Naked Lennon voted best magazine cover
An iconic image of John Lennon curled naked around Yoko Ono just hours before he was shot dead has been voted the best US magazine cover of the last 40 years.
The Rolling Stone cover was printed a month after his murder in December 1980.
The Annie Leibovitz photograph captured the singer intertwined with and kissing a fully-clothed Ono.
It was voted the winner by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME).
Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek and ASME president, said: “Both the choice of a cover and the execution of a cover are crucial for any magazine.
“Every editor wants their cover to stand out.”
Vanity Fair’s August 1991 cover shot of a heavily pregnant Demi Moore was ranked second, followed by an April 1968 image from Esquire of boxer Muhammad Ali with arrows in his body.
Others on the shortlist include pictures from the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Vietnam War and a black and white portrait of Princess Diana who adorned the cover of People magazine on September 15, 1997, two weeks after her death.
Among the 41 images honoured were Andy Warhol drowning in a can of tomato soup from May 1969's Esquire and Mia Farrow on the front of People in March 1974.
The list was decided by a panel of 52 magazine editors, design and art directors and photography editors.
Among them, 11 came from the 1960s and nine from this decade.
Thirty-two covers were photographs, while seven were illustrations and two were text.
