Afternoon:
12°c
Chalk up another victim of the credit crunch. Annie Leibovitz, the highest-paid photographer in the world, is in a six-week race to raise $24million (£14.2 million) or risk losing her homes and the rights to her entire body of work.
Images such as Demi Moore naked and pregnant and Whoopi Goldberg in a bath of milk could soon be appearing on mugs and T-shirts unless Leibovitz can find a way to meet the terms laid down by her creditors.
That the woman who made millions photographing campaigns for American Express finds herself in such a financial bind has stunned Manhattan.
To be snapped by Leibovitz for Vogue or Vanity Fair is a rarely-bestowed symbol of success. Condé Nast pays millions for her services. Brands such as Louis Vuitton and Disneyland pay more.
Of all the bad times to take out a loan, 59-year-old Leibovitz may have picked the worst: July last year, the eye of last year's financial storm, in between the collapse of bank Bear Stearns and the bail-out of insurance giant AIG.
She needed the cash after spending millions renovating her three townhouses in New York's Greenwich
Village and falling behind on taxes and bills from those who serviced her photographic work.
Instead of going to a conventional bank, Leibovitz went to Art Capital Group, a small New York firm which specialises in lending against artists' work. It was happy to offer her a $22 million credit, secured against her New York homes, her estate in Rhinebeck two hours north of the city and the rights to her work.
She returned to Art Capital in December and it increased the credit to $24 million and lowered the interest rate in return for even more control over the collateral.
The firm says it assumed the loan was to help Leibovitz reorganise her finances and stay solvent while she sold some assets. But it claims she and her team have refused to abide by the terms of the loan. On 29 July it filed a lawsuit in New York state supreme court over non-payment of the debt.
Art Capital demanded access to her homes so it could begin selling them before the 8 September deadline for full repayment. It alleges Leibovitz was aware her homes and intellectual property “would likely need to be sold in whole or in part” to satisfy the debt. Art Capital also claims she is behind on hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid fees associated with the loans.
Leibovitz has said nothing publicly, but friends and employers have rallied to her cause.
Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter told The New York Times: “The mind that can take these extraordinary pictures is not necessarily the same mind that is a perfect money manager.” If any photographer had the work ethic and ability to get out of debt, it was Leibovitz, he added.
Others point out it has been an eventful few years for the photographer. She lost her father Samuel, mother Marilyn and long-time companion, writer Susan Sontag. Aged 56, she added surrogate twins Susan and Samuelle to daughter Sarah, who she conceived at 51.
Leibovitz has often left a wake of chaos. As a young photographer at Rolling Stone magazine, she was famous for drug use, giving away cameras to people who liked them and abandoning rented cars, to the expenses department's despair.
At Vogue and Vanity Fair, shoots took on the scale of movies, with huge casts and special effects.
In the documentary Life Through A Lens, Vanity Fair features editor Jane Sarkin said: “It got a little bit more complicated with every shoot. Her demands became bigger. Fire, rain, cars, aeroplanes, circus animals — whatever she wanted she got.”
Leibovitz's friends claim she lives modestly but her property portfolio suggests otherwise.
In 2002 she bought two adjacent townhouses in Greenwich Village. She spent millions on renovations that led to disputes with neighbours, protests by conservationists, and the purchase of a third townhouse. Then the property market turned.
Art Capital has asked permission for estate agents to value her homes, and has been looking for partners to generate cash from her images. But the firm says Leibovitz and her representatives have “stated that they will not cooperate ... in any sale of the fine art collateral”.
It seems the emotions of selling off a lifetime's work may be nagging at Leibovitz. When you realize what she faces losing, it's not hard to see why.
Reader views (7)
Annie Leibovitz is a true living hero of our time. Have any of you ungrateful commentators seen the last photo ever taken of John Lennon, you know the one with him naked next to his wife Yoko Ono? That classic image is the tip of the iceberg. She serves the world with her work and will long be celebrated as a great contributor to modern art history. The rest of you haters will be dead and gone while her work will last for ages. I dare anyone to be as bold as A.L. and follow their passion in work and life.
- D.Scoppettone, Santa Cruz, California, USA
Poor luvvie, all those different houses as well.
- P Staker, London
Perhaps if when she was "young and in the habit of giving away cameras and abondoning rental cars to the expense departments dismay" someone had fired her or actually made her pay, then she would'nt be in this mess.
- H, London, UK
Who cares?,another fool with an overinflated opinion of herself,just because gullible people paid a fortune for her "works of art",or photos to the rest of us,it doesn't mean she is a great talent,just in the right place at the right time.
- Jacob, Canterbury Gulag England
It's effectively only the same fate (losing their homes, their possessions, their means of income) that is hitting millions of other people, but on a much larger scale, and its only newsworthy because of her celebrity. Unlike many of the 'ordinary' people in the same boat, however, she probably has a social and reputation infrastructure around her that will enable her to survive, and even prosper.
- Paul H, London, UK
Am I suppose to feel sad because she could lose her million dollar houses across the East Coast? Why do people feel the need to have x amount of houses and spend millions on them? And don't blame it on her being an artist, she didn't have the business brain to know about loans etc. I'm betting she had some kind of business or fund manager. If you need a loan, know that you will have to repay it, if you can't afford to repay it, things will be taken to that cost.
It really is very simple.
- S-M Hearmon, London, UK
Ah! The sin of greed raises its ugly head. Vanity as well. Talent is a gift and should not be abused. Such is life. Obviously she does not have the talent of being unselfish.
- Wq Ex Pat, outside UK
