New York’s Canada Gallery Faced Threat of Dissolution After Backer’s Lawsuits, Court Documents Show

Canada, an esteemed New York gallery, faced the threat of closure last year after a backer filed two lawsuits against the space’s founders.

A New York court ruled that the gallery could remain open, and neither lawsuit appears to be active, with the most recent filings for both posted at the start of this year.

However, in the year and a half since the lawsuits were filed, three of Canada’s partners—including one of the gallery’s founders—left the operation. Five artists have also exited the gallery, among them Joan Snyder, who was added to Luhring Augustine’s roster last week.

Jean Lignel, a French collector, filed his lawsuits in February 2025 with the New York County Supreme Court. One of his lawsuits sought the dissolution of Canada, while the other alleged that the gallery’s other partners had improperly withdrew more than $3 million, something that they denied in a counterclaim against Lignel.

The Canada partners’ counterclaim was discontinued earlier this year. Though Lignel’s lawsuits have gone through a series of appeals, neither seems to be currently ongoing.

Lignel began conversations with the gallery in 2008 as a recession wrought havoc upon the New York art market and the global economy. A 2008 document submitted alongside the lawsuit shows that Canada founders Sarah Braman, Suzanne Butler, Phil Grauer, and Wallace Whitney agreed to bring on Lignel as a backer. According to the agreement, Lignel paid $150,000 in exchange for a 50 percent ownership stake in the gallery.

In one of his lawsuits, Lignel alleged that, between 2009 and 2023, Canada’s founders “withdrew” more than $3 million, which he claimed ran “in violation of the operating agreement.” In their counterclaim, the Canada founders said that Lignel “knew that the Founding Members were being compensated for the services,” and that the “compensation for their services is well below market—the going rate for partner salaries for New York art galleries comparable to the Gallery is between $350,000 to $395,000 per year.”

In May 2025, a judge quickly denied the motion to dissolve Canada, saying that Lignel had failed to prove that the gallery couldn’t operate according to the terms of the agreement he signed. Moreover, the judge said, Lignel “concedes that the gallery has recently hired additional managers, who are not LLC members, thereby demonstrating that the gallery is a functioning business.”

“CANADA’s four founding members—Phil Grauer, Sarah Braman, Wallace Whitney and Suzy Butler—were deeply disappointed that Mr. Lignel, their Paris-based business partner, did not support the Gallery as it expanded its operations, including during a challenging period in the art market, and subsequently sought its dissolution through litigation,” a lawyer for the Canada partners told ARTnews in an email. “However, as the Court’s decision confirmed, the Gallery remains fully operational and continues its artist-run, community-focused programming and mission. While CANADA regrets that the members’ dispute involved court intervention, the Gallery remains hopeful that it can work collaboratively with Mr. Lignel in the future.”

A lawyer for Lignel did not respond to ARTnews’s request for comment. ARTnews has also reached out to a Canada spokesperson for comment on Lignel’s involvement in the gallery and the departures of the three partners and five artists since his suits were filed.

According to a 6sqft profile of Lignel from 2016, the year he put his West Village home on the market for $14.5 million, he is a music producer, publisher, and entrepreneur with a collection that includes works by Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Ida Applebroog, and more. His involvement with Canada had not been reported prior to the lawsuits, which have gone unmentioned in the press until now.

Canada, whose roster includes artists such as Joe Bradley, Katherine Bernhardt, Katherine Bradford, Samara Golden, and Rachel Eulena Williams, first opened in 1999. It continues to operate a gallery in Tribeca, at 60 Lispenard Street, to which it moved in 2019. Exhibitions by Scott and Tyson Reeder closed there this past weekend.

For a period, the gallery also operated an annex space across the street. But in August 2025, after Lignel’s lawsuits were filed, Canada subleased the annex gallery to dealer Max Levai, who has since moved his gallery to Chelsea. “We couldn’t afford to keep both of the spaces,” Wallace Whitney, a Canada founder, told Artnet News at the time. “And now, like many galleries, we are buckling down for a long haul. We want to stick around as long as possible.”

Partners and Artists Depart

While Lignel’s lawsuits were pending, Canada appears to have quietly scaled down its operations behind the scenes.

A comparison of Canada’s current staff page on its website and a version from October 2025 that was saved by the Internet Archive suggests that the gallery has shed two partners in the past year. Suzanne Butler, a Canada founder who was a defendant in Lignel’s lawsuits, is no longer listed as a partner. Tif Sigfrids, who closed her gallery in Athens, Georgia, in 2024 and joined Canada as a partner, also quietly left the gallery. Sigfrids declined to comment; ARTnews was unable to reach Butler.

One more partner left ahead of Butler and Sigfrids: Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle, who exited her post as senior director of Pace Gallery in 2024 to become a partner and co-owner of Canada, where she formerly worked as a senior director. In March 2025, after only two and a half months as partner and co-owner at Canada, Boyle launched her own itinerant gallery, Gladwell Projects, which has staged exhibitions in Harlem, Jersey City, and Paris. She declined to comment.

An archived version of Canada’s roster available via the Wayback Machine also suggests that the gallery has shed five artists since Lignel’s lawsuits were filed: Matt Connors, Jess Fuller, Daniel Hesidence, Robert Janitz, and Joan Snyder. (The gallery has also added one artist, Kahlil Robert Irving, who gained representation with Canada last December.)

Snyder, who is now represented by both Luhring Augustine and Thaddaeus Ropac, said in an email to ARTnews that she had been previously unaware of the lawsuits and that she left Canada “under amicable circumstances.” She also noted that her two shows at the gallery had been “successful.”