Arguably one of the greatest portrait artists of our time, Miz Leibovitz has had a super-sized career spanning four decades, creating many of the most iconic portraits of celebrities and pop-culture personalities ever snapped. Until very recently, most of us assumed that Annie must be wallowing in fat wads of cash given the rumours about her reported fees, editorial deals & contracts with the likes of Vogue, Conde Nast, Rolling Stone, American Express and others. Last year it was disclosed that exactly the opposite was true when a stylist, lighting and rental houses and other vendors began suing Annie for non-payment of tabs racking up to $700,000 plus. Then, the reports began surfacing that Mizz Leibovitz was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and had pawned her complete works both past & future to survive economically.
For the past year, we've been provided tantalizing glimpses into some of the causes of her financial problems but never much of a complete picture as to how this could possibly happen to, ostensibly, the most recognized photographer of the day.
This weekend, New York Magazine, published a rather detailed accounting of Annie's woes, painting the most complete picture of the her impending financial ruin to date. I also note that the article quotes the sister of Leibovitz's long time love, writer/intellectual Susan Sontag's sister, Maui resident Judith Cohen. You can find the complete article here.
Thanks go out to photographer/blogger Andrew Hetherington of the famed What's the Jackanory blog for posting the link, along with an interesting portrait of Mizz Leibovitz by John Keatley, in this morning's entry.
