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Embattled Art Advisor Lisa Schiff’s Art to Be Auctioned
More than 200 pieces by a range of artists will be offered at Phillips starting in November, if a court approves.
Katya Kazakina
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More than 200 artworks from the inventory of disgraced art advisor Lisa Schiff may be heading to the auction block as part of bankruptcy proceedings in New York.
Bankruptcy trustees have retained Phillips to sell some 220 pieces, starting in November, according to a motion filed last month with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The proposed sales need to be approved by the court; the hearing is set for Sept. 25, according to court papers.
The art trove spans a wide range of artists, from emerging to blue-chip, including Judy Chicago, Ella Kruglyanskaya, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Tal R., Tauba Auerbach, Richard Prince, Damien Hirst, Dennis Hopper, Alex Israel, Sanya Kantarovsky, Marina Perez Simão, Joel Mesler. Some artists have gone out of fashion, while others are riding high.
The auction house assigned the group, which will be offered in a series of live and online sales, a combined presale estimate of about $2 million, according to a person familiar with the matter. This puts the average value of an artwork at around $9,000, according to Artnet’s calculations.
Michael Brownstein, a trustee of the estate of Schiff Fine Art, LLC., declined to comment on the value of the group. “We made a motion and we expect it to be granted,” he said in a telephone interview.
Schiff, once a prominent art advisor whose clients included Leonardo DiCaprio, declared bankruptcy earlier this year, following lawsuits by several collectors that allege that she defrauded them. She was forced to shutter her business in May 2023 after explosive allegations by her former friend and client Candace Barasch. Others came forward, as well. In shocking revelations, the once-high-flying advisor was accused of using her firm to run a Ponzi scheme.
John Cahill, who represented Schiff pro bono in the original civil cases, has rebutted the Ponzi scheme allegations in court papers, saying that Schiff’s clients made more than $10 million on the works she had procured for them. He declined to comment on the motion in the bankruptcy court to sell art at Phillips.
In January 2024, creditors including Barasch, Adam Sheffer, Lauren Schor, and Richard Grossman filed an involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition against Schiff Fine Art. The proposed sales reflect items that are being liquidated as part of the bankruptcy estates of Schiff and Schiff Fine Art.
Bankruptcy trustees hired Winston Art Group (WAG) to catalog Schiff’s art holdings, according to court papers. It took 900 hours over eight months to track down more than 1,000 works spread across many lists and located in many sites in Manhattan, Long Island, Massachusetts, and California, according to court papers. Some works remain unaccounted for.
To maximize sale proceeds WAG suggested “a two-pronged approach” with higher-value works going to Phillips and decorative items consigned to Millea Brothers Auctioneers in Boonton, New Jersey, court papers say. In addition to the art, Schiff’s personal property included more than 100 pieces of jewelry, three teak stools, various collectibles, and handbags, the filing said.
Phillips was chosen for its knowledge of Schiff’s inventory and experience in selling works from it, as well as for the favorable terms the house provided to the bankruptcy estate, court papers said. The trustees and Phillips signed an agreement on Aug. 14, pending bankruptcy court approval.
The favorable terms negotiated by WAG include a zero-percent seller’s commission and an enhanced hammer of five percent on every artwork sold, according to court papers. This means that the trustees will get the full hammer price and five percent subtracted from Phillips’s buyer’s premium. Phillips also agreed to waive its standard fees for insuring, cataloging, and photographing the works.
Bankruptcy trustees have notified people who’ve done business with Schiff, telling them to voice their objection to the sale of any of the items at Phillips by Sept. 18. A hearing on the sales is set for Sept. 25.
Phillips aims to start the sales around Nov. 18, coinciding with the big semiannual modern and contemporary auctions in New York. To ensure that “all possible creditors, clients, customers, and parties-in-interest” know about the proposed sales, the trustees plan to advertise them in the press.
If they proceed as scheduled, the sales will occur amid a downturn in the art market. Phillips’s sales were down nine percent during the first half of 2024 from the same period last year.
These are not the first artworks owned by Schiff and her firm to be sold. Last November, the New York court ordered a private sale of two paintings by Ann Craven for a total of $140,000 to the Karma gallery. Schiff’s attorney, John Cahill, argued at the time that the price was too low and that Karma had offered individual paintings by Craven for $150,000 to prospective clients, according to court papers. A smaller painting of birds by Craven fetched $680,000 at Christie’s in May 2022.
