Leibovitz's commercial day rate is $250,000, according to New York magazine. We certainly hope taxpayers didn't pay her that much to document for posterity the fundamental adorableness of the First Family. Perhaps the Obamas, or Obama's campaign arm, footed the bill. Or maybe Leibovitz performed her duties gratis. That would have been especially admirable, however, seeing as how this picture was taken on September 1, one week before Leibovitz's deadline to repay the $24 million loan she owed to high-end artsharks Art Capital Group or lose possession of her photographic legacy. That deadline was eventually extended, but there must have been a lot on Annie's mind when this photo was taken.

The terms weren't disclosed, but Leibovitz and Art Capital released a joint statement this afternoon saying "they have reached an agreement that provides a further restructuring of Ms. Leibovitz's finances and resolves pending legal matters between them."

Leibovitz owes Art Capital $24 million, and gave up her photo archive and homes in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and Greenwich Village as collateral. Art Capital sued her in July over her refusal to help them sell the archive so it could recoup the loan, which came due three days ago. We wrote earlier this week that Leibovitz's only options appeared to be bankruptcy are coming to terms, and that Art Capital CEO Ian Peck hates the uncertainty of bankruptcy.

It looks likes they chose to come to terms—an advance glimpse of which we may have heard yesterday, when a tipster spotted a woman in black business suit telling Leibovitz, "You may not like it, but you probably don't have a choice" on the street in Greenwich Village.

As part of the deal, Leibovitz "purchased from Art Capital its rights to act as exclusive agent in the sale of her real property and copyrights." Art Capital had secured that right when it loaned Leibovitz the money. Our question: What on earth did she purchase it with? She has no money! Our guess is that she promised to pay Art Capital a surcharge amounting to their lost commission on the sale if she could decide who to sell it to herself. Her refusal to help Art Capital sell it thus far, coupled with the fact that she clearly has no other option than that it be sold to someone, leads us to believe that she wanted to control the deal and decide how it was sold and to whom. And it looks like Art Capital is now OK with that, as long as it gets its money.

Here's the joint statement:

[Submit your own Gawker Stalker sightings to stalker@gawker.com]

The Observer caught Lebowitz at a Graydon Carter-hosted book party last night and asked her what she thought of the McKinsey consultants descending on Condé Nast:

"Well, I don't think it's anyone working there who hired them!" Ms. Lebowitz said. "The thing is, everyone seeks a lot of advice now. People who make $40,000 a year have financial consultants. 'How should I deal with my money?' Don't spend all of it! It's just common sense."

Annie, you should listen to Frannie.

Now that Leibovitz is undeniably in default on the loan, it seems like declaring bankruptcy is her only option. And even if she doesn't want to do that, Art Capital seems ideally situated to force her into bankruptcy. But to judge by Art Capital's silence and Leibovitz's hopeful noises about "resolv[ing] this matter," it looks like neither party wants bankruptcy. Why not?

One reason can be found in this interview Reuters' Felix Salmon conducted with Art Capital's CEO Ian Peck back in June, in which Beck revealed his fear of what bankruptcy judges can do to his finely calibrated deals:

Peck is pretty puritanical about bankruptcy — he won't lend to people who have declared bankruptcy in the past, and he's afraid of what might happen to his liens in bankruptcy court, so he wants to avoid that if at all possible.

Right now, Peck can claim ownership over Leibovitz's photo archive, which he values at $50 million, and her homes in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and Greenwich Village, as well as 12 percent interest on the loan and 25 percent commission on the sale of the archive. If she files for bankruptcy, a judge could muck around with those numbers, reduce the interest rate, and cut him out of the commission. That sort of uncertainty is what he means when he says he's "afraid of what might happen to his liens." So if Leibovitz actually appears to be making movement toward finding an angel to help refinance the deal and pay off Art Capital everything it's entitled to, Peck might prefer to give her some time to work it out over throwing the bankruptcy switch and putting everything in the hands of a judge. Who might that angel be? Goldman Sachs is one of the financers of the Art Capital loan, and it has said it would like to find a way to refinance and help Leibovitz escape Art Capital's clutches.

But there is an upside to bankruptcy for Art Capital: it would free them up to sell the archive. It's important to note that, according to the terms of Art Capital's loan, it is already entitled to sell the archive and the homes right now, and has been for some time. There are two potential reasons that it hasn't: Either no buyer would plunk down the cash for the rights to the photos when the deal is surrounded by litigation, or Art Capital vastly overestimated the value of the archive and no bidder will come near the price that Art Capital needs to recoup the loan. If it's the former, bankruptcy would clean up the legal mess and allowing Art Capital to sell it by offering any buyer a free and clear title on the archive.

But there's another way to clear up the legal mess: Clear up the legal mess! If Leibovitz and Art Capital can come to terms and settle their claims and sell the archive outside of bankruptcy, both could benefit—Leibovitz wouldn't be bankrupt, and Art Capital would get everything it thinks it's owed. Alternatively, if Goldman Sachs or someone else is stupid enough to come along and take over the loan and pay off Art Capital enough to make it happy, then everybody still wins.

A potential monkey wrench would be if one of Leibovitz's other creditors files a petition for involuntary bankruptcy against Leibovitz before she and Art Capital can work it out — and we know that at least one creditor has been contemplating such a move for months.

According to Bloomberg, Leibovitz hired Pizzetti last year to scout locations for a calendar she was shooting for the Italian coffee company LavAzza. Leibovitz did indeed shoot photos for the calendar, which was supposed to be themed "The Italian Espresso Experience," but she couldn't actually make it to Italy to photograph the models. No problem—she just shot her models in New York and then pasted them onto photos taken in scenic Italian backgrounds. No muss, no fuss, the check cleared.

But Pizzetti wasn't in on the joke, apparently, and was shocked to find his background shot actually in the calendar—that's the photo at issue. Our reaction: Who knew how easy it is to be a celebrity international photographer? You don't even have to go anywhere! And while we were waiting to for news from the passing of today's deadline for the repayment of Art Capital Group's $24 million loan to Leibovitz (spokespersons for both Art Capital and Leibovitz had no comment on the deadline), it occurred to us that photoshop-whoring some of her more iconic shots could, with the click of a mouse, make those money troubles go away. We thought we'd get her started.

According to Paolo Pizzett, the litigious Italian in question, Leibovitz had him shoot potential locations for an ad campaign she was working on with Italian coffee company LavAzza. She later told him she wouldn't be traveling to Italy, yet released images, he says, which are simply his images, only edited. Now he wants $300,000. Clearly Pizzett doesn't know that today's the day Leibovitz is meant to repay her $24 million load to Art Capital Group, lest she wants them to take control of her homes and copyrights.

Sadly for her, Leibovitz hasn't done much to get herself out of this financial quagmire. Though some money-minded insiders suggested Leibovitz filed for bankruptcy to protect herself from Art Capital's wrath, she hasn't. Still, it's unclear whether Art Capital will make good and declare her in default, thus forcing her into bankruptcy, which would give a judge power of her assets and provide a bit of much-needed breathing room.

"Declaring her in default may be like nuclear weapons," said attorney Thomas Kline, a partner in the Washington office of Andrews Kurth LLP who specializes in art law and litigation. "It would make it more urgent and helpful for her to declare bankruptcy and come under a protection of the bankruptcy court."

For their part, the Group insists it wants to settle the matter out of court.

At least there's one bright spot for Leibovitz: a New York judge last week gave Leibovitz an extension to answer Art Capital's suit, which alleges Leibovitz breached her a contract giving the group exclusive rights to sell her work.

Since she seems reticent to file for bankruptcy, it seems the best Leibovitz can do is break her silence and paint herself as a victim: she took the loan to renovate her Greenwich Village townhouses. Now the Art Capital Group's trying to take it all away. Could that be why her spokesperson, Matthew Hiltzik, has been suggesting the group's getting too aggressive?

There has been tension and dispute since the beginning ... For now, her attention remains on her photography and on continuing to organize her finances.

Perhaps she should be focusing her attention on packing up her homes and figuring out what the hell she's going to do if Art Capital Group takes control of her name.

According to brokers, Leibovitz's New York real estate is worth "as much as $40 million," which is more than she owes Art Capital by quite a lot. But, you know, "as much as" is kind of vague. Her Hudson Valley estate could be worth $4 million, or $6 million, or $10 million. And those West Village townhouses she bought might go for $24 million to $30 million, which is hundreds more per square foot than other recently renovated West Village townhouses have been going for lately, but these are super-nice.

So "as much as $40 million" could also be written as "as little as $28 million," which is still more than she owes Art Capital, but not a lot more. Plus then she'd be homeless!

But it's obviously way too late now to sell off the real estate to pay off the loans. So one would imagine there were good reasons not to try doing this earlier.

We are not as smart as John Cook so we are just totally guessing here, but maybe Annie decided bankruptcy's a better deal, or she's still hoping a white knight will buy her out of this deal by Labor Day.

The Leibovitz meltdown has reached the point where even the British edition of Vogue, which is owned by her own employer Condé Nast, felt compelled to weigh in with a web item today, which strikes us as exceedingly back-stabby.

Barring the intervention of an angel, it seems highly likely that Leibovitz will file for bankruptcy before the Art Capital loan must be repaid next month. Here's the current state of play:

Leibovitz owes Art Capital $24 million. If she doesn't pay it back by September 8, she will be in default on the loan. But she may already be in default on the loan—according to a lawsuit Art Capital filed against Getty Images in April, Art Capital was at one point demanding a $1 million loan payment. It's unclear whether she made that payment or not, but if she didn't, that failure may have triggered a default. And in its suit against Leibovitz, Art Capital accuses her of failing to pay "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in fees associated with the loan—another failure that may have triggered default.

What happens if Leibovitz defaults? Well, for one thing, the 10% commission Art Capital gets from the sale of her homes and artwork under the terms of the loan gets a boost up to 25%, according to Bloomberg. Art Capital claims a "first priority security interest" in "every photographic image ever taken by Ms. Leibovitz" as well as he homes in Greenwich Village and Rhinebeck, N.Y. A "first priority security interest" means Art Capital gets in line ahead of other creditors if there is a bankruptcy. In order to know for sure what a default means, we'd have to see the loan agreement. But it's likely that, if Leibovitz hasn't made good by September 8, Art Capital would be entitled to take steps to sell off the assets to recoup its debt.

Except Art Capital appears to be already entitled to do that: Its deal with Leibovitz gives it the right to sell her homes and artwork before September 8:

Leibovitz's failure to cooperate in those sales is why Art Capital sued her in the first place.

So in terms of her relationship with Art Capital, September 8 doesn't change much: She may already be in default anyway, and Art Capital already has the right to sell everything off. What will probably change is that Leibovitz will file for bankruptcy—or be forced by one of her other creditors to do so—on or before September 8. According to Bloomberg, that is her best shot: It will put decisions on how to dispose of her assets in the hands of a judge, and it would halt any other creditor lawsuits against her and give her a chance to come to terms with her situation. Art Capital would still likely be able to force the sale and recoup some or all of its debt, but a judge might be convinced to reduce the amount, modify the interest rate, or alter the sales agreement under which Art Capital gets commission on the sale.

Is there another way out aside from bankruptcy? Well, Andrew Goldman reported this week in New York that Goldman Sachs owns a piece of the Art Capital loan, and Bloomberg reported yesterday (without giving New York credit for breaking the Goldman Sachs tidbit) that the bank is seeking to "terminate the current loan agreement with [Art Capital] so that [it] can work directly with Ms. Leibovitz" in order to "resolve her financing needs." Art Capital responded that it would be happy to receive a bid from Goldman for the loan, but Reuters' Felix Salmon is skeptical that Goldman will swoop in to save the day:

[M]y guess is that if Goldman wanted to buy Art Capital out of this deal, it would have to pay the best part of $30 million to do so. And then they would be owed $30 million by Annie Leibovitz, a woman whose decades-long history of repaying debts is uniformly atrocious. Somehow, with the best will in the world, I don't see this deal happening. And the one thing you can be sure of, when it comes to Leibovitz and Art Capital, is that there's no good will at all. Which means that Leibovitz is probably stuck with Art Capital for the foreseeable future, and Goldman Sachs is not going to be able to work out a white-knight deal.

So if Leibovitz doesn't declare bankruptcy and Art Capital manages to sell the portfolio, which it values at $50 million, it stands to get its $24 million back, plus $2.9 million in interest, plus a $12.5 million commission, assuming the sale occurs after Leibovitz defaults. That's roughly $40 million, leaving $10 million for Leibovitz. If she does declare bankruptcy, whatever Art Capital gets will be up to a judge, but it's likely that they would at least get back the principal.

So it actually appears to be in Art Capital's interest to sell the portfolio off before Leibovitz files for bankruptcy, and it appears to be entitled to do so. The trouble is, no one is going to buy it while all this legal wrangling is going on and without Leibovitz's consent. Bankruptcy, at the very least, would settle all the claims and free up the archive to be sold without any entanglements. It looks like that's where all this is heading, and it will probably get there by early next month.

Goldman's write-around profile of an artist in crisis goes a long way toward explaining exactly how the world's most celebrated celebrity photographer wound up hocking her photographic legacy to keep up with her mounting bills. Mostly it's that she never cared about how much anything cost, was an obsessive perfectionist, and trusted the wrong accountant.

Here's Annie the spendthrift:

Leibovitz had also built a life that had become extraordinarily expensive to maintain. It wasn't just the mortgages on the homes. It was the Range Rover, the trips to Paris, the chef and housekeeper, the handyman, the personal yoga instructor, the terrace gardener, and the live-in nanny. There was only one man Leibovitz deemed qualified to work on anything involving air-conditioning or ductwork at either residence, and he lived in Vermont. "She wanted her life to be like a magazine spread," Kellum says. "Everything beautiful, nothing out of place. She wanted everything to be perfect."

Along the same lines, Goldman reports, she flew in kid-song star Dan Zanes and Rosanne Cash to perform at her daughter's first birthday party.

As for Annie the perfectionist, in 2007, former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown asked Leibovitz to take the author jacket photo for her book about Princess Diana. Leibovitz showed up with two cars bearing a stylist, an assistant, a wardrobe, and a wind machine, and tried to extend the shoot to a second day after she was unsatisfied with the first days' results. Leibovitz was bearing the cost of the shoot herself.

That sort of behavior tends to pile up the debts, and in 2007 Leibovitz—who had an extremely hard time doing simple things like signing her own prints in order to make a lot of money selling them—fired her accountant Rick Kantor and manager Jimmy Moffat, who told Goldman that they had done what they could to rein in Leibovitz's spending. She replaced them with an accountant named Kenneth Starr (no relation), who had worked with Wesley Snipes (!). It was Starr who introduced Leibovitz to Art Capital Group. Goldman says Leibovitz didn't run the loan by her family or agent, and had no idea what she was getting into. She was shocked by a New York Times article reporting that she'd put her photos up as collateral:

"Trust me," says her sister Paula. "She thought it was a pure loan. That New York Times article was as much news to her as it was to anybody else."

Interestingly, the loan was financed by Goldman Sachs, which seems to be behind every epic collapse these days, and Goldman is now distancing itself from Art Capital: "We are deeply troubled by recent developments concerning Annie Leibovitz and Art Capital," Goldman (the firm) told Goldman (the writer). "Goldman Sachs owns a portion of the loan underwritten by an affiliate of Art Capital to Annie Leibovitz, but we have no involvement in the current sales-agreement dispute between Art Capital and Ms. Leibovitz. We have proposed to Art Capital that we terminate the current loan agreement with their affiliate so that we can work directly with Ms. Leibovitz to help her resolve her financing needs."

The one question that Goldman doesn't answer: Where did she get the money that she was spending so liberally? When Leibovitz went to Art Capital, her mortgage debts totaled $15.5 million. Half that, Goldman notes, was owed to her employer Condé Nast itself. (We broke that story two weeks ago, but Goldman doesn't credit us. We forgive him both because he is a stand-up gent and because he found out about it independently before we did, but sat helpless while New York's publication schedule worked its slow magic and the internet kept going.) But Leibovitz borrowed $24 million, indicating that there was an additional $9 million or so in debt she was facing—otherwise why borrow that much more than she needed for a short-term loan? There were other debts, including about $700,000 in lawsuits from unpaid vendors and a million or so in tax liens. But no matter how you cut it, Leibovitz appears to have owed millions more than we currently know about. We have a good idea what she spent it on, but where did it come from? Who else was loaning Leibovitz money? It's an especially interesting question because Leibovitz was never a good credit risk—as far back as the 1980s, Goldman writes, she had trouble getting an American Express card even as she was shooting ad campaigns for American Express (an ad agency intervened and arranged for her to get a card after Leibovitz lost an envelope full of cash she kept handy to pay vendors).

Somehow, it seems, Leibovitz managed to get nearly $10 million in the hole over and above the mortgages on her homes. Was that all on her AmEx? We don't think so.

Art Capital loaned Leibovitz $24 million last year to help her consolidate her gargantuan debts to her employer Condé Nast and others, taking the rights to Leibovitz's homes and photo archive as collateral. The deal also granted Art Capital the exclusive right to agent a sale of Leibovitz's photos, including any future photo shoots. The company sued Leibovitz last month, claiming she refused to cooperate with its attempts to sell the archive, which Art Capital says is the only conceivable way it will recoup the loan.

When we reported on that suit last month, we mentioned that Art Capital was also mad at Getty Images for announcing what looked like an agency agreement with Leibovitz in March, in apparent violation of the Art Capital deal. What we didn't know at the time was that Art Capital had actually sued Getty in April, claiming that Getty pretended to be interested in buying Leibovitz's photo archive in order to gain competitive advantage in negotiating its own agency deal with her.

According to a judge's order allowing parts of Art Capital's suit to go forward, Art Capital claims that Getty CEO Jonathan Klein and vice president Matthew Butson masqueraded as potential buyers for Leibovitz's photo collection, gaining access to information about it including the "number of shots, rolls of film, exposures, and public works" in the archive, the precise terms of Leibovitz's arrangement with Vanity Fair, and the fact that Leibovitz owned some of her work for Rolling Stone "without restriction." As part of Art Capital's negotiations with Getty, the order says, Art Capital proposed that Leibovitz promise to do eight photo shoots for Getty over the next two years. All-in-all, Art Capital—which made Getty sign two confidentiality agreements—valued the package at $50 million.

But in March, Getty offered a "low-ball bid" of $15 million, and Art Capital stopped negotiations and turned to another buyer. Eight days later, Getty announced its own deal with Leibovitz, which Art Capital says "used verbatim the two-year, eight-shoot collaboration with Leibovitz that [Art Capital] had proposed." In other words, Art Capital claims, Getty violated its confidentiality agreement in order to get closer to Leibovitz and figure out what she had, what she was worth, and what she was willing to do. Getty didn't buy the archive—just the eight shoots—but Art Capital says that Getty's interference scared off another unidentified potential buyer, presumably because the Getty deal appeared to muddy the legal waters as to who was actually representing Leibovitz—and who wants to spend $50 million on pretty pictures when a raft of lawsuits is in the offing?

Interestingly, according to the order, Art Capital was apparently demanding a $1 million loan payment from Leibovitz the week before the Getty deal was announced. And the Getty deal itself apparently paid $1.1 million, which Art Capital contends is "far less than her market rate." So it may be that Leibovitz was desperate for cash to make her payment, which Getty used against her as a bargaining chip.

The reason we didn't know about the suit until now is that Art Capital filed it under seal, and the complaint itself isn't available via the New York Supreme Court's web site (we haven't gone down to the courthouse to check the physical file). What is available, however, is a judge's order allowing two of Art Capital's claims against Getty to go forward and laying out the basics of the dispute. CityFile found it yesterday and linked to it—pointing out that the judge repeatedly misspelled Leibovitz's name. In addition to allowing Art Capital to proceed with claims of breach of contract and tortious interference, the judge denied Art Capital's motion to keep the case sealed, so presumably the full case file will be available soon.

Spokespersons for Getty and Art Capital did not immediately return phone calls.

You can read the order here.

Last week we looked into nearly bankrupt photographer Annie Leibovitz's sweetheart loans from Condé Nast, which — assuming the McKinsey consultants stalking 4 Times Square haven't put an end to the practice — has a habit of financing the homes of its executives and celebrity staffers.

It looked like the company might have called in the debt as a way to shore up it's ever-weakening balance sheet, so we kept browsing through New York's property records to see if any other magazine all-stars were in a similar position. We haven't come across evidence of other loans being taken off Condé Nast's books, but we did find the $5.3 million mortgage agreement Carter made in 2006 when he bought his home on Bank Street.

Carter's deal has been reported before by the New York Observer, which did a round-up of Condé Nast's sweetheart deals in 2006. What hasn't been reported are the insane terms: There's no interest on the loan, and Carter is required to repay the principal at a rate of $25,000 per year, payable in one lump sum each January 1:

At that rate—which works out to $2,083.33 per month—Carter would repay the loan in 212 years. (He would also need to set a longevity record: the full balance is due if he dies or within a year of when he stops working for Condé Nast.)

Carter, who made $1.5 million a year in 2004 according to the Observer, recently wrote of the subprime mortgage crisis: "I've read everything on the subprime-mortgage and banking crises I can get my hands on, and I still don't understand much of it." Which is understandable, if you're not accustomed to such onerous industry practices as interest rates and 30-year terms.

The loan to Carter came courtesy Advance Magazine Publishers, which is Condé Nast's parent company and has made similar deals for dozens of other Condé Nast employees, from the New Yorker's David Remnick to Portfolio's Joanne Lipman. But according to a public records search, a different lender financed a $150,000 line of credit on Carter's second home in Connecticut: Magazine Special Projects LLC, which also happens to serve as the secured party for a co-op owned by Peter Weinberger, the president of Advance Internet, and is located at Condé Nast's 4 Times Square headquarters. The loans to Leibovitz were likewise granted with a bit of corporate legerdemain—they came from Rhinebeck Properties, LLC, which is also headquartered at 4 Times Square. It seems that S.I. Newhouse doesn't like people sniffing around his lending portfolio, and has a host of LLCs to hide the deals. If you know the names of any other Condé Nast corporate shells that the company uses to dole out its sweetheart loans, let us know.

In December, Leibovitz borrowed $24 million from Art Capital Group, which makes its money by loaning artists cash and taking the rights to their work as collateral. When the artists fail to pay up, as artists often will, Art Capital sells the art to recoup. The loan isn't due until next month, but last week, Art Capital preemptively sued Leibovitz, claiming she was refusing to cooperate with the sale of her collection of photographs and homes in Greenwich Village and Rhinebeck, N.Y. The only way she will possibly be able to pay back the $24 million, Art Capital says, is by selling her homes and her catalog of photographs.

But the Art Capital deal wasn't so much a loan as a debt consolidation. Leibovitz has taken out nearly a dozen loans on her homes in the last 15 years, according to mortgage documents on file at the New York City Department of Finance, and the deal with Art Capital consolidated them all under one handy debtor. According to a December 2008 mortgage document dated the same day as the loan from Art Capital to Leibovitz, Art Capital took over $15.5 million worth of various mortgages on Leibovitz's Greenwich Village and upstate New York homes. It was that $15.5 million worth of debt, one imagines, that drove Leibovitz into the arms of Art Capital.

Which is why it's stunning to discover that she owed half of it to Condé Nast, which pays Leibovitz a reported $2 million a year to take pictures. One of the well-known perks of being a star talent at Condé Nast is low-interest mortgages guaranteed by the magazine giant's owner, Si Newhouse. According to this 2006 New York Observer story, more than "twenty Condé Nast executives, editors and even a couple of writers" have been loaned money to purchase homes by the company.

In Leibovitz's case, two of the loans she has taken out over the years were from a company called Rhinebeck Properties LLC which, according to this document that handed over Leibovitz's debt to Art Capital, is based at Condé Nast's famous 4 Times Square address. The document is signed by John Bellando, Condé Nast's chief operating officer. Another person who's benefited from a Rhinebeck Properties mortgage is Condé Nast editorial director Tom Wallace.

Rhinebeck Properties held two mortgages on Leibovitz's homes: A December 2006 mortgage for $2.5 million on her Greenwich Village townhouses, and a November 2006 loan of $4.7 million on her home in Rhinebeck, N.Y. All told, when Leibovitz did her deal with Art Capital late last year, she owed Condé Nast a total of $6.9 million—nearly half of her $15.5 million in outstanding debts.

All of this raises some questions: If the debt on Leibovitz's homes amounted to $15.5 million when she went to Art Capital, why did she seek $24 million from them? She's been sued by creditors, but the amounts—$700,000 or so—are no where near the $8.5 million cushion Leibovitz sought from the deal. And given her $2 million salary, she presumably wouldn't need it to live on.

And why was she driven to desperation if half of her money problems—or the ones we know about—came from money she owed to the people who celebrated her and paid her $2 million a year? Was Uncle Si—who's been listening to the advice of McKinsey consultants of late—calling in his generous loans? The smaller of the Rhinebeck loans carried a forgiving 5.4% interest rate. And it's hard to imagine they'd be hounding her for missed payments. Leibovitz owed about $8.6 million to other, not so cozy creditors. That's not a problem we'd like to have, but for someone in her position, it seems like the sort of financial problem that could be managed short of putting everything you own in hock.

There are more unanswered questions. Art Capital seems to think it is the sole lienholder for all of Leibovitz's properties, but we can't find a document showing that Condé Nast assigned the $4.7 million mortgage on her Rhinebeck home to them. And it's unclear from the documents whether, when it assigned over the smaller mortgage to Art Capital, Condé Nast was actually paid the balance or simply forgave the loan.

We contacted Leibovitz's spokesman for comment, and he referred us to a statement from Leibovitz calling the claims in Art Capital's lawsuit "false and untrue." A spokeswoman for Condé Nast didn't return a phone call, and a spokesperson for Art Capital had no immediate comment.

Pic, of Newhouse and Leibovitz at this year's National Magazine Awards, via ASME.

The piece, written by Festivus chronicler Allen Salkin-the Seymour Hersh of the Times' Style section-doesn't bring any new information to the table, but it does a great job of highlighting some of the people who helped enable Leibovitz to get to the point in her life where she might have to divest herself of all fiscal interests, including the rights to her original photographs. For example, Graydon Carter - one of her standby employers - notes that she's, uh, not exactly great with money:

"The mind that can take these extraordinary pictures is not necessarily the same mind that is a perfect money manager..."

Revealing. How about former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown, defending Leibovitz's personal spending habits?

"Annie is not an expensive liver herself," said Tina Brown, who edited Vanity Fair from 1984 to 1992, where Ms. Leibovitz began working after her early years at Rolling Stone magazine. "She hangs out with her kids. She doesn't hang out in the lights at the parties."

There's more about Art Capital-who gave her a $24M loan-shopping around the rights to her work around, her relationship with Susan Sontag and speculation on Leibovitz's inheritance from Sontag (only personal artifacts, says Sontag's son), and in the end, a potential scenario of tragedy for Annie's life's work:

On July 31, Justice Emily Jane Goodman denied Art Capital's request for a preliminary injunction against the contract between Ms. Leibovitz and Getty. The judge dismissed parts of the lawsuit, but ruled that other issues would be decided later. Until now, Ms. Leibovitz has closely guarded the right to reproduce her photographs. But should she lose control of her archive, her famous portraits of Whoopi Goldberg, Jack Nicholson and the like may one day be found on postcards in Times Square.

Without being entirely sure which Times Square tourists would be buying Leibovitz postcards of Whoopi Goldberg in Times Square, one thing is certain: Salkin's softball piece misses the elephant in the room: Leibovitz was (A) surrounded by enablers and (B) represents so much of the reason publications like Vanity Fair from media conglomerates like Conde Nast are facing financial issues now. Especially telling is this:

Over the years at Vanity Fair, her shoots became more complex and expensive, often elaborate as movie shoots. "Month after month, it got a little bit more complicated with every shoot," Jane Sarkin, a Vanity Fair features editor, said in the documentary. "Her demands became bigger. Fire, rain, cars airplanes, circus animals - whatever she wanted she got."

Emphasis mine. Leibovitz's photographs - while nothing to scoff at in terms of the talent they represent - are the type of overpriced commodities (like town-cars, lunches at Michael's, or any other Glossy Expense that could've been pared back a long time ago) that are now driving the magazine business under, or at least driving companies like Conde to have to bring in Firing Specialists.

All of these companies convinced Leibovitz that her projected worth was way more than it needed to be, by paying her as such. The irony that Tina Brown is being quoted about somebody wasting money is unbelievable, as even Brown herself lamented the ridiculous expenses of her own fallen publication - Talk - two weeks ago, when mourning the death of her party planner Robert Isabell.

People like Leibovitz and their work on his covers were and still remain points of pride for Graydon Carter, almost in the same way collecting celebrities at The Waverly Inn and Monkey Bar are. Maybe that's the cautionary tale here. Not to be better with money, but to show people like Annie what their true value in New York is: as a social commodity.

Salkin chalks up Leibovitz's eventual fate to the personal finance habits that will or won't get her out of the dire straits she's in. At this point, it's probably going to have just as much to do with her respective job markets, especially one big media bosses created and are now being forced to marginalize. The real question then becomes how many Vanity Fair readers can tell the difference between an Annie Leibovitz cover and one snapped by somebody less pricey. They might have to start to learn how. Now that Conde's firing entire divisions, don't think the size of this difference escapes them.

Even if she can cut down her costs, does Annie Leibovitz have the energy to be prolific? The most telling note in Salkin's article quotes a former Vanity Fair photo archive director, Charlie Scheips, who recently spoke with her. She sounded frantic: "I'm really under the gun. I've got three daughters, I lost my spouse. I've got too many jobs to do and it's chaos."

For Annie Leibovitz, a Fuzzy Financial Picture [NYT]

Art Capital Group is a financial firm that specializes in lending money for people who own valuable art. They're happy either getting back in cash or taking the art. Leibovitz, whose financial difficulties have been well-documented, mortgaged her homes and all her photographs to Art Capital and yesterday they filed suit for breach of contract, claiming she won't cooperate in their attempts to sell her pictures.

Art Capital has loaned Leibovitz a total of $24 million since September of last year. They took as collateral the negatives and copyright to all of Leibovitz's photographs, as well as her homes in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and Greenwich Village. But they also extracted from her, according to a lawsuit filed today by Art Capital, both an agreement to sell her archives to repay the loan and the exclusive rights to arrange the sale. And they claim that she is refusing to honor that agreement, frustrating their attempts to sell the photos and refusing to allow real estate agents into her homes.

The suit isn't over the debt, per se. The original loan, according to the suit, was premised on the likelihood that Leibovitz was eventually going to have to sell her archives in order to repay the debt by this September, when it comes due. And according to a sales agreement signed by Leibovitz and included in the suit, Leibovitz agreed to let Art Capital "identify buyers," "solicit offers," and "consummate such sales."

But so far, Leibovitz has refused to cooperate. Art Capital took physical custody of Leibovitz's negatives when it made the loan, so it wouldn't have any trouble selling those to recover some of the money if it wished. But the real money is in the intellectual property rights to Leibovitz's portfolio, and for that, it needs her cooperation to get the most value.

"The agreement with her was that they'd go out and sell it for more than $24 million," says a source close to Art Capital. "And now, she's not making herself available. Any likely buyer would say, 'Gee, can I meet with Annie?' I don't think anyone would buy it if they don't feel they have a cooperative seller."

Leibovitz's refusal to cooperate raises the question of whether she ever intended to pay Art Capital back, or whether she has already surreptitiously sold the archive using another agent. Her relationship with Art Capital began to go south in March, when Getty Images announced that it was taking on Leibovitz under a "a special multi-assignment collaboration." It's unclear what that means, but Getty's release implies that Leibovitz's "name and talent" had been added to the company's "roster of elite photographers available for commission photography."

That was a surprise to Art Capital, who, according to the suit, thought Leibovitz had pledged them the "right of first refusal to act as agent in connection with...the engagement by third parties of photographic services" provided by her—a way of hedging against the loan by at least getting commission on any of Leibovitz's photos. According to a source close to the deal, Leibovitz didn't inform Art Capital of the Getty arrangement.

Art Capital's suit seeks to compel Leibovitz to honor the contract and help the company sell her photos and homes. It also claims she owes "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in bills associated with the deal.

Leibovitz's attorney declined to comment. The suit is silent on how much, if any, of the $24 million she owes Art Capital has been paid back, though it's highly unlikely that the company would move forward to force the sale if Leibovitz had made much of a dent in what she owes. So no matter what happens with the suit, she's almost certainly deep in a hole with no clear way out aside from the sale.

In May, one of Leibovitz's other creditors, a lighting company that claimed she owes them $189,000 prepared a petition for involuntary bankruptcy against her, which would turn the decision over a sale of her assets over to a bankruptcy judge. The petition hasn't been filed yet, and a lawyer for the company didn't immediately return phone calls, but today's suit may well increase the likelihood that Leibovitz is forced into bankruptcy.

Read the whole complaint here.

Our source got a hold of an involuntary bankruptcy petition drawn up by photo supplier B2Pro, which has sued Leibovitz and Vanity Fair publisher Condé Nast for unpaid bills. The document, known as a Form 5 (you can find the PDF of a blank version here), claims that Leibovitz owes B2Pro $189,000 and is set to be filed in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan. If successful, it could put a bankruptcy judge in charge of all Leibowitz's assets—including her entire photographic archive.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Leibovitz has pawned the rights to every photograph she has ever or will ever take to Art Capital Group, along with her homes in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and Manhattan. If she pays back the $15 million, she keeps the photos and the houses. If she doesn't, Art Capital gets them. The New York Post reported in March that Leibovitz is in desperate need of cash because she was forced to buy a building next to her two Greenwich Village townhouses after renovations on her buildings undermined its foundation.

Last year, the agency representing fashion stylist Nicoletta Santoro sued Leibovitz's studio claiming more than half a million dollars in unpaid bills, including $110,000 for a Disney ad featuring Jennifer Lopez and Marc Antony.

And B2Pro, which rented lighting equipment to Leibovitz for shoots in 2006 and 2007, is suing her for $227,000 in unpaid bills.

If B2Pro follows through with filing the petition, and if it is successful, a bankruptcy judge would survey Leibovitz's assets and decide which of them to sell off to satisfy her creditors, including B2Pro and Santorom. It's unclear if Leibovitz is up to date on her payments to Art Capital Group, but since they are undoubtedly a creditor, it's likely that Leibovitz's debt to them, and her arrangement with them, would come before the judge. Which means that her ownership over her photographic legacy could be resolved once and for all, and soon, in court.

B2Pro's attorney did not immediately return a call. Reached by phone, Leibovitz's attorney said, "I can't comment. I can't confirm anything."

• Oh man. Annie Leibovitz had to pawn all her stuff because of THE DEATH TAX. (Conservatives are right!) Because, see, she couldn't marry her long-time partner Susan Sontag, which would've protected her from paying 45 percent on value of the inheritance. (Liberals are right!) But, wait. Susan left everything to her son David.... "Leibovitz was left a maximum of four 'articles of [Sontag's] tangible personal property,' such as art, furniture and jewelry." So, yes, as reported earlier, Leibovitz went broke because she was renovating all her townhouses or something, and there is no news here. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan is going to stop acting and start modeling. We are going to stop doing some thing we haven't done in 5 years too (respecting Kanye? caring about Iraq?) and take up something no one would actually pay us to do (journalism). [P6]
• Oh, and Linds is OUT OF MONEY. Because no one wants to pay some stupid girl-dating girl to show up places, or be in family movies. Amazing how many stories you can get out of one Nylon interview, right? [NYDN]
• Tone-deaf secret Xtian celebrator of heteronormative sexy girl-on-girl performative polyamory Katy Perry is dating song-belting fop Josh Groban. [ShowbizSpy]
• Because of the economy, Lauren Conrad pulled her clothing line out of stores, where it wasn't selling, and announced that she's "re-working" the whole thing with "more high-end fabrics," because of the economy and what-have-you. [P6]
• Christie Brinkley is completely insane. "Not too long ago, my son and daughter were on an online game, and a popup ad came up and they were trying to recruit the kids to a gang. And I thought 'Oh my gosh!'" Just... what? So she took her son Jack to West Side Story to learn that being in gangs is not all fun and games! It is strenuous dancing and occasionally even odd time signatures. Also we are pretty sure she discovered a recession-proof advertiser that will save the newspaper industry! [NYDN]
• Viacom billionaire Sumner Redstone is 85, and he is divorcing his 46-year-old wife, and he's been seeing "an enticing Eastern European beauty who used to work on one of Viacom's corporate jets," but also he's been going places with that wife he's divorcing a lot lately, so who knows what's up with Sumner's lady situation here, besides EWWW. [R&M]
• Matt Lauer ran into a deer. [Us]

One might call Lipman's tastes erratic. The business magazine editor, said to find business journalism uninteresting, is known around the office for spiking piles and piles of copy, enough even to prompt comparisons to Tina Brown in her fussy Condé Nast heyday.

From the outside, Lipman's impulsiveness is apparent in her curious cover choices. After the outbreak of the worst economic crisis in 70 years, she put a picture of clothier Dov Charney on the front of Portfolio. Next month, amid talk of bank nationalization and CEO immolation, the magazine's cover will feature Sarah Palin.

From inside the publication comes a tragic story involving a cover that never was: Barack Obama, shot by photo legend Annie Leibovitz at Lipman's behest, for the December-January cover. Worried that everyone else would put the president-elect on the cover, Lipman is said to have killed the portrait after it was taken.

So instead of what was believed to be exclusive work from star photographer Leibovitz, of the newly-elected president, timed exquisitely to front-run the inaugural buzz, Portfolio ended up with a concept image of a dead bull on Wall Street; clever, but severely tardy for a meltdown that shifted into overdrive nearly a full financial quarter earlier.

"Clever, but severely tardy" could also be used to summarize much of what has ended up inside the magazine — and to describe whatever Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse will inevitably have to have done to Portfolio in Lipman's wake.