Bad Avenue

A violin dealer entered into an agreement to buy an old master painting from me in a quick sale and never paid me. He has had the painting for four years. It was a family piece.

I've been trying to get it back for over a year. 

Always another story.

I found out it was hanging in a Beverly Hills gallery for sale. 

Never got my permission, no idea if they even had insurance. My lawyer wrote a letter and called the owner, a Paul Sykes, and made arrangements for me to pick it up the day I left for Utah. 

The gallery owner said I could pick it up at ten last Monday morning. I left at five in the morning to make sure I was on time. Six hours out of my way back and forth on an already long drive to Utah.

I got there and the gallery was dark and shuttered. No phone number on the door. No note. I looked into a dark window.

It was one of those bad Warhol, Peter Max galleries, the kind of awful shiny art that you might find on a cruise ship with bad certificates of authenticity. Guess he has another place in Florida. Turns out he handed my painting off to another gallery and never told us. I was incredibly pissed.

My lawyer tracked it down and a friend finally picked it up the other day.

I despise people like this. No calls, no respect, no accountability. They give art dealers a bad name.