The photographer, who is famous for her nude picture of John Lennon and Yoko Ono and a portrait of a pregnant, naked Demi Moore has pledged the rights to all of her photographs and three adjoining town houses in Greenwich Village, New York as well as a home in Rhinebeck in return for the loan which had been due to be paid back last week.
She was facing the prospect of losing them after the company Arts Capital, which specialises in loans to artists, went to court claiming that Leibovitz was blocking its efforts to prepare her properties for sale and was not paying loan related fees.
But she has now managed to negotiate an extension on the loan.
Her lawyers confirmed that she has agreed an extension to the loan but the details were not made public.
In a joint statement the two sides said that Leibovitz had ‘purchased from Art Capital its rights to act as exclusive agent in the sale of her real property and copyrights’ and that she will ‘therefore retain control of those assets within the context of the loan agreement.
’ However, the property and copyrights remain as collateral.
‘In these challenging times I am appreciative to Art Capital for all they have done to resolve this matter and for their cooperation and continued support,’ the photographer said in a brief statement.
But clearly her troubles are not over. It is not known how long the extension is for.
Experts point out that she will have to come up with some money quickly and that could mean selling some of her property portfolio.
Leibovitz bought the Greenwich Village properties in 2002 and started extensive work with the aim of turning them into a single 9,000 square foot living and working space.
But the work dragged on for four years and Leibovitz was heavily critcised by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and faced a $15 million lawsuit from a neighbour after cellar excavations done without a work permit undermined a shared wall and a chimney collapsed. She ended up buying that building too.
But the cost of the work escalated beyond her means. She was in a ‘dire financial state’ due to unpaid taxes, mortgages and unpaid bills when she approached Art Capital Group, which lends money using art as collateral, according to the lawsuit.
