In what has become one of the biggest scandals to hit the New York art world in recent years, dozens of people are suing Salander-O'Reilly Galleries and its director, Lawrence Salander, for as-yet-untold millions in money and missing paintings. The gallery itself has been shut down—its locks changed on order of a judge—and the Manhattan district attorney's office is investigating possible criminal charges. As the dizzying financial and legal problems facing Salander-O'Reilly continue to mount, a pattern of accusations has begun to emerge that tells of grandiose ambition, easy-money schemes, and widespread instances of abused trust.

For years Salander, 58, enjoyed a sterling reputation in the art world, first as a purveyor of 19th-century European and 20th-century American works and later as a dealer with rare access to Old Masters and Renaissance pieces. Since founding the gallery with former partner William O'Reilly in 1976, Salander had cultivated close relationships with collectors as well as artists and their families. Tennis star John McEnroe, who once apprenticed at the gallery, is the godfather of one of Salander's seven children. Earl Davis, the son of American painter Stuart Davis, entrusted the dealer with hundreds of his father's works over the course of a long friendship. Both men are now suing the gallery.

The chronology that follows traces the gradual implosion of Salander-O'Reilly over the past three years, with facts and allegations taken from legal complaints and other court documents as well as numerous news reports from the Maine Antique Digest, Bloomberg, and other publications. (A full list of sources can be found at the bottom, with a key for attributions; all other items come from court documents.) Some of the claimants, including hedge-fund executive Roy Lennox, collector Monty Diamond, and McEnroe, accuse Salander of talking them into too-good-to-be-true investments and then making their money disappear. Others, such as Earl Davis and Florida collector Carol F. Cohen, say Salander sold artworks they had given him for safekeeping—often far below their value—and funneled the proceeds toward paying his own debts. Still other claimants include contractors, banks, and Salander-O'Reilly's former landlord. RFR Realty, the company that owns the gallery's current building, is also suing to have Salander-O'Reilly evicted and to reclaim $1.7 million in missed rent. Many longtime employees have left.

This timeline is not a step-by-step account so much as a list of the key moments as we understand them today—most often from the point of view of the claimants—in the still unfolding story of Salander’s fall. For analysis and further reporting on the Salander cases, please see “Lock, Stock, and Caravaggio” by Judd Tully in the December 2007 issue of Art & Auction magazine.

1976 Salander-O’Reilly opens at 20 East 79th Street, a building owned by gallery company Paul Rosenberg & Co.

1984 – Manhattan art dealer Dennis R. Anderson pleads guilty to grand larceny after being indicted for swindling Salander-O’Reilly and other prominent galleries out of millions of dollars in art and cash by selling paintings he didn’t own. Sidney L. Bergen, then president of the Upper East Side's ACA Galleries, says afterwards: “This is a business based on trust. It’s a business where someone with a good reputation can come into my gallery and take a work from me by just signing a receipt for it.” (3)

Feb. 28, 1995 – Curtis Squire, Inc., a Minnesota-based venture capital firm controlled by collector Myron Kunin, takes a 50 percent interest in Salander-O’Reilly as a passive investor. The agreement, which entitles Curtis Squire to half of the gallery’s profits, names Lawrence Salander the sole manager of the partnership and gives him a yearly compensation of $500,000. (1)

1997 – William O’Reilly, the gallery’s cofounder, retires. This same year Salander-O’Reilly is subpoenaed along with numerous other prominent New York galleries as part of a U.S. Justice Department investigation of price-fixing between dealers and auction houses. (3)

Jan. 2003 – Around this time Lawrence Salander approaches hedge-fund company executive Roy Lennox, a friend and neighbor of his in Millbrook, N.Y., with a proposition to jointly purchase an $800,000 Corot painting. Salander says he has found a buyer who will pay $1.25 million for the artwork, and that if Lennox invests $400,000 in the painting he will earn the money back plus $225,000. After this first deal goes as planned, Salander entices Lennox and his wife to put $3,135,000 into other art investments over the next three years, most with similar easy-money returns promised. Lennox also buys a Donatello sculpture from the gallery for $812,812.50. Salander repays only a fraction of the investments; the Donatello, according to Lennox, turns out to be a copy. [For a more detailed timeline of this case, click here.]

2005 – Noticing that the gallery is suffering from what appears to be bookkeeping errors, Earl Davis, son of the late painter Stuart Davis, asks Lawrence Salander for a full accounting of the hundreds of his father's works that he had consigned to the gallery over the course of a two-decade relationship. In December, after finding out that Salander had sold four important paintings without his permission, Davis tells the dealer to stop selling the works and return his art. [For a more detailed timeline of this case, click here.]

April 1, 2005 – Massachusetts-based collector Saundra B. Lane sells New Haven, a Charles Sheeler painting, to Lawrence Salander for $9,173,261. The bill of sale calls for 11 payments ending January 2007, with interest bringing the total due to $9.8 million: In the event Salander defaults on the payments, Lane is entitled to reclaim the Sheeler plus six other works put up as collateral, including two paintings said to be by Albert Pinkham Ryder, Windmill and Witch’s Mountain. (1)

May 25, 2005 – Paul Rosenberg & Co., Salander-O’Reillys landlord, and Elaine Rosenberg, the widow of Paul Rosenbergs son, agree to give Lawrence Salander $200,000 toward a joint purchase of Stuart Daviss Brown Table Still Life for $400,000. Salander tells them a buyer is lined up to pay $800,000 for the work, and that they will receive double their investment by December 15, 2005.

Fall 2005 – The gallery moves to a five-story mansion on East 71st Street that is steps away from the Frick Collection. The rent, variously reported as $183,000 (5) and $154,000 (3) per month, is a steep increase over the $58,333 (3) paid for the 79th Street space. During a transition period, the gallery occupies both locations.

Sept. 28, 2005 – William O’Reilly files a motion for a summary judgment ordering Lawrence Salander to repay him $147,969 (plus interest) owed from a $225,369 loan made to the gallery in 1990. A settlement is reached instituting a new payment schedule, on which Salander ultimately defaults. O'Reilly is currently considering another lawsuit.

Oct. 7, 2005 – The Gil Studio, Inc., a Brooklyn-based company specializing in leaded and stained glass, takes out a $43,594 lien against the Salanders’ 82nd Street home after not being paid that amount for work on a window. The debt is satisfied seven months later when Lawrence Salander refinances his mortgage.

Feb. 28, 2006 – Renaud-Giquello & Associés, a Paris auction house, sues Salander-O’Reilly for $172,810 (plus interest and bank fees) that it owes from the March 2005 purchase of a Manet painting.

March 2006 – Monty Diamond, a New York-based art collector who knows Lawrence Salander socially and whose friends and family have successfully conducted business with the gallery, entrusts Salander with 16 artworks to sell at a 10 percent commission. As part of the arrangement Salander is supposed to let Diamond pre-approve any sale prices. Six months later, however, Salander tells Diamond that he sold 10 works for $477,500 without his permission, offers to waive his dealer’s fee as a result, and says to expect payments beginning January 2007.

April 14, 2006 – Renaissance Art Investors, a company run by Triumph Apparel Corp. chairman Donald Schupak, purchases approximately 300 Renaissance works for a total of $42,197,660. Lawrence Salander says that the deal will give the company “ownership of one of the largest private collections of Renaissance art in the United States.” In turn, Salander becomes the “exclusive consignee” for the artworks.

July 20, 2006 – Edelman Arts, a gallery run by 1980s Wall Street raider Asher Edelman, sues for the return of a Titian painting, Saint Sebastian, that it consigned to Salander-O’Reilly in April 2006. The suit also demands damages stemming from the gallery’s failure to sell the painting for a promised $4.25 million, plus interest and attorney’s fees. The lawsuit is discontinued Aug. 17.

Aug. 1, 2006 – Salander-O’Reilly signs an option to purchase Georgia O’Keeffes painting Shelton Hotel from Curtis Galleries, Inc., a subsidiary of the gallery’s business partner Curtis Squire, for $7 million. The money is to be transferred in monthly $500,000 installments, with Curtis Galleries retaining title to the painting until the whole amount is paid.

Aug. 23, 2006 – Saundra B. Lane files a complaint with a Massachusetts court stating that Lawrence Salander fell short on one payment for the $9 million Sheeler painting and failed to make two more. Lane asks the court to order Salander to return the Sheeler and hand over the rest of the collateral. Months of back-and-forth with Salander follow; a new payment schedule is agreed upon, but Salander defaults on that also. Lane attempts to track down the collateral but can only locate the two supposed Ryder paintings. An expert declines to authenticate the unsigned works, which are then appraised at a total of $45,000—about $3 million less than Salander had claimed. (1)

Oct. 2006 –Tennis star John McEnroe, who had apprenticed at Salander-O’Reilly for six months in 1993 to learn the art trade, gives Salander $162,500 to invest in a Marsden Hartley painting, Dogtown, that the dealer says will sell for twice the purchase price. The agreement states that McEnroe will be paid $325,000 by March 5, 2007, regardless of whether the work is sold.

Jan. 31, 2007 – Former landlord Paul Rosenberg & Co. sues Salander-O’Reilly for at least $875,493 in arrears and holdover charges, plus attorney’s fees and interest. The company and Elaine Rosenberg also file a complaint demanding their $400,000 from the Stuart Davis sale plus interest.

March 2007 – Art collector Carol F. Cohen, the widow of former Madison Square Garden CEO Alan Cohen, entrusts Lawrence Salander to store 15 artworks worth about $5.8 million while she determines the best way to sell them. Cohen, who auctions three of the works through Christie’s around this time for $2.375 million, expressly tells Salander not to sell her art.

Spring 2007 – Representatives from Renaissance Art Investors go to the gallery to perform an audit of their 300-some works, but are "prevented from doing so in any meaningful way." Upon further investigation, they discover that many pieces cannot be found; others, they are surprised to learn, are to be auctioned at Sotheby's in June.

May 2007 – John McEnroe sues Lawrence Salander, saying that the only proceeds he saw from the Hartley sale was a $50,000 check, which bounced. Salander gives him $200,000, but tells the court that McEnroe’s $162,500 was “nothing more than a loan” because the tennis legend knew the Hartley had already been sold at the time of their agreement. Three weeks later, arguing that the additional $37,500 he returned to McEnroe constituted a “usurious” rate of interest, Salander demands that McEnroe repay that amount.

May 9, 2007 – A New York court orders Salander-O’Reilly to pay $665,860 to Dougall Arts Ltd., a British art firm, for the 2004 purchase of a St. Jerome statue. A settlement had already been reached, however, and the payment is made over the summer in two installments.

May 29, 2007 – After finding out that several works Lawrence Salander told him were on consignment were actually sold, Earl Davis sues him for the proceeds, damages in the amount of at least $1 million apiece on five different counts, and the return of the remaining art. Davis later finds out that 73 pieces by his father were sold for at least $9,378,875 and that about 25 works are unaccounted for. The lawsuit, which now seeks $30 million, is scheduled to go to trial beginning February 11, 2008.

July 11, 2007 – After not receiving any money from the supposed $477,500 sale of his paintings, Monty Diamond and his sister, Sarah Diamond, sue Lawrence Salander and his gallery for the overdue proceeds together with damages on several different counts totaling $3,477,500 plus interest. According to a later court filing, gallery records indicate that the works were sold to Madison Avenue dealer Paul McCarron for just $150,000.

Aug. 2007 – New York-based art dealer Stanley Moss wins a $1 million judgment against Lawrence Salander. (2)

Aug. 7, 2007 – Citing news reports of Salander-O’Reillys legal problems, Curtis Squire and Curtis Galleries, Inc. file a lawsuit seeking the repayment of $3.8 million in loans made over 12 years, a full distribution of the profits due under the 50 percent partnership agreement, and $3.5 million still unpaid for the O’Keeffe (which Lawrence Salander sold in violation of their agreement), plus interest, attorney’s fees, and further damages to be established at trial. According to the suit, Curtis Squire withdraws from its partnership with Salander-O’Reilly effective Oct. 25, 2007.

Aug. 13, 2007 – Former New York Observer publisher Arthur Carter, whose sculptures have been represented by Salander-O’Reilly, requests a summary judgment that the gallery repay him $1.2 million in loaned money, plus interest. The motion is made through Carter’s company, Utilities & Industries Management Corp.

Sept. 2007 – Ursus Books and Prints, an Upper East Side purveyor of rare art books, sues the gallery for $315,000 owed from purchases between 2004 and 2005. (2)

Sept. 21, 2007 – Fulton Landing, Inc., a Brooklyn-based home improvement company, sues Lawrence Salander and his wife for $98,093 (plus interest) that is unpaid from a $472,481 renovation job on their 82nd Street residence. In the same suit, Timothy Crowley, a contractor at Fulton Landing, demands that the Salanders repay a $70,000 loan he made them, plus interest. The case will return to court on Dec. 14.

Sept. 24, 2007 – After Saundra B. Lane tells the Massachusetts court that Lawrence Salander did not comply with a court order to turn over all of the collateral she was owed—she said in July that the Sheeler painting, for instance, had been “sold or otherwise disposed of”—the judge rules in her favor, awarding her $4.3 million. (2), (1)

Sept. 24, 2007 – Renaissance Art Investors initiates a lawsuit against the gallery seeking $42,197,660, punitive damages of $10 million, and the return of its art.  

Oct. 2007 – John McEnroe asks the court to have Lawrence Salander immediately pay him the $125,000 he says he is owed from his investment in the Hartley painting. The court rules that the “in-artfully drafted” agreement fails to state clearly when payments were due and that the matter will have to go to trial for a judgment. (2)

Oct. 2007 – Galleria d’Arte Benucci, a Rome gallery, alerts the New York Supreme Court that it is owed $6.65 million for art purchases Salander-O’Reilly made in 2005. In a letter, Benucci’s lawyer says that Lawrence Salander attempted to pay the debt with artworks that he did not own, and that the Rome gallery attached Salander’s assets in Italy in May 2007. (3)

Oct. 3, 2007 – Having discovered that Lawrence Salander sold her art “virtually immediately” after she stored it at his gallery, Carol F. Cohen sues Salander and the gallery for either the return of her art or $3.6 million plus $7.2 million in damages, legal fees, and interest. 

Oct. 11, 2007 – To settle a lawsuit filed by Renaissance Art Investors, Triple S Management, and Old Master Propertiesseeking $42,197,660, punitive damages of $10 million, and the return of their art—Lawrence Salander offers to let the Renaissance Art take 642 works from the gallery. Days later, a number of attorneys tell the court that their clients own some of the works; others cite previous judgments preventing the gallery from divesting itself of art. A lawyer for First Republic Bank says that his client has “a lien on all of Salander-O’Reillys assets.” (2)

Oct. 11, 2007 – American Express sues Lawrence Salander and the gallery for $698,013 in unpaid credit card charges. Bank of America sues Salander and his wife for defaulting on a $2 million loan. (2)

Oct. 15, 2007 In response to a suit Roy Lennox filed in August, accusing Lawrence Salander and his gallery of operating "nothing more than an illegal Ponzi scheme" and demanding $4,629,480.50 plus $10 million in punitive damages, the dealer agrees to give Lennox six artworks and a library of rare art books, with money and jewelry added if the library is found to be worth less than $1 million. Meanwhile, in the case of Renaissance Art Investors , which now claims it owns all of Salander-O'Reilly's Renaissance art, the investment group is told that it can take 642 works from the gallery. However, competing claims on Salander's assets tie up the agreements. A number of attorneys tell the court that their clients own some of the works specified; other cite previous judgments preventing the gallery from divesting itself of any art. A lawyer for First Republic Bank says that his client has "a lien on all of Salander-O'Reilly's assets." (2)

Oct. 16, 2007 – The gallery cancels “Masterpieces of Art: Five Centuries of Painting and Sculpture” and “Caravaggio,” which were scheduled to open on October 17 as the gallery's last shows, after London dealer Clovis Whitfield withdraws paintings and sculptures he had loaned for the occasion. Salander had said Caravaggios Apollo the Lute Player alone was expected to sell for $100 million, and that that total sales would bring in $750 million. A representative for Whitfield later says that the Lute Player had been loaned for exhibition only, not to be sold. (1), (4)

Oct. 19, 2007 – Salander-O’Reilly is shut down indefinitely by court order, and auction houses are prohibited from moving any art connected to Salander or the gallery. A restraining order is issued to prevent Salander-O’Reilly from dispersing any property, including works that might be in Italy or elsewhere. A representative for the Indianapolis Museum of Art requests the return of Caravaggios Sleeping Cupid, which was loaned for the show. An attorney for Salander says his client will probably file for bankruptcy.

Oct. 24, 2007 – The daughters of art collector Alexander W. Pearlman sue for the return of works they consigned to Salander-O’Reilly after the death of their father in 2004. They also seek $1.2 million from the sales of seven pieces, accusing Lawrence Salander of operating a “deliberate scheme” to divert money to pay off other creditors.

Oct. 24, 2007 – Lisette Georges, whose husband Paul Georges was honored by a posthumous 2003 show at Salander-O’Reilly, sues the gallery for the return of six of his paintings that she consigned there between June 2004 and September 2007. The combined value of the art is “not less than $219,000,” according to the claim.

Oct. 26, 2007 – Sotheby’s files a lawsuit claiming Salander-O’Reilly owes the auction house $1.64 million plus interest from a loan arrangement. Two other complaints are filed as well—one by Kraken Investments Ltd. and Golconda Fine Art Ltd., who ask the court for permission to seize a Botticelli painting, Mother and Child, and three other works from the gallery; and another by the Frelinghuysen Morris Foundation, whose attorney asks for a sheriff to collect any of the foundation's works that can be found at the gallery or Salander's home.

Nov. 7, 2007 – The New York State Supreme Court will hold its next hearing on the cases filed against Lawrence Salander and the gallery.

Key to sources: Maine Antique Digest (1), Bloomberg (2), New York Times (3), New York Sun (4), New York Post (5)

Editor's Note: In the original version of “The Salander Chronologies,” published Wednesday, October 13, there were several inaccuracies that were clarified by Earl Davis and his lawyer, Dean Nicyper. In the main chronology and the Earl Davis chronology, it was stated that there was a delay "of several months" between when Davis requested an accounting of his father's works at the gallery in 2005 and when Lawrence Salander provided the accounting; in fact, there was no such delay. In the same entry, it was stated that there was a month between Davis's request that Salander stop selling the works and the request that the dealer return the art, when in fact both requests were made simultaneously. In the Davis Chronology, it was stated that Salander gave Davis 24 post-dated checks in 2007; in fact, Salander gave him the checks in 2006.