90 new york | march 16–29, 2020estimate of $800,000 to $1,200,000 that
was then bid up well beyond expectations
to $2,142,000, it turns out by a shell com-
pany Philbrick controlled. He then secured
fi nancing on the full hammer price—it
normally takes one to six months to get
paid for art sold at auction—from an inves-
tor group led by Ethan Vallarino. After
months of radio silence, Vallarino’s calls
and correspondence went unanswered,
th en were blocked, until he finally discov-
ered from Christie’s that the “buyer” had
reneged owing to a faint, though not
uncommon, scratch on the base of the
sc ulpture and refused to pay. After the
finance group filed suit to reclaim the
funds advanced on the fictitious sale, Val-
larino spotted Philbrick exiting the sales-
room at Sotheby’s at a later auction and
followed him into a crowded elevator.
When the door opened, before he could be
collared, Philbrick darted out of Sotheby’s
into oncoming traffic and was nearly run
over by a taxi. Vallarino and his partners
closed down their art-finance company
after their Philbrick experience.
The last straw was that Stingel portrait
of Picasso he’d already sold, which came
for auction at Christie’s in May 2019. His
original purchase had been financed by
FAP, a German art-investment company;
although a percentage of the work had
previously been sold to Pesko and then to
yet another finance company. (I can
barely sell a painting once!) Philbrick had
given forged documents to FAP stating
that Christie’s had guaranteed to sell for
$9 million, which he subsequently told
me was no biggie, lie-wise. Stingel’s paint-
ing sold for $6,517,500 that night, far
below the amount Philbrick had repeat-
edly assured FAP it would make. The
painting has since been impounded by a
judge, and there it remains, embroiled in
a handful of lawsuits.
When it came time to pay for the paint-
ing, it was at this juncture that Philbrick’s
shams in assuming the role of larger-than-
life art-world wheeler-dealer came apart,
and since then, the claims, lawsuits, and
published articles about him have surfaced
with nothing short of a tsunami’s force. Not
to mention the speculation as to what’s next.Meanwhile, Pesko’s payment to Philbrick for
yet a further share of the work he now
assumed he owned outright formed the
basis of Philbrick’s getaway stash. It was
after this time that he absconded.
There are rumors of fraudulent insur-
ance claims and offshore bank accounts in
addition to the cases described above; no
one yet knows how all this will pan out or
what the full scope will be. Though crimi-
nal charges have yet to be filed, he’s worth
more out of jail to some than behind bars
(not the ones he loved to patronize), as the
duped investors who desperately want
their money back feel it would be easier to
negotiate a repayment plan from a civilian
rather than a captive clad in stripes. But as
the worldwide manhunt continues, the art
world ponders what’s next for the slippery
and, so far, elusive young dealer.
Recently, the FBI is said to have taken an
interest. In the meantime, he’s been DM-
ing me from multiple fake accounts, offer-
ing various self-serving explanations for
why none of this mess is of his making. Phil-
brick’s defenses have grown from diplo-
matic to progressively more hostile, accus-
ing me of everything from lying and not
knowing the facts—everything I’ve told
here is from my direct observations or con-
versations with those defrauded out of
millions—to having an agenda and fake
Instagram followers, and having confused
readers of my regular Artnet column, who
will never read me again after the publica-
tion of this epic tale.
What gets to me more than the loss of my
money is Philbrick’s attitude of denying
responsibility, blaming Jay Jopling for his
own crimes, stating it was simply a matter
of being young and getting in over his head.
And, let’s not forget, when his misdeeds
came to the surface, he decided to go on an
extended holiday to Australia and various
surrounding islands (according to several
witnesses). As he stated in a DM: “Are you
suggesting this was all done alone?” And
besides, it was “just regular art dealing like
everyone else.” Worse, and more alarming,
was his observation that the people he
screwed “shouldn’t have been in the game
in the first instance.” When I asked how he
could so nonchalantly forge loan docu-
ments and auction-house agreements, he
replied that art lenders “own to lend and
lend to own,” whatever that means.
Because of a really good run from 2012
to 2015, I might have overlooked being
taken to the cleaners for a few million by
my dear “friend.”
Even as his lies began to snowball from
run-of-the-mill art-world sketchy to car-
toonish, I kept coming back to the fact that
he undoubtedly cared an awful lot about
art and knew more about the artists hechampioned than just about anyone else
did. Certainly, no one of his generation
came (or comes) close. Have I learned any-
thing? For one thing, a year ago I stopped
drinking. Still, to this day, I catch myself
reaching for the phone to seek his advice.
Among his last remarks to me on Insta-
gram were that this has “died down and
everybody has moved on” and he will “be
back this time only bigger better stronger
wiser and fitter.” All this despite unde-
fended lawsuits being filed against him by
the bushel.
Another recent faux account went after
my kids, asking them if they weren’t
embarrassed by my actions (clearly, they’ve
grown used to the condition of being mor-
tified by me over the years). In his own
words, I am “a joke,” he feels “sorry for my
family,” and I made “a fool out of my wife”!
This is a far cry from the Philbrick I last
saw when we walked in circles around a
couple of square blocks in New York City
on the eve he went missing (the thought
occurred to me that he might be wired by
the Feds) and confided in me his “crimes”
of embezzling money through forged loan
documents and selling works to multiple
parties. He showed regret and contrition,
if only for a fleeting moment. That was the
first and only time I’ve known him to act
humbly—and that mind-set has clearly
deserted him since. He’s now back to his
foolishly overconfident self (he had been in
hiding with Baker-Harber in an apart-
ment in Sydney she inherited from her
grandmother, though I was told he has
since left), and instead of bragging about
his unflagging genius, he’s raging that he
didn’t do a damn thing wrong, only
behaved like every other art dealer.
After a piece came out last week in the
Times about him, I was DM’d by another
account, inspector_barker. We soon began
to argue over his treatment. “Ever heard of
the phrase ‘token villain,’ ” he DM’d. “Easy
to have the young innocent guy as the
scapegoat rather than the experienced
pros who won’t make you popular if you
castigate them.” This was too much: I
responded, “Reality test. Inigo inigo inigo
look hard in the mirror.”
I remember around Christmas, I was
contacted via DM by Steve_Irwin, the
Australian naturalist who died from a
pierced heart after he was impaled trying
to film a stingray, an animal he had
devoted his life to preserving. I became
convinced that this was Philbrick as well.
The symbolism of using a figure analo-
gous to Saint Sebastian, a martyr who suf-
fered multiple arrow wounds in defending
his religion, was clear, though perhaps it
was lost on Philbrick that Sebastian was
later clubbed to death. ■Inigo PhilbrickCONTINUED FROM PAGE 370620FEA_Inigo_lay [Print]_36890243.indd 90 3/13/20 10:24 PM90 new york | march 16–29, 2020
estimateof $800,000to $1,200,000that
was thenbidup wellbeyondexpectations
to$2,142,000,it turnsoutbya shellcom-
panyPhilbrickcontrolled.He thensecured
fi nancingon thefullhammerprice—it
normallytakesoneto sixmonthsto get
paidfor art soldat auction—froman inves-
torgroupledbyEthanVallarino.After
monthsof radiosilence,Vallarino’scalls
andcorrespondencewentunanswered,
th enwereblocked,untilhe finallydiscov-
eredfromChristie’sthatthe“buyer”had
renegedowingto a faint, thoughnot
uncommon,scratchonthebaseof the
sc ulpture and refused to pay. After the
finance group filed suit to reclaim the
funds advanced on the fictitious sale, Val-
larino spotted Philbrick exiting the sales-
room at Sotheby’s at a later auction and
followed him into a crowded elevator.
When the door opened, before he could be
collared, Philbrick darted out of Sotheby’s
into oncoming traffic and was nearly run
over by a taxi. Vallarino and his partners
closed down their art-finance company
after their Philbrick experience.
The last straw was that Stingelportrait
of Picasso he’d already sold, which came
for auction at Christie’s in May 2019. His
original purchase had been financed by
FAP, a German art-investment company;
although a percentage of the work had
previously been sold to Pesko and then to
yet another finance company. (I can
barely sell a painting once!) Philbrick had
given forged documents to FAPstating
that Christie’s had guaranteed to sell for
$9 million, which he subsequently told
me was no biggie, lie-wise. Stingel’s paint-
ing sold for $6,517,500 that night, far
below the amount Philbrick hadrepeat-
edly assured FAP it would make. The
painting has since been impounded by a
judge, and there it remains, embroiled in
a handful of lawsuits.
When it came time to pay for the paint-
ing, it was at this juncture that Philbrick’s
shams in assuming the role of larger-than-
life art-world wheeler-dealer came apart,
and since then, the claims, lawsuits, and
published articles about him have surfaced
with nothing short of a tsunami’s force. Not
to mention the speculation as to what’s next.
Meanwhile, Pesko’s payment to Philbrick for
yet a further share of the work he now
assumed he owned outright formed the
basis of Philbrick’s getaway stash. It was
after this time that he absconded.
There are rumors of fraudulent insur-
ance claims and offshore bank accounts in
addition to the cases described above; no
one yet knows how all this will pan out or
what the full scope will be. Though crimi-
nal charges have yet to be filed, he’s worth
more out of jail to some than behind bars
(not the ones he loved to patronize), as the
duped investors who desperately want
their money back feel it would be easier to
negotiate a repayment plan from a civilian
rather than a captive clad in stripes. But as
the worldwide manhunt continues, the art
world ponders what’s next for theslippery
and, so far, elusive young dealer.
Recently, the FBI is said to have taken an
interest. In the meantime, he’s been DM-
ing me from multiple fake accounts, offer-
ing various self-serving explanations for
why none of this mess is of his making. Phil-
brick’s defenses have grown from diplo-
matic to progressively more hostile, accus-
ing me of everything from lyingand not
knowing the facts—everything I’ve told
here is from my direct observations or con-
versations with those defrauded out of
millions—to having an agenda and fake
Instagram followers, and having confused
readers of my regular Artnet column, who
will never read me again after the publica-
tion of this epic tale.
What gets to me more than the loss of my
money is Philbrick’s attitude of denying
responsibility, blaming Jay Jopling for his
own crimes, stating it was simply a matter
of being young and getting in over his head.
And, let’s not forget, when his misdeeds
came to the surface, he decided to go on an
extended holiday to Australia and various
surrounding islands (according to several
witnesses). As he stated in a DM: “Are you
suggesting this was all done alone?” And
besides, it was “just regular art dealing like
everyone else.” Worse, and more alarming,
was his observation that the people he
screwed “shouldn’t have been in the game
in the first instance.” When I asked how he
could so nonchalantly forge loan docu-
ments and auction-house agreements, he
replied that art lenders “own to lend and
lend to own,” whatever that means.
Because of a really good run from 2012
to 2015, I might have overlooked being
taken to the cleaners for a few million by
my dear “friend.”
Even as his lies began to snowball from
run-of-the-mill art-world sketchy to car-
toonish, I kept coming back to the fact that
he undoubtedly cared an awful lot about
art and knew more about the artists hechampioned than just about anyone else
did. Certainly, no one of his generation
came (or comes) close. Have I learned any-
thing? For one thing, a year ago I stopped
drinking. Still, to this day, I catch myself
reaching for the phone to seek his advice.
Among his last remarks to me on Insta-
gram were that this has “died down and
everybody has moved on” and he will “be
back this time only bigger better stronger
wiser and fitter.” All this despite unde-
fended lawsuits being filed against him by
the bushel.
Another recent faux account went after
my kids, asking them if they weren’t
embarrassed by my actions (clearly, they’ve
grown used to the condition of being mor-
tified by me over the years). In his own
words, I am “a joke,” he feels “sorry for my
family,” and I made “a fool out of my wife”!
This is a far cry from the Philbrick I last
saw when we walked in circles around a
couple of square blocks in New York City
on the eve he went missing (the thought
occurred to me that he might be wired by
the Feds) and confided in me his “crimes”
of embezzling money through forged loan
documents and selling works to multiple
parties. He showed regret and contrition,
if only for a fleeting moment. Thatwas the
first and only time I’ve known him to act
humbly—and that mind-set has clearly
deserted him since. He’s now back to his
foolishly overconfident self (he had been in
hiding with Baker-Harber in an apart-
ment in Sydney she inherited from her
grandmother, though I was told he has
since left), and instead of bragging about
his unflagging genius, he’s raging that he
didn’t do a damn thing wrong, only
behaved like every other art dealer.
After a piece came out last week in the
Times about him, I was DM’d byanother
account, inspector_barker. We soon began
to argue over his treatment. “Ever heard of
the phrase ‘token villain,’ ” he DM’d. “Easy
to have the young innocent guy as the
scapegoat rather than the experienced
pros who won’t make you popular if you
castigate them.” This was too much: I
responded, “Reality test. Inigo inigo inigo
look hard in the mirror.”
I remember around Christmas, I was
contacted via DM by Steve_Irwin, the
Australian naturalist who diedfrom a
pierced heart after he was impaled trying
to film a stingray, an animal he had
devoted his life to preserving. Ibecame
convinced that this was Philbrickas well.
The symbolism of using a figure analo-
gous to Saint Sebastian, a martyr who suf-
fered multiple arrow wounds in defending
his religion, was clear, though perhaps it
was lost on Philbrick that Sebastian was
later clubbed to death. ■Inigo PhilbrickCONTINUED FROM PAGE 37