Husband-and-wife duo Bill Powers and Cynthia Rowley, the art dealer and fashion designer, have sold Exhibition A, their print edition company, to pay off outstanding debts.
Last month, they offloaded the struggling business to Supreme Digital, a commercial printer in Brooklyn.
“The sale resulted in zero financial gain for me personally and was done to pay back artists who were owed money from prior projects,” Powers told artnet News in an email.
The sale comes weeks after Exhibition A finally paid a mom-and-pop art-handling company a long-overdue invoice—but only after Powers faced pressure from a local New York news team that hounded him after months of defaulting on the bill.
After the payment was finally made, Powers’s lawyer claimed that the dealer and his wife, who founded Exhibition A in 2010, were just minority shareholders in the company, although no other investors are listed on the company’s website.
Coincidentally, both Supreme Digital and the art-shipping firm, OCS, are headquartered in the same Brooklyn building.
Powers also runs the Half Gallery on the Upper East, which has shown artists including Rene Ricard, Natalie Frank, Vaughn Spann, and Ben Blatt.
Over the years, Exhibition A has produced prints with artists Nate Lowman, Josh Smith, Richard Prince, Joe Bradley, and Shara Hughes, among others.
“We are very excited to carry on the excellent quality in digital printing that Supreme is known for and introduce new artist editions to the curated assortment,” said Brendan Carney of Supreme Digital in an email to artnet News.
Supreme Digital is already moving forward to create new prints with Allison Zuckerman and Kate Shepherd. Powers will continue working with the company as a consultant.