NYC Landlord Sues Art Gallery for Proceeds from Lennon Auction
January 17, 2011
New York City landlord Mark Arrow is suing Braswell Galleries — which recently auctioned off Beatle John Lennon’s famed white suit from the “Abbey Road” album cover for $46,000 — to satisfy a previous rent debt, the Associated Press reported. Braswell Galleries was told before the Jan. 1 sale that a court had determined that seller Biond Fury, a memorabilia collector, owed more than $21,000 in rent for his former Manhattan apartment owned by Arrow, according to Arrow’s lawsuit. Arrow’s lawyers say they told the Norwalk, Conn.-based gallery not to go through with the sale, and that the gallery should now have to pay up. Arrow had been unable to collect the rent debt from Fury, but became more hopeful after he heard of the auction sale, according to his lawyer, Adam Leitman Bailey. A timeline on the Braswell Galleries website shows that the seller had bought the suit in 1996, sold it in 2005 and repurchased it in 2008. George Braswell, co-owner of the Gallery, said last month that the
“Abbey Road” suit’s owner was selling it because of economic hardship.
NYC-landlord-sues-art-gallery-for-proceeds-from-Lennon-auction-1.pdf