The once highly respected—and now disgraced—art advisor Lisa Schiff has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for defrauding clients out of an estimated $6.5 million. Through a multimillion-dollar scheme that lasted more than five years, Schiff siphoned off client funds meant for blue-chip acquisitions and high-stakes sales to bankroll a lavish lifestyle that included a $25,000-per-month luxury apartment in Tribeca, designer shopping sprees and globe-trotting vacations. “Because of Schiff’s lies and her illusory art advisory scam, Schiff will now serve a substantial sentence in prison,” acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky announced in a memo to the press, drawing a sharp line under the case on March 19.
Advisors, in theory, are meant to follow an ethical code when acting as intermediaries between clients and the art market. Chief among these principles is always putting the client’s best interest first when providing guidance on art acquisitions, sales and investments. It’s a fiduciary duty Schiff trampled with some indifference, consistently blurring the lines around who owned what art and how funds were being managed. As prosecutors pointed out in court, “the reliance on art dealers and advisors as intermediaries to exchange payments, communicate between buyers and sellers and take custody of artworks” creates a fertile breeding ground for exactly the kind of smoke-and-mirrors trickery Schiff eventually admitted to.
Schiff was known for her access to mega galleries and auction houses and for advising an elite clientele, including real estate mogul and art collector Aby Rosen and Hollywood stars like Leonardo DiCaprio. Through her firm Schiff Fine Art (SFA)—which had a boutique gallery outpost in Tribeca—Schiff defrauded at least twelve clients, along with one artist, the estate of another artist and a gallery. Her playbook was simple and bold: she controlled both the money her clients thought was being used to buy art and the artworks they consigned to her for sale. Often, she either never acquired the promised works or quietly sold them off without saying a word—no invoice, no mention, no money.
The con unraveled in May 2023, five years after it started, when Richard Grossman and collector Candace Carmel Barasch filed the first lawsuit. They claimed Schiff failed to pay out proceeds from the $2.5 million sale of an Adrian Ghenie painting at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, withholding a $1.8 million fee. Barasch, a regular on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list from 2014 to 2018, also alleged they had given Schiff $6.6 million to acquire works by Wangechi Mutu, Sarah Lucas and other artists—none of which ever materialized. Soon, Schiff’s fragile house of cards began to collapse: at least forty other collectors came forward demanding restitution, forcing her firm to shutter. Meanwhile, artist Seffa Klein, who had previously shown at Schiff’s Tribeca space, submitted a claim for around $506,000 and American Express jumped into the fray, suing Schiff for more than $500,000 in unpaid charges.
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As the fraud unraveled, an inventory submitted to the court in August 2023 revealed that more than 900 artworks—collectively valued at $3.1 million—were listed among the assets of Schiff Fine Art (SFA) to repay creditors. However, according to Winston Art Group, the firm tasked with appraising the holdings, roughly 100 additional works were unaccounted for. (“We’re still making efforts to find missing inventory,” Douglas Pick, who Schiff appointed to liquidate her holdings, told Observer in early 2023.) By January 2024, Schiff had filed for bankruptcy, triggering the sale of her art collection to satisfy mounting debts. The liquidation began at Phillips in November, where over 200 works hit the auction block, including major pieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Richard Prince and other notable talents.
According to a memo released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Schiff had considered confessing her wrongdoing as early as 2020, allegedly drafting letters of admission to at least two victims that she never sent. Instead, she continued her pattern of deception for another three years.
In a surprisingly candid interview with the New York Times, Schiff formally apologized to all of her clients, conceding to the mismanagement of their funds and admitting she had breached her fiduciary duty—misusing client money and distorting transactions for her own benefit. “You become the lie,” she said. “And I didn’t have anyone to talk to because everyone around me was either paid to be there or was family.”
The double life she was leading took a heavy toll. Schiff was under immense pressure, and while that doesn’t excuse her conduct, it offers some context. People tend to make shoddy choices when they feel trapped (whether by circumstance or their own actions), and Schiff wasn’t immune to human error or delusion. “I was miserable in that helicopter. I was miserable in Loewe in my fancy outfit,” she admitted, reflecting on how her high-end escapism only masked a growing sense of panic. “At the end, I thought that I was going to have a stroke.”
The Times interview marked her first time publicly addressing her crimes, and it wasn’t lost on some that her choice to speak out preceded her sentencing. Whatever her motivations—catharsis or hope for leniency—it likely didn’t sway the outcome. As one of the victims wrote in a statement submitted to the court, Schiff’s remorse still rang hollow: “There isn’t a word indicating she understands the impact of her actions on the people she stole from… I have heard that Lisa is working with other former clients, has apologized to them, and her criminal attorney has talked about her wanting to make things right. I have not seen any action like this by Lisa toward my family or demonstrating remorse.”
What makes the Schiff case so disturbing may be that her betrayal ran deeper than business. She didn’t just exploit her clients—she exploited their friendship, too. Many of her victims had longstanding, personal relationships with her, trusting her not only with their collections but with their confidence. That emotional breach came into sharp focus during a statement in court from Candace Carmel Barasch, as reported by ARTNews. Facing Schiff directly, Barasch said: “Lisa, your disgraceful conduct goes beyond money. You broke my wife’s heart. For months, she’s been weeping. You were her best friend…or so she thought. Shame on you.” Barasch added that just a week before Schiff turned herself in, she had the gall to ask them for $190,000 for works she claimed they “simply had to have” in their collection.
Schiff’s downfall is not an isolated incident in the art world’s recent history. The long-unfolding Bouvier Affair—which involved a tangled web of transactions between Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev and his art advisor and freeport magnate Yves Bouvier, including the blockbuster sale of the Salvator Mundi—was formally closed in December 2023, though some procedural matters are still dragging on into early 2025. Then there’s Inigo Philbrick, the art dealer turned cautionary tale, who was arrested on the island of Vanuatu in June 2020 and sentenced to seven years in prison. He was released in early 2024 after serving about four.
Taken together, these cases paint a troubling picture of how easily high-stakes deals, lack of oversight and a murky art market can intersect with deception and outright fraud. They underscore the urgent need for real transparency, clear accountability and a functioning ethical code—especially as the art world continues to morph into a high-finance playground. With more money flowing through the system and more players involved, due diligence is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity.
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