Three prominent Black artists—Alexandre Diop, Deborah Roberts and Kehinde Wiley—are among those worst hit by the bankruptcy of Stephen Friedman Gallery, according to formal documents recently filed by administrators on Companies House.
Diop is owed £341,905, Roberts £289,232 and Wiley £163,849. As unsecured creditors, they are expected to receive eight to nine pence for every pound owed. A proposal to deal with the financial fallout from the London- and New York-based gallery’s closure in February was submitted by the insolvency practitioners FRP Advisory on 30 March and approved on 22 April.
Alexandre Diop
Roberto Serra/Iguana Press/Getty Images
The filings reveal that a total of £7.8m is owed to creditors, with Coutts & Company bank £3.1m out of pocket. As a secured creditor, the bank is expected to be repaid 65% of its debt. The next highest creditor, with £1.4m outstanding, is Pentland Group, the UK-based company that owns major brands including Speedo and Berghaus and is a majority shareholder of the retailer JD Sports. The latest Companies House documents confirm that Alison Mosheim, a director of Pentland Group, owns 50% of the gallery.
Stephen Friedman, who could not be reached for comment, is the sole director of the gallery, owning 100% of the total share capital. Prior to its administration, the gallery employed 27 members of staff in the UK and an additional five people in the US. All those with outstanding pay, including unpaid pension contributions and holiday pay, totalling approximately £39,000, are expected to be compensated in full.
Shipping and rent
The gallery owes £505,113 to the Pollen Estate, which leased Stephen Friedman Gallery’s Cork Street space, and £550,000 to the UK’s tax authority HMRC. After that, shipping and storage are among the biggest costs it has incurred. Of these creditors, Crozier has the highest bill outstanding at £256,470 and Gander & White has £86,772 in unpaid debts. TFA London, which includes the logistics company The British Shop, is owed £110,197 and WPC Storage £87,364. As the administrators note in their report: “The most substantial challenge [for the gallery] related to the hike in storage costs incurred for the storage equipment, artworks displayed at exhibitions, and unused and unwanted artwork. Gradually, these charges accumulated a considerable level of fees.”
Art fairs, too, have been left out of pocket. Frieze is owed £71,227 and the Qatar-based arm of Art Basel, Art Basel Fairs ABQ LLC, is owed £18,763. Stephen Friedman Gallery had been due to participate in the first Art Basel Qatar in early February, just as the administration process was announced. In their report, FRP Advisory cite “fluctuations in the global economic climate” as contributing to “a sharp decline in the Company’s revenue”, as well as “rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East”, which impacted market confidence. This in turn “resulted in high-net-worth individuals becoming increasingly reluctant to make discretionary purchases”.
The administrators also note how fortunes drastically changed over the course of 2023 when Friedman moved to bigger premises on Cork Street as well as opening a space in New York. In 2021, the gallery recorded a turnover of £26.4m, rising to £28.2m in 2022. In 2023, turnover was initially recorded at £22.9m, but recent figures reveal that the company reported a loss of £1.9m for year ending 31 December 2023.
