A newly released tranche of Jeffrey Epstein files from the Department of Justice show that Epstein was personally involved in high-profile transactions between Gagosian gallery and Leon Black, suggesting that Epstein’s role in liaising between the mega-gallery and the mega-collector ran even deeper than was previously known.
The new files include many documents related to the sale of Pablo Picasso’s 1931 sculpture Buste de Femme (Marie-Thérèse). While it was previously reported that Black won the work via Gagosian after a legal battle, it was not known that Epstein was one of the guiding forces behind the transaction.
Before that $115 million work appeared in “Picasso Sculpture,” a 2015 Museum of Modern Art exhibition that became a smash hit, Epstein was forwarded emails from legal representatives from Black who appear to have sought advice on the purchase. In one email from April 2015, a lawyer for Black showed Epstein a gestating legal agreement with proposed changes from both Gagosian and herself. Epstein wrote back, “well done.”
Epstein appears to have been involved in months’ worth of conversations about buying the sculpture. By December of that year, he was still asking questions about how it was being purchased. “larry can redact his own account i=fo,” Epstein wrote in one email dated December 9, 2015. “i want to see where the money went with specificity.”
Roughly a month later, news of a lawsuit surrounding the purchase of the work went public. Filed by Larry Gagosian, the lawsuit alleged that Maya Widmaier-Picasso, the artist’s daughter, had sold the work both to him, working on behalf of a then-unnamed private collector, and to the Qatari royal family. Following a settlement, the work ultimately headed to Black via Gagosian.
A long list of artworks in Black’s collection dated to 2017 was also released in the files, and Buste de Femme (Marie-Thérèse) was on it. By that point, the sculpture’s value had increased to more than $125 million, according to the document.
Black and Epstein are known to have worked closely together, with Epstein frequently providing financial advice for Black when he was still CEO at Apollo Global Management, the investment firm that Black cofounded. Black left that position in 2021 amid scrutiny over money that he paid out to Epstein prior to Epstein’s conviction for sex crimes.
Leon Black.
Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Museum of Modern Art
Black, who formerly served as the Museum of Modern Art’s board chair and remains a trustee at the institution, paid $62.5 million to the Virgin Islands to settle all Epstein-related claims in 2023. Black denied wrongdoing at the time.
The newly released files provide the clearest picture yet of Epstein’s hand in Black’s collection. In 2012, the two even appeared to have worked on a plan to form a Delaware-based art foundation, titled the Black Art Foundation, for Black’s collection that would have guided loans of artworks from it. Based on the Department of Justice’s documents, it isn’t obvious whether the foundation was ever set up.
What is apparent, however, is that Epstein personally worked to help his friend gain artworks for his rich holdings, which ran the gamut from Renaissance artworks to postwar paintings.
For example, in 2012, Epstein personally worked with lawyers to help Black exchange a $46 million untitled Rothko painting from 1961 for a $48 million Picasso painting held by Gagosian. In the files, the Picasso painting is titled Mateu Ferndndez de Soto and dated 1901, which appears to relate the piece to a similarly named artwork from that same year that Artnet News once dubbed an “early masterpiece.”
“I am availbie to help with the rothko, but it should not be too diffficult..,” wrote Epstein in one email to a lawyer ahead of the transaction. “if an accomaodator can be found the painting would have to be shipped to delaware to avoid sales tax, and make the new transcation perfect.” The documents do not state whether Black and Gagosian succeeded in making the exchange.
The files also include an extensive array of emails related to Black’s attempts to purchase an Alberto Giacometti sculpture that goes unnamed. In emails with lawyers, Epstein weighs in on discussions with Gagosian, Christie’s, and Sotheby’s about the work. Following its apparent sale at Sotheby’s in 2017, Epstein even personally corresponded with Black, sending him a message reading only: “???!!”
To what extent Epstein directly coordinated with Gagosian representatives is uncertain. But it does seem that Epstein did not have a direct in with Larry Gagosian himself. In one heavily redacted 2019 email exchange, an unidentified sender asks Epstein, “Are you buddies with Larry Gagosian?” Epstein responds: “no , why?”
Representatives for Black and Gagosian did no respond to requests for comment.
