An image of doomed devotion

On what would be the last day of his life, John Lennon posed for photographs with Yoko Ono in a New York session with photographer Annie Leibovitz. One of the pictures, a naked Lennon curled around and kissing a clothed Ono, became the cover for Rolling Stone magazine’s tribute to him.

That iconic image, published a month after his December 1980 death, has been ranked the top magazine cover of the last 40 years by a panel of magazine editors, artists and designers. The American Society of Magazine Editors announced the winners of the competition on Monday during a conference in Puerto Rico.

“Both the choice of a cover and the execution of a cover are crucial for any magazine,” said Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek and ASME president.

Coming in second was the shot of a very pregnant Demi Moore on the August 1991 cover of Vanity Fair, followed by an April 1968 image from Esquire of boxer Muhammad Ali with arrows in his body.