Michael Ovitz, well-known as a former Disney executive and co-founder of Creative Artists Agency, as well as a prominent art collector, has sued a Los Angeles gallery. In the lawsuit, Ovitz claims that the gallery sold two pieces of art Ovitz consigned to it but did not pay Ovitz the proceeds in an amount of approximately $1 million.
Ovitz alleges that Perry Rubenstein Gallery improperly sold two of his works by contemporary American painter and photographer Richard Prince. In particular, Ovitz alleges that the gallery represented to him that it sold the 2006 Prince work “Untitled (de Kooning)” in May but withheld proceeds of the supposed sale, and also the gallery sold Prince’s 1992 work “Nobody’s Home” for less than an agreed upon amount and has not given Ovitz the proceeds from the sale.
The lawsuit claims the gallery’s conduct is “self-dealing that can only be described as Byzantine.”