Sotheby’s lawsuit says NYC art dealer stiffed auction house for $2 million; dealer claims he was lied to

Sotheby’s says a city art dealer is refusing to pay up after bidding $1.7 million for a painting by French Impressionist Camille Pissarro.

But the dealer says he’s ghosting the international auction house because it lied to him.

A lawsuit Sotheby’s filed in August alleges that Albert O’Hayon, owner of Binoche Fine Art in Manhattan, signed a contract to place a minimum “irrevocable bid” on the painting, " Le Jardin des Tuileries et le pavillon de Flore " — but has so far ignored the auction house’s attempts to collect.

In a phone interview, O’Hayon said Sotheby’s misled him and told him that it had another interested bidder who was willing to pay more. The practice, O’Hayon said, is meant to generate interest in a piece and drive the price higher.

“Sotheby’s [was] telling me they have another bidder above me, that they're going to bid for this,” O’Hayon said. “If it sells anything above [my bid], I'm getting a 30% commission for the painting, so I have nothing to lose because everything is fully trusted.”

The lawsuit filed in New York state Supreme Court sheds light on the some of the more unsavory practices of the art world, where experts say prearranged bids are increasingly used during live auctions to drive enthusiasm for an artwork.

In this case, however, O’Hayon says he was left holding the art and on the hook for close to $2 million. The piece is a 2-foot-by-2-foot oil on canvas depicting a garden in Paris where the Jacobins executed revolutionaries by guillotine in the 18th century.

“I feel I've been cheated, I feel I've been lied to,” O'Hayon said. “I feel they misinformed me purposely because they didn’t have a buyer.”

O’Hayon said he never signed the bid contract, but Sotheby’s lawyer Paul Cossu said it was signed electronically.

“As the complaint references, there is a fully executed agreement between the parties on the property at issue,” Cossu said in a phone interview.

According to the suit, after accounting for overhead and other costs, the auction house says it’s owed $2.1 million.

O’Hayon said he plans to countersue Sotheby’s, though it was not clear if he would hire a lawyer to do so.