Who took the final Rolling Stone cover photo of Lennon and Yoko Ono?

Annie Leibovitz took the final Rolling Stone cover photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Leibovitz photographed the couple at their Dakota apartment in New York on December 8, 1980, for a planned Rolling Stone cover. The magazine had initially wanted a portrait of Lennon alone, but Lennon insisted that Ono appear with him. Leibovitz’s resulting image shows a nude Lennon curled protectively around a fully clothed Ono.

The session became historically significant because Lennon was murdered outside the Dakota later that same day, only hours after the photographs were taken. Rolling Stone used the portrait for its January 22, 1981, tribute issue. Although often called Lennon’s “last photograph,” it was more precisely his final professional portrait; another photograph was taken later as he signed an autograph for Mark David Chapman.

The other options are associated with important music photography, but not this defining Rolling Stone image. Bob Gruen photographed Lennon extensively, Richard Avedon created famous Beatles portraits, and Linda McCartney photographed many musicians, yet Leibovitz is the canonical answer here.