Anthony Haden-Guest says nearly 100 of his cartoons have spent the past 15 years hanging in a Hamptons mansion owned by socialite and collector Libbie Mugrabi. Now he wants them back.
In a lawsuit filed this week in New York State Supreme Court, first reported by the New York Post, the veteran critic, cartoonist, and fixture of New York society accused Mugrabi of refusing to return 97 original drawings that were allegedly entrusted to her for a planned exhibition that never took place.
The complaint alleges that roughly 15 years ago Haden-Guest provided the drawings to Mugrabi for a show at her Southampton home. Under the arrangement, according to the filing, the works would be framed at Mugrabi’s expense, displayed for prospective buyers, and either sold or returned.
Instead, the exhibition never happened and the drawings remained hanging in the house, according to the lawsuit. “There was no contemplation whatsoever” that Mugrabi would own the drawings, the complaint states.
The lawsuit offers a glimpse into a long-running friendship that appears to have soured into a dispute over ownership, money, and artwork. Haden-Guest, 89, is one of the art world’s most recognizable figures, known for his decades as a critic, journalist, and chronicler of New York society. Mugrabi, the ex-wife of collector David Mugrabi, has become a frequent presence in both art-world headlines and court filings.
The suit claims Haden-Guest began seeking the return of the works in 2024 after receiving offers for exhibitions of his own. In emails cited in the complaint, he allegedly reminded Mugrabi that she had framed the works for a planned show and offered her the opportunity to purchase any pieces she wished to keep at discounted exhibition prices. The drawings were never returned, according to the filing.
Reached by the New York Post, Mugrabi reportedly described Haden-Guest’s allegations as “bogus.” ARTnews has reached out to Mugrabi and her representatives for comment, but did not recieve a response at press time.
The complaint identifies a person named Jacob Beam as someone who helped organize the original exhibition arrangement and is familiar with the parties’ understanding of the deal. Beam is not a party to the current lawsuit.
A person with the same name separately sued Mugrabi in 2023, alleging that he had worked for her fashion brand and personal business ventures. According to The Daily Beast, Beam in 2023 filed a $5 million suit against Mugrabi in which he claimed the socialite threatened to have him killed after she learned he’d kept a journal of their time working together, and then had him thrown in jail on “bogus criminal charges” including menacing, stalking, and criminal possession of a weapon. Of course, that case is unrelated to Haden-Guest’s claims, and ARTnews has not independently confirmed whether the Jacob Beam identified in the current complaint is the same person. That case is still in process.
A year before those allegations Mugrabi was facing her own charges of menacing, criminal mischief, and criminal possession of a weapon after she was accused of threatening her housekeeper, who had tried to come to terms with the socialite over missing wages, with a a knife.
Haden-Guest values the drawings at roughly $1,000 each, placing the total value of the collection at approximately $97,000. But the drawings are only part of the dispute.
Haden-Guest also alleges that he spent roughly six months in 2023 working on creative projects for Mugrabi’s fashion venture. According to the complaint, he designed clothing concepts, bags, hats, T-shirts, handkerchiefs, neckties, and other products under an oral agreement that would pay him $3,000 per month. The critic claims he was never compensated, leaving him owed an additional $18,000.
Taken together, the lawsuit seeks at least $115,000 in damages, along with the return of the drawings themselves.
In a statement to ARTnews, Haden-Guest’s attorney, Darragh O’Boyle, declined further comment. “We have no comment beyond the allegations as set forth in the complaint, which speaks for itself,” O’Boyle said.
The case adds another legal headache for Mugrabi, who has been involved in a number of high-profile disputes in recent years. In 2024, art-backed lending firm Art Capital Group sued her over a failed $3 million loan transaction involving works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. Mugrabi denied the allegations and sought dismissal of the claims. The court decided in favor of ACG and, according to legal filings, Mugrabi is appealing the decision.
Mugrabi has been at the center of high profile controversies for the better part of a decade. In 2020, she and collector David Mugrabi finalized a closely watched divorce that spawned years of tabloid headlines and courtroom battles over real estate, artwork, and other assets. Earlier this month, Mugrabi listed the Bridgehampton estate she received in the divorce for $25 million. The property, according to Haden-Guest’s lawsuit, is also where the critic’s cartoons have remained hanging more than a decade.
For now, one of the stranger questions in the art world remains unresolved: whether nearly 100 Anthony Haden-Guest cartoons are still hanging in a Hamptons mansion exactly where he says he left them.
