Art dealer Lawrence Salander, seated on end of bench, surrounded by his lawyer Charles Ross and three adult children this morning at New York State Supreme Court. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

A pair of burly court officers escorted a tearful, handcuffed Lawrence Salander from a courtroom this afternoon, shortly after a judge doled out his sentence. Salander, the former dealer and Sunday painter who had plead guilty to a $120 million art fraud in March, received six to 18 years in prison.  Judge Michael J. Obus termed the saga “deplorable.”

The hearing, which commenced around 9:30 a.m. this morning, concluded nearly four hours later. Ten victims stood before a podium and described tales of emotional and financial pain.

Salander’s lawyer Charles Ross asked the court for leniency, citing  Salander’s family–seven children– and poor health, noting the dealer had been an alcoholic for over forty years.

Salander, wearing wrinkled khakis,  was accompanied by his three adult children–Ivana, Isaac and Jonah. Salander’s wife Julie, who has split with her husband, also attended.

“Salander is a pathologically self-absorbed con man,” said assistant district attorney Kenn Kern, who pressed for the maximum sentence. Salander “lived the dream,” said Kern, citing a birthday party at the Frick, private jet rides and a 60 acres estate in Millbrook, “financed by a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernard…

Howard N. Spiegler, attorney for the estate of Lea Bondi Jaray, in front of a projected image of Egon Schiele's "Portrait of Wally," at ceremony at Museum of Jewish Heritage. Photo: Mackie Healy

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

About fifty heirs of art dealer Lea Bondi Jaray gathered this morning for the unveiling of Egon Schiele’s 1912 Portrait of Wally, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in lower Manhattan, marking the resolution of the landmark Nazi looting case.

Andre Bondi, Lea Bondi Jaray’s great-nephew, spoke at the event, wiping tears from his eyes with a red cloth.

The museum’s chairman, Robert Morgenthau, took the podium after Bondi. “All’s well that ends well,” he said.

As Manhattan’s District Attorney, Morgenthau was responsible for the 1998 subpoena of the painting.

The portrait of the artist’s red-headed muse, in storage for the last 11 years, remains on view at the Jewish Heritage Museum until August 18. Then it will return to the Leopold Museum in Vienna where it will hang beside a 1911 Schiele self-portrait.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and police commissioner Raymond Kelly attended the morning’s proceedings. Howard Speigler, attorney for the Bondi Jaray estate and Andre Bondi, the heirs’ spokesman, were among speakers on a panel about the case.

The court case was settled last week, on the eve of…

Pietro Della Vecchia's "Imaginary Self-Portrait of Titian," est. $100-$150K, via Christie's

A hodgepodge of 19th century, old master paintings and sculptures that belonged to dealer Larry Salander are posted on Christie’s website. The 130 lots, estimated $2.5 million to $3.5 million, sell June 9 to benefit the bankrupt dealer’s creditors. The entire group is being sold with Aris title insurance and some of the lower value goods are going without reserve.

The online catalog can be found here.

Salander has plead guilty to fraud and grand larceny and faces up to 18 years in prison. None of this is mentioned in Christie’s catalog. (UPDATE: A reader send me a link to the catalog info from the June 7 Stair Galleries Salander sale. The catalog reads “While the circumstances of this sale are not ideal, the property is still quite amazing…” Read here.)

The artworks range from minor to so so. They reflect the mindset and inventory of a dealer aiming to make long shot discoveries and re-attributions. Mostly they didn’t seem to pan out.

A painting Salander displayed and hawked as a multimillion dollar Titian is described by Christie’s as Pietro Della Vecchia’s…

Annie Leibovitz via Daily News

Celebrity shutterbug Annie Leibovitz has been sued by Brunswick Capital Partners over more than $800,000 in fees, according to Bloomberg News and Daily News. The suit stems from Leibovitz recent financing deal with Colony Capital, a  firm that has also invested billions in a bankrupt Las Vegas casino company.

According to articles, Leibovitz borrowed $40 million from Colony. She had originally borrowed $24 million from Art Capital Group. Given that her Conde Nast contract reportedly pays her $2 million a year, it’s a mystery how she plans to get out of this financial pickle. She should probably start tuning into the Suze Orman show, especially the segment called “Can I Afford It?”

Leibovitz could probably use income from art sales, but no mention of an upcoming show on her dealer James Danziger’s website.

Link to Bloomberg News story here.

By Lindsay Pollock
March 26 (Bloomberg) — An unpaid loan and a coveted art collection have stirred up a $17 million donnybrook between two auction houses.

ML Private Finance, an affiliate of Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch, has petitioned a New York federal court to allow the liquidation of a collection of contemporary art and design pieces through auctions in May and June by Christie’s International, which valued the trove at more than $17 million.

The proposed sales would resolve a delinquent loan to CNET Networks Inc. founder Halsey Minor, who borrowed $25 million from ML Private Finance beginning in 2007, with art as collateral. The bank sued Minor and his trust in December 2008 for failure to repay the loan. Last October, ML Private Finance obtained a court judgment for $21.6 million, and this year petitioned the court to allow Christie’s to auction 103 works.

Minor himself had originally contacted Christie’s about handling the sale, but then turned to auction house Phillips de Pury.

“We at Christie’s were not happy about this development,’’…

Yesterday a red-faced, stooped Larry Salander sat in a Manhattan criminal courthouse, the walls bare of any art, finally admitting he had masterminded schemes to defraud his clients, consignors, investors and banks. Salander was accompanied by two of his seven children. His wife Julie did not appear.

Salander’s lawyer said the dealer had had a stroke about ten days earlier. The DA said Salander was abusing alcohol. The hearing was one of the most depressing events I have witnessed in nearly a decade on the arts beat. Was greed the only reason Salander had begun stealing from his friends, clients and colleagues? How does someone fall so far, so fast?

With his guilty plea, Salander waived rights to a trial or appeal. He will be sentenced to 6 to 18 years in prison and $120 million in restitution.  Bloomberg News’ Philip Boroff, who has doggedly covered the story from the start, covered yesterday’s proceedings here.

Representatives from artist’s estates — Earl Davis, son of Stuart Davis, John Crawford, son of Ralston Crawford, and Kinney Frelinghuysen, nephew of Suzy Frelinghuysen — looked on.

Salander read from a prepared …

The New York Post is reporting that dealer Larry Salander is expected to plead guilty today to a $100 million art fraud in connection with a long running scheme to steal millions from art collectors, artist estates and others.

Read the New York Post story here.

The deal, re-capped by the Post, states that Salander will plead guilty to about 24 charges and will be required to pay some of the funds back.

His likely prison term, according to article, is 6 and 18 years. He had faced 25 years if he was convicted.

Here are links to some of Bloomberg’s earlier coverage of the story:

Salander sued by clients here.

Salander arrested here.

Salander opens a gallery in Millbrook here.

Salander arrested for a second time here.

Salander art heads to auction here.

The Art Newspaper asked me to explore the status of a couple of lawsuits filed last March involving the Dedalus Foundation, established by Abstract Expressionist artist Robert Motherwell, and a former curator who alleges she was unfairly dismissed. The Foundation alleges the curator stole artworks and then secretly sold them at auction.

The Art Newspaper story is here.

By Lindsay Pollock

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — Udo Fritz-Hermann Brandhorst, an heir to Germany’s Henkel AG & Co. fortune and a major art collector, avoided a public court case in New York by settling a lawsuit filed by his former mistress involving two Damien Hirst sculptures and a custody dispute.

The settlement was reached Sunday night according to the woman, Venetia Kapernekas, and Brandhorst’s lawyers.

Kapernekas, a 49-year-old New York art dealer filed a suit in federal court in Manhattan claiming an interest in the two Hirsts, which have been valued at an estimated $47.6 million, court documents show. The custody suit, involving their 8-year- old daughter, was being heard in New York County Family Court.

Kapernekas has agreed to drop the federal suit and claims on the Hirsts in exchange for: custody of their daughter (Brandhorst gets visitation and vacation rights); a one-time payment of $100,000; a $500,000 trust for the daughter’s education; a loft on Wooster Street in Manhattan’s…

Jailed Tyco International Ex-CEO Dennis Kozlowski filed court papers this week requesting he be freed from prison after serving four years, according to a Bloomberg News article.  He was sentenced up to 25 years.

The investigation into Kozlowski’s illicit activities was triggered by his art buying activities.

Kozlowski said “his right to present a defense was violated when a New York state trial judge denied his request to subpoena early statements of prosecution witnesses,” says Bloomberg.

In 2005 Kozlowski was convicted of grand larceny and securities fraud, among other charges.

He was charged with purchasing $14 million in impressionist artworks by Monet and Renoir using Tyco funds via a company loan program. He was also charged with not paying the 8.25 percent New York sales tax.

He wound up paying $3.2 million in back taxes on the artworks, plus $18 million in income taxes to avoid tax evasion charges, according to an earlier Bloomberg article.

Several of Kozlowski’s paintings were auctioned at Sotheby’s in 2006.