Beleaguered Art Dealer Denies Financial Trouble

Lawrence Salander, whose East 71st Street townhouse gallery Salander O'Reilly has been padlocked by order of a judge amidst numerous lawsuits, maintains he does not have any money troubles. Even though investors and others accuse him of selling paintings without their permission and of Ponzi schemes, Salander told the NY Times, “When people say it’s a Ponzi scheme, it’s a house of cards — I’ve got millions of dollars of assets here. It’s beyond belief.”

Except to other people. Some became suspicious of Salander's abilities when he moved from a small gallery on East 79th Street to a townhouse where the monthly rent was at least $154,000 a month. The Times reports that, instead of a cash deposit, Salander gave the townhouse's owner a painting by Edouard Manet worth over $10 million. When he fell behind on his East 79th Street gallery's rent, he worked out a deal to defer paying most of the rent...and also asked his landlady Elaine Rosenberg to invest $200,000 in a painting by Stuart Davis, which he would resell for $800,000 quickly. Rosenberg is now suing him, claiming she never saw her return. And then there are the collectors who sold him works and never received payments for them. Oops!

The Post details many of Salander's "arrangements" with other investors-turned-angry plaintiffs, including hedge fund investor Roy Lennox, who gave Salander over $800,000 for a sculpture that turned out to be a fake, as well as Salander's expensive lifestyle. Still, Salander claims his innocence, "I did 579 shows without problem for 40 years, and suddenly on the 580th one, I'm a crook."

The 15th century painting The Annunciation, which was a gift, from Julie and Lawrence Salander in honor of Keith Christiansen, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art