New York City art advisor Lisa Schiff, who is currently liquidating her advisory firm Schiff Fine Arts amid two pending lawsuits alleging fraud and embezzlement, is facing a long list of collectors and galleries who have similar claims. A document filed earlier this month by Schiff’s bankruptcy lawyer Douglas Pick lists approximately 40 entities with pending claims against the advisor for varying amounts.
Last spring, former friend and real estate heiress Candace Carmel Barasch and collectors Richard Grossman and his unnamed spouse sued Schiff, alleging that the art advisor was “running a Ponzi scheme” by diverting funds from a particular art sale. In the first suit filed on May 11, Barasch, Grossman, and Grossman’s spouse alleged that Schiff did not fully compensate them for the sale she brokered of their jointly owned Adrian Ghenie painting in 2022. According to the suit, Schiff sent Barasch and Grossman $225,000 each and took her 10% sales commission ($250,000), but kept delaying the disbursement of the remaining $1.8M to both parties until she reportedly admitted that “the money wasn’t there” during an in-person confrontation with Grossman’s spouse.
In the second suit filed only a week after the first, Barasch and her husband alleged that Schiff had diverted over $2.5M in funds from them that were intended for the purchase of several artworks to “fund her lavish lifestyle,” cover debts owed to her other clients, and “consummate art purchases” of other clients. Approximately 15 artworks in their collection were affected by Schiff’s fund diversions, including the incomplete purchase of a Sarah Lucas sculpture from Gladstone Gallery. Schiff reportedly admitted to Barasch over a phone call that her consultancy had “dug themselves into a large financial hole that they could not get out of.”
As of August 11, several collectors and galleries have filed their pending claims against Schiff as she liquidates her consultancy, as first reported on August 24 via a newsletter from the Baer Faxt. According to one document, Thomas Hagerty and his wife Jeanne filed a claim of $990,000, artist Seffa Klein has filed a claim of $506,200, and Sotheby’s Private Sales, Stephen Friedman Gallery, and Frestonian Gallery have filed claims of unknown amounts against Schiff and Schiff Fine Arts.
Within the suit, the Winston Art Group, an art appraisal and advisory business currently investigating and marshaling Schiff’s inventory per the liquidation of her consultancy, has identified 894 artworks currently in Schiff’s possession with a combined market value of over $3M. The group says it cannot currently locate 108 artworks with a combined market value of over $1M, including pieces by Richard Prince, David Hockney, Julie Mehretu, Rikrit Tiravanija, and actress Lisa Edelstein.
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