Leibovitz and Sontag, power couple

Photographer Annie Leibovitz, renowned for portraits of famous people, refuses to put her private life with reputed lover Susan Sontag in the frame. DAVID USBORNE reports.

Here is something that Annie Leibovitz, America's most famous and highly paid female photographer, will be happy to hear. After weeks of gossiping about her carefully guarded private life - that happens when you have a baby the turkey-baster way at 52 and your partner is not just a woman but also the essayist, author and intellectual superwoman, Susan Sontag - suddenly we are talking about her work again. She can relax.

It has happened because of a spread of pictures she took in the Bush White House. Shot in December, they are being published in next month's issue of Vanity Fair. They include a remarkable ensemble portrait of President Bush with his principal advisers on the war in Afghanistan.

The images are ultimate Leibovitz, perfectly structured, neo-classical narratives. With the inner rooms of the White House as her ad hoc studios, she has managed to deploy her subjects - some of the most powerful men and women on the planet - to fit her elaborate visual script.

Laura Bush sits in the armchair in the family's private quarters, telephone receiver to her ear. The President stares deep into the lens, every crag in his complexion revealed. The photograph is astonishing, particularly when you consider that Leibovitz spent only 10 minutes with her subject during the two-day shoot.

They are important pictures for the magazine, the Bush Administration and for Leibovitz. Editor Graydon Carter says the idea came to him one morning in October. After some string-pulling with Republican friends in high places, he got access to the US President at a time of war. The White House evidently gambled that the pictures would present a tableau of resolve and determination. It was a good call.

It is hard to imagine the President's image-makers, featured in one of the portraits, acquiescing to such a project were it not Leibovitz behind the camera. In 1991, she similarly captured the war team of George Bush sen in the midst of the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein.

"She got almost unprecedented access, and that speaks well of the power of the Leibovitz name," notes David Harris, art director at Vanity Fair. "Just saying it goes a long way towards getting the subjects you want."

Leibovitz, strikingly tall with long, blonde hair, is blessed with a persuasive personality. This is the artist who cajoled Whoopi Goldberg to pose immersed in a bath of milk, and who gave us Demi Moore naked and very pregnant.

Leibovitz' career started in 1970 with an assignment for Rolling Stone magazine. It was the picture of John Lennon naked, nestled with Yoko Ono, taken hours before his murder in 1980, that made her name.

That her life generates so much gossip should not surprise Leibovitz, who is said to be worth $US30 million ($70 million). It may not help that a person whose professional life is dedicated to framing both famous and ordinary people for the curious eyes of the masses is uncommonly hostile when anybody attempts to frame her life. As a publicist at Vanity Fair gently explained: "She is one of those artists who is passionately devoted to taking pictures, but does not much enjoy reporters."

The irony is most keen when she settles her eye on relationships between subjects. "She actually captures the inside of the relationships," insists former Sunday Times editor Harry Evans, a long-time friend. "She is just very, very good on the relationships people have - the gaps between their hands, the gestures."

It is largely accepted that Leibovitz and Sontag, 68, are a couple; neither has conceded so much in public. They live in separate penthouse flats in the same building in the Chelsea neighbourhood of Manhattan, with shared storage space.

Soon after the birth in October of the baby, Julia Margaret Cameron (after the photographic pioneer), they co-hosted a party to celebrate. Among the many New York artists and literati to attend was one of the most powerful women in publishing, Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

Theirs is a tight-knit and extremely lofty circle of New York pals - including the likes of Evans, his wife and Talk editor Tina Brown, and Michael Douglas. They have all helped maintain the fence of privacy. "I don't know anything about Susan Sontag," Evans protested.

Offend Leibovitz and Sontag and you may never get a decent Manhattan invite again. "They have powerful friends who protect them," noted Carl Rollyson, a professor of English at City University of New York, who wrote a biography of Sontag that has not been published in Britain because of worries about more aggressive libel laws. As for their relationship, which blossomed after they met at a photoshoot 13 years ago, it is "common knowledge", Professor Rollyson added. "People are afraid to talk about it because they've such powerful friends and influence in New York society."

For a lesbian to start a family with the help of artificial insemination is not anything especially new. Sandy Toksvig, the British comedian, had a child with sperm provided by a male friend. Wendy Wasserstein, a New York-based playwright, has a 2-year-old toddler, conceived in the same fashion. More unusual are Leibovitz' advanced years. At 52, Leibovitz, who delivered by caesarean, must be at the limit of her physiological ability to bear children.

One rumour that set Manhattan tongues wagging was that the sperm-donor was author David Rieff, the 49-year-old son of Sontag. What seemed to give this notion credence was the well-documented affinity between Sontag and her son.

Among those to quash the speculation is Leibovitz' mother, Marilyn. She broke a family vow of silence to insist to the world that the sperm came from a bank, not from Rieff. "Absolutely not. God forbid," she said.

Sontag, with her trademark slash of white hair, has likewise said little in public about her romantic liaisons - much to the irritation of some gay and lesbian activists. She did tell the New Yorker two years ago, however, that she had loved both men and women. Her partnership with Leibovitz was given some public shape when she helped the photographer develop her book Women, which presented a snapshot of womankind in the US at the turn of the millennium. Sontag helped choose the subjects and to edit the final product. She also wrote a short essay that accompanied the images.

At the time, Leibovitz hinted at Sontag's strong influence in her life. "When I first met her, she said, 'You could be good', and I've always been trying to rise to that place. She's been a great friend in my work, letting me be serious. I'd always felt like I had to be a little silly."

However, Marilyn Leibovitz did reveal that Sontag was present at the delivery of Julia. She also noted that her daughter took her camera to the event.

Maybe Vanity Fair will give us another series of pictures soon - of Leibovitz, the world's most celebrated celebrity photographer, of Sontag and of their girl.

- INDEPENDENT