Artist Howardena Pindell Is Suing Her Former Gallery for Allegedly Hiding Sales and Failing to Pay Her for Years

In a complicated and sprawling lawsuit involving years of
alleged misdeeds, artist Howardena Pindell is accusing her
former gallery, seven of its related entities, and a collector of
lying to her about sales of her works, failing to pay her, and
refusing to return art upon request.

The lawsuit, which was originally filed in federal court in
January and then amended on April 21, alleges “continuous
systematic breach” of the parties’ responsibilities towards
Pindell. The story was first reported by ARTnews.

According to the lawsuit, dealer George Richard N’Namdi and
his son, Jumaane, who showed Pindell’s work between 1987 and 2006,
sold works at heavy discounts and “created a maze of legal entities
or dissolved legal entities” to obscure transactions.

Pindell says accounts of sales and inventory, if provided at
all, were “willfully misleading and inaccurate, payments were not
timely if received at all, and the identity of purchasers, as
required by law, was not provided.”

In addition, Pindell is accusing collector Arthur Primas of
benefitting from the scheme by buying works at discounts
without her knowledge or authorization. She is demanding the
return of three works from Primas and is also seeking at least
$500,000 in damages.

Neither the attorneys for the N’Namdis nor Primas responded
to Artnet News’s request for comment. Pindell’s attorney also did
not respond to queries.

The claim provides considerable details about six Pindell works
ranging in price from $35,000 to $250,000 that were sold to a
Brooklyn buyer named Ko Smith between 2014 and 2016. The artist
alleges she was never informed of these sales, which were made out
of the N’Namdi Gallery’s Detroit branch.

Notably, these private-sales prices are significantly higher
than Pindell’s existing auction record, which stands at $47,500 for
an untitled mixed-media work (circa 1981), which sold at Swann
Galleries’ African American Fine Art sale in April 2019, according
to the Artnet Price Database.

Tensions apparently culminated in late 2019 when Pindell’s
attorney, Barbara Hoffman, issued a list of works the artist wanted
returned. A N’Namdi family attorney, Peter Ellis, responded to
Hoffman that the demand was unreasonable, according to Pindell’s
complaint.

Hoffman responded: “Far from being unreasonable, the evidence
indicates that your payments, if any, to Ms. Pindell were sporadic,
and that you acted and continued to act in a manner of total
disregard of your obligations as a fiduciary to Ms. Pindell.”

The lawsuit also says the dealers “took advantage” of
market interest in the work of African American artists “to the
detriment” of Pindell and others. Her claim cites previous
lawsuits against the N’Namdis brought by the estates of Al
Loving and Herbert Gentry, which Pindell alleges establish a
pattern of “unlawful acts.”

Pindell, who recently joined the roster at London’s Victoria
Miro gallery and is represented by Garth Greenan Gallery in New
York, has become internationally renown in recent years. In
addition to a traveling 2018 retrospective that went to the Museum
of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Pindell has been part of major
group shows such as “Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and
Abstraction, 1964–1980” at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2006) and
“WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution” at the Museum of
Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (2007).

The post Artist Howardena Pindell Is Suing Her Former
Gallery for Allegedly Hiding Sales and Failing to Pay Her for
Years appeared first on artnet News.