Embattled Art Adviser Lisa Schiff Files for Bankruptcy

Lisa Schiff, an art adviser who has been accused of defrauding collectors in two pending lawsuits from last year, filed for bankruptcy on Thursday.

In documents processed by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, she filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which would allow her to potentially eliminate some debts that she still owes. Those documents claim that she owes nearly $7 million to a spread of entities, including storage facilities, blue-chip galleries, and collectors.

Some of those debts had already been made public in prior filings. Among those listed in the filing are the collector Candace Carmel Barasch, a plaintiff in both lawsuits pending against Schiff, as well as galleries such as 47 Canal, Bortolami, Canada, Nina Johnson, and Various Small Fires.

Of the debts listed, some of the greatest ones are to Adam Sheffer and Richard Grossman, and to Brian and Karen Conway. The filing says that Sheffer and Grossman have a claim of $900,000, while the Conways have a claim of $886,501.25, according to the filing. Sheffer is a dealer who was worked for galleries such as Pace, Cheim & Read, and Lisson; Grossman filed one of the lawsuits against Schiff alongside Barasch. The Conways are philanthropists who have a gallery named after them at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, where Karen is a trustee.

According to the bankruptcy filing, Schiff also owes more than $1 million to the Internal Revenue Service, plus an additional $408,939.14 to the New York State tax department, as well as $162,191.17 to the New York City Department of Finance.

Certain debts are owed by the creditors for SFA Advisory, the New York firm operated by Schiff that shuttered after she was sued. Others—ones that are largely in lower amounts—appear to be owed by Schiff herself. Many of the debt claims are being disputed, according to their listings.

In response to a request for comment from ARTnews, a lawyer for Schiff said, “The bankruptcy filing allows her some breathing room.”

Last year, Schiff was sued by collectors who worked with her. Those collectors alleged that they entered into transactions with her, provided her with money, and then failed to ever receive the artworks they signed up to buy.

Barasch and Grossman said in one lawsuit that they were still owed $1.8 million by Schiff, who had helped them privately sell an Adrian Ghenie painting with Sotheby’s. Then, in a separate lawsuit, Barasch and her husband, Michael, alleged that they had given $6.6 million to Schiff for the purchases of artworks, then never received the pieces themselves.

According to the Barasches’ lawsuit, Schiff had used their funds to “spoil themselves with luxury travel, shopping sprees, and the like, or to pay obligations owed to other clients, or to purchase artworks for other clients.”

Prior to the lawsuits, Schiff had been viewed as a preeminent art adviser in New York, one who had a “formidable reputation as she’s attracted high-profile clientele, embarked on curatorial efforts, and become a sought-after source for journalists investigating the art market,” according to a 2020 Artsy profile. She had at one point even acted as an adviser to the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

In the months since those lawsuits were filed, artworks thought to be in Schiff’s possession have headed to court-run auctions, where galleries have bid on them. Some may even head to sale at Phillips, if a court approves a plan for those auctions to occur. As the plan currently stands, many of the works earmarked for auction at Phillips would appear in online sales, which generally bring in lower sums that in-person ones held in the salesroom.

A document filed in August outlined hundreds of artworks held by Schiff’s firm, by artists ranging from Jeffrey Gibson to Wade Guyton.

As the plans to sell artworks allegedly owned by Schiff and SFA remain pending, other matters related to her firm are also being litigated. In December, a judge formally approved plans to surrender the Tribeca space that SFA previously held to its landlord.