One of the most legendary photographers of her day, Annie Leibovitz, who regularly shoots covers for Vogue and Vanity Fair, is obviously having serious money trouble. What has shocked the fashion industry is the way she has gone about borrowing the money – it is definitely a ‘first’ for both the financial borrowing world and the art world. What Annie has done is essentially to borrow 15 million pounds from a company called Art Capital, using her entire back-catalogue of work as collateral. Annie has shot some of the most iconic pictures of her time – it’s strange to think they are not in safe hands. Basically she has pawned all the rights to every picture she has ever taken and will take in the future!! Its pretty shocking stuff and shows just how the financial crisis has hit even the wealthiest of public figures.

Apparently Annie has been involved in expensive litigation since the death of her close friend Susan Sontag, regarding renovation of her properties – and Annie herself apparently has various other financial stresses to get rid of.

Art Capital expects to make about $120m in loans against art this year, up from about $80m in 2008. The company’s offices, which are located next door to the designer Vera Wang’s wedding dress showroom in Madison Avenue, resemble one of New York’s more select art galleries, which to some extent is what it is. Among the art works that have recently been taken in by the company, and put into secure and climate controlled specialist art warehouses for safekeeping, are pieces by Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Henry Moore and even Picasso.

We hope that Annie invests that money wisely so that she can pay them back one day in the not too distant future (because don’t forget its also accruing interest). It would be terrible to think that she has lost the rights to all the negatives and copyrights of all of the pictures that she herself has created. Its as wrong as when The Beatles were forced to sell their back-catalogue – and now Paul McCartney has to pay someone else money whenever he plays live certain songs that he himself wrote for nothing. A strange world we live in!

Annie currently has a photography exhibition on at CO Gallery in Berlin – “Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life” – showing from 21st feb to 24th March – it’s supposedly brilliant so if you’re in town, check it out!