Vogue’s fashion taste makes a dung maggot look like a CNN gourmet:
Vogue has Jill Biden:
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/sh...29#post4509729
Vanity Fair had the Kennedy’s:
In the past seven months, the magazine has published four additional articles related to the Kennedys. November’s “Marilyn and her Monsters” included a diary passage describing JFK and his brother-in-law. The January issue excerpted a passage from Greg Lawrence’s recent book Jackie as Editor. The February issue dedicated more than 6,000 words to Kennedy’s inauguration, uncovering groundbreaking material like: JFK felt fat, he had a “dark tan” attained in Florida, and ate “broiled bacon” for breakfast. The May issue includes an Annie Leibovitz portrait of the Shriver family, with a lengthy caption listing the subjects’ accomplishments. Vanity Fair, as even an occasional reader could tell you, has got a thing for the Kennedys
I have always been fascinated by the prices people pay for photographs. I posted on the topic going all the way back to 2002.
I do not begrudge shutterbugs the big bucks a few earn. I am more interested in why anyone would pay thousands of dollars for a photograph without getting the negative? When famed photographer, Annie Leibovitz, was in financial trouble she triggered renewed interest in the topic.
Pawnbrokers are not famous for being big spenders. The collateral has to be worth a lot more than 24 million in the eyes of ACG.
Annie Leibovitz is as famous as the people she photographs but now the genius behind the lens is close to financial ruin -- a victim, some say, of her own relentless artistic ambition.
Among the qualities making Leibovitz, 59, the most sought after portrait photographer in the world are legendary perfectionism and the pouring of resources into lavish sets.
Over the course of her long career, nothing has been too extreme in Leibovitz's pursuit of the perfect picture.
She put former action icon and current California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on top of a mountain, submerged black actress Whoopi Goldberg in a bath of milk and closed France's Versailles palace to shoot Kirsten Dunst posing as Marie-Antoinette.
Circus animals, fire, airplanes -- she was rarely denied a requested prop, however seemingly outrageous.
That kind of imagination, and the stylized, hyper-realistic portraits she produced, had a long line of celebrities, from Hollywood stars to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, beating a path to Leibovitz's door.
Yet behind a facade of unlimited financial means, Leibovitz was spending her way into nightmare.
In what now appears as a disastrous decision to raise funds, Leibovitz took a 24-million-dollar loan from Art Capital Group (ACG) -- in effect a high-end pawn broker -- in December 2008 using her own photographs as collateral.
That debt is due September 8 and if she can't pay up, she could lose her life's work.
ACG, which specializes in making loans to owners of high value art works, is unlikely to adopt a soft line.
Leibovitz must "comply with the sales agreement she signed authorizing Art Capital to sell the fine art and real estate assets and to pay the invoices that are due," ACG spokesman Montieth Illingworth said in a statement.
The over-leveraged photographer not only risks losing her photo archives, which The New York Times estimates could be worth 50 million dollars, but also her house in the trendy Greenwich Village district of Manhattan and a second home outside the city.
If she is forced to declare bankruptcy, it will then be up to the courts to decide how to distribute the assets.
Banking giant Goldman Sachs entered the fray this week with a claim to own part of Leibovitz's debt.
ACG disputes that, but says Goldman Sachs could be invited to bid for the loan.
Leibovitz's career has few parallels. Her famous shoots include a nude portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono -- just before the Beatle was murdered -- and nude and pregnant actress Demi Moore.
Despite moving in such glamorous circles, Leibovitz has never been known for having a knack for finance.
When she was hired to shoot ads for American Express in the 1980s, it emerged she had been previously turned down by the company when applying for a credit card.
New York's chattering classes are aghast at the renowned photographer's downfall, making her the latest spectacular victim of the bad debt crisis and nationwide recession.
The weekly New York Magazine published a lengthy article recounting her perfectionism at work and her lavish personal taste, including an apartment on the banks of the Seine in Paris to please her lover, writer Susan Sontag, who died in 2004.
Anna Wintour, the equally famous editor of Vogue magazine, said in a documentary that Leibovitz was priceless.
"Budget is not something that enters into her consciousness, but it is worth it because at the end of the day, she gives you an image that nobody else can," said Wintour.
Incidentally, Annie Leibovitz is a cottage industry to magazine publishers:
NEW YORK, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz reached a deal on Friday with the art finance company behind her $24 million loan, allowing her to buy back control of her photographs, which had been put up as collateral.
In a joint statement with Art Capital Group, which made the loan against the value of Leibovitz's entire collection and her two properties, Leibovitz said she had bought back control of her assets. She had taken the loan to pay off debts.
As part of the agreement, Art Capital agreed to drop a breach of contract lawsuit filed against Leibovitz in July and extend the deadline for payment. The loan was originally scheduled to be paid back on Tuesday.
"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," Leibovitz said in a statement.
"I also want to thank my family, friends and colleagues for being there for me and look forward to concentrating on my work," the photographer said.
Leibovitz, 59, who has photographed everyone from Michelle Obama to Britain's Queen Elizabeth and a very pregnant Demi Moore in the nude, approached Art Capital in June 2008 and later secured from the group a $24 million loan.
She is perhaps best known for a portrait of a naked John Lennon and a clothed Yoko Ono taken on the same day the former Beatle was shot dead. (Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Todd Eastham)
I am assuming that Leibovitz’s collateral included the negatives.
I cannot see ACG coughing up 24 million for copies made from negatives. The negative is the original. A negative can reproduce the picture countless times; whereas, a painting by a master has to be photographed before copies can be made or prints. In short: Negatives do not hang in museums. Only original paintings, or passable forgeries, are so honored.
NOTE: Some 40,000 negatives of pictures of JFK taken by Jacques Lowe were destroyed in the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001. When I first learned of Lowe’s loss, the Zapruder film of JFK’s assassination popped into my head. I wondered where the original was stored? Eventually, I learned that the government paid Abraham Zapruder’s family 16 million dollars for the film. I assume the government has it stored in a bomb shelter.
Jacques Lowe chose to leave the negatives in the JP Morgan vault of the World Trade Center
because he believed they would be safe there and because he was six blocks away from them
and felt psychologically they were under his bed.
https://www.orwelltoday.com/jfklowe.jpg
http://www.orwelltoday.com/jfknegatives.shtml
Were Lowe’s negatives worth 16 million dollars in the private sector? J.P. Morgan Chase Bank settled with Lowe’s family for an undisclosed amount; so we will never know which photographs were worth the most.
I know that publishers pay paparazzo a lot of money for photos (negatives) of celebrities. That makes some kind of sense if the picture increases sales for the magazine or newspaper. But to pay thousands for a photograph so you can hang it on the wall in your home makes no sense to me.
On the bright side, Leibovitz’s financial woe established some sort of commercial value although it did not convince me that photography is art.
Photographers snap pictures with a mechanical device and call it art when, in fact, photography is a craft at best. If there is one private sector income group that gives Socialism’s game away it is those photographers who are hailed as artists.
It is imperative for Socialists to convince the world that they create wealth rather than accumulate it through various tax scams. Socialists sell their religion by passing it off as an antidote for capitalism.
It is imperative for photographers to convince the world that they are creative artists rather than artisans. Photographers sell copies of their snapshots for more than they are worth by passing it off as art.
Photography is roughly the same age as Socialism. By the time FDR took office photography had made some technological advances, but no one considered photography an art form at that point in time. Murals that were commissioned for federal and state office buildings during the Great Depression were so sterile Socialists/Communists in the media began the process of promoting photographers as artists.
Incidentally, the artist scam actually began with photography.
Socialists had to show the world that their system of government was artist friendly; so mechanically generated motion pictures, and still pictures, became art for the masses. Labeling photography art was the best thing Socialist propagandists could come up with since a true artist cannot create simply to decorate a system of government even if he or she wanted to. Michelangelo’s superb eye-hand coordination may have flourished under the patronage system, but artists in every field thrive where the most individual liberties exist.
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/sh...Academy-Awards
I cannot say why, but electronic imagining never made it to the level of an art form. When electronic imagining replaces silver-halide negatives will video camera users be upgraded to artists? Or will the silver crowd be demoted to the ranks of hobbyists? Both groups take pictures; so I would not want to make the call.
On a more mundane level, the thing about high-priced snapshots sold by art galleries that has always puzzled me is what happens to the negatives? At least if you purchased a Picasso you knew he was not going to run off a few more “originals” after he had your money in his pocket. And can anyone honestly see any of today’s photographs will sell at any time in the future for 40 million-plus in today’s dollars?
Every time I post something on this topic someone is sure to bring up reproduction Rights.
I was talking about individuals paying huge sums for a photograph. The logical question is: How many copies of that photo will be sold as one of a kind?
NOTE: Many artists make fortunes selling prints/posters of their paintings, but the painting is the original. Millions of posters made from paintings by Margaret Keane were sold. Here is an interesting dispute over ownership:
For many years Margaret Keane was married to a man who claimed credit for what she painted. To prove she was in fact the artist and not her former husband, she painted in court before a Federal Judge and jury, an original oil on canvas painting. When her ex-husband was asked to paint by the judge, his reply was: “I can’t today, because I have a sore shoulder.” Needless to say Margaret won the case and she continued to paint those Big Eyes we have come to love so dearly.
QUESTION: Would you pay thousands of dollars for a print made from Van Gogh’s STARRY NIGHT?
Also, some artists make lithographic prints by in limited editions. They are usually signed and dated by the artist. The late Richard Stone Reeves (1919 - 2005) is one of the most famous. President Reagan gave Queen Elizabeth a leather bound edition of Decade of Champions containing a number of pictures of Reeves’ paintings. That limited edition sells for thousands of dollars.
There was also a mass produced edition that sold thousands of copies.
You can get one today for well under a $100.
Do not confuse “an actual print” with a negative. This is one of the definitions of the word print:
A photographic image transferred to paper or a similar surface, usually from a negative.
The negative is the original. Prints, or reproductions if you prefer, can be made in the millions.
And where is the guarantee that a photographer’s heirs will not run off a bunch copies after you paid a lot of money for your copy? Your heirs will lose money while the photographer’s heirs will make money. If I ever considered paying a lot of money for a photograph, I would insist that the negative be destroyed —— in my presence —— before I handed over the money. Then I could honestly swear “I own the original.”
And how could an ‘expert’ prove when the copy was made? The only thing required to make an exact duplicate is the negative and the same paper that was used to make the first batch. Even without the right paper, the only way to prove that the dead photographer did not make the disputed copies would be an heir dumb enough to use paper that was manufactured after the photographer died.
The deceased photographer could just as easily have run off thirty prints and said there were only ten. Unless the heir is proven guilty no court is going to punish someone for the misdeeds of an ancestor.
It is not nearly the same thing as an art forger in a civil or criminal court. Even if it could be proved that the famous photographer did not make the copies in dispute, the photographer’s heir need only say “It is my property and I ran off a few copies.”
p.s. This autobiography by Francis Lagrange might interest you if you like books about counterfeiters and art forgers:
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