive in—from cluttered kitchens to seascapes, women inhabiting space with authority and grace.”

Women: Annie Leibovitz is now available to purchase on Bookshop and via Phaidon’s website.