As reported on Artnet: Last year, the Simon Lee Gallery in London was placed under court-ordered administration in the U.K. Documents filed by its joint administrators reveal that the gallery is indebted to approximately 153 creditors, including artists and fellow galleries, with an estimated total debt of £10 million (around $12.6 million).
The gallery’s financial status is outlined in a comprehensive 44-page report, submitted on September 5, 2023, by BDO LLP, the business advisory firm tasked with managing the firm’s insolvency since last July. Initial coverage of the filing was provided by The Art Newspaper.
According to the report, the gallery’s outstanding debts exceed a million dollars to various artists, including Philadelphia-based A’Driane Nieves, awaiting £73,466. Nieves previously raised concerns alleging that despite selling a dozen of her works, the gallery only compensated her for half of those transactions.
Notably, the gallery’s most substantial debt to an artist amounts to £631,300 owed to Glasgow-based painter France-Lise McGurn. Other notable figures include New York-based Garth Weiser owed £210,998, Los Angeles’s Jim Shaw owed £254,315.83, Swiss artist Mai-Thu Perret owed £78,648, and Berlin-based Angela Bulloch owed £145,346.
Additionally, Florian Pfahler, founder of Chicago sandwich maker Hannah’s Bretzel, is owed £153,202. This obligation is believed to be connected to the estate of German painter Georg Karl Pfahler, whose Color Field paintings have been exhibited across various Simon Lee Gallery locations and art fairs.
Galleries are also listed including São Paulo-based Mendes Wood DM (£23,551), the Artist Room in London (£15,480), and New York print specialists Two Palms (£201,943) and £295,278 from Simcor, an entity owned by the Los Angeles-based art dealer Stefan Simchowitz.
Mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth is also listed as a creditor with a claim of more than £3.5 million ($4.42 million), but the gallery told The Art Newspaper that it was an error.
