Leibovitz Futures (Copyright) (Annie Leibovitz‪)‬

'One of the world's most successful photographers essentially pawned every snap of the shutter she had made or will make until the loans are paid off': thus reported the New York Times on February 24 2009, breaking the now widely reported story of Annie Leibovitz's financial difficulties and her need to raise cash. The details of Leibovitz's money problems are not publicly known but must be significant, given that towards the end of 2008 the international auction house Phillips de Pury became the exclusive agent/dealer of her 'Master Set' (200 or so works chosen by her as representative of her oeuvre) and responsible for her archives. A selling exhibition of part of the set was held at the auctioneer's London headquarters in October 2008, 'Annie Leibovitz The Master Set Part I', offering signed large-format prints at 20,000 [pounds sterling]; and in the same month London's National Portrait Gallery opened a major exhibition, 'Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005'.