More works currently held by Lisa Schiff, the embattled New York art adviser currently facing two lawsuits, could soon be sold, this time at one of the city’s most notable auction houses.
Newly filed documents reveal that Douglas J. Pick, a lawyer for Schiff, is working to obtain a deal to sell 231 artworks belonging to Schiff at Phillips. If the agreement gets a court-required sign-off, it will see those works sold across multiple sales held next year.
The agreement, first reported last week by the Observer, would enable works by Anicka Yi, Ivy Haldeman, Katie Stout, Ben Quilty, and Katherine Bradford to be auctioned off. The Haldeman and the Yi works are slated to appear in “New Now,” a Phillips auction series that is closely watched because it acts as a testing ground for the market viability of artists whose followings are still being cemented.
The cache of artworks, which also includes pieces by more established figures, like Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, could bring in as much as $1.5 million, according to court documents.
The works head to auction as Pick seeks to sell other works held by Schiff outside the major auction houses, via court-mandated auctions. Works by Ann Craven and Max Jansens, along with Schiff’s book collection, have already been sold that way.
Collector Candace Carmel Barasch filed two lawsuits against Schiff earlier this year, alleging that Schiff had defrauded her. In one lawsuit, Barasch and the collector Richard Grossman claimed that Schiff owed them $1.8 million for the sale of an Adrian Ghenie painting that passed through her hands. In the other, Barasch alleged that she had provided Schiff with $6.6 million for the purchases of artworks, but that she never ended up receiving the pieces Schiff had been instructed to buy for her.
Those lawsuits are still pending, and so are ones involving SFA Advisory, Schiff’s business, which has since shuttered.