Kavi Gupta Gallery Hit With Restraining Order Amid $2 M. Art Dispute

A New York judge has temporarily barred Chicago dealer Kavi Gupta and his gallery from selling or marketing a collection of artworks at the center of an increasingly messy dispute with a company that gave the struggling gallery more than $2 million in cash last year.

The deal at the heart of the case is an unusual one, but its purpose was fairly straightforward.

In May 2025, a company called Longcraft LLC paid Kavi Gupta Gallery $2.05 million for roughly 150 artworks. Rather than take possession of the collection, however, Longcraft immediately consigned the works back to Gupta, allowing the gallery to continue selling them on Longcraft’s behalf. The arrangement gave the gallery an immediate infusion of cash while allowing it to continue dealing in the works. Longcraft described the deal in court papers as a way for Gupta to raise money “without going into debt” and give the struggling business the financial runway it needed to relaunch.

Now Longcraft says that arrangement went badly wrong.

In a petition filed in New York Supreme Court, the company accused Gupta and his gallery of withholding proceeds from sales, providing misleading accounts of the whereabouts of works and whether they had sold, attempting to substitute less valuable artworks for pieces owned by Longcraft, and refusing to return the remaining collection after the consignment agreement ended.

Gupta and his gallery have not yet filed a response to the allegations. However, Oliver Soleiman, an attorney for Gupta, pushed back sharply, telling ARTnews that the petition “lacks significant merit” and contains “a lot of inaccuracies,” including the naming of Gupta’s gallery in the petition. According to Soleiman, Longcraft is owned by New York-based financier David Billet of Downtown Capital. Soleiman added that if Billet could “behave more like an adult” rather than resorting to personal attacks, “progress would have been made a lot sooner.”

Longcraft is represented by Judd Grossman and Webster McBride of Grossman LLP. Grossman and McBride declined to comment beyond the allegations laid out in the court filings.

The dispute follows several less-than-ideal years for Gupta, who was once a major presence in Chicago’s contemporary art scene and the international art market. His gallery regularly appeared at leading art fairs, while artists on its roster have been featured in past editions of the Whitney Biennial, Documenta, and the Venice Biennale. More recently, however, the gallery has shrunk considerably and faced allegations of financial trouble and unpaid bills.

Artist Jeffrey Gibson sued the gallery in 2023, alleging that he was owed nearly $640,000 from sales of his work. The gallery disputed Gibson’s account, saying the money had been used to cover production expenses under their contract. The following year, Chicago dealer Thomas McCormick, who co-owns the building housing Gupta’s West Washington Boulevard gallery, sued Gupta over their business dealings. Among other things, McCormick alleged that Gupta had improperly directed $780,000 from a refinancing of the property into his own account. Gupta denied McCormick’s allegations through his attorney.

An Artnet News investigation published in January 2025 also quoted former employees and others close to the gallery who alleged problems with artists being paid on time and retrieving their work. Gupta declined to address those allegations for the article.

Four months later came the Longcraft deal.

Under the consignment agreement, Gupta was allowed to market and sell the roughly 150 works, but there were rules. The parties agreed on minimum proceeds for each piece, sales were to be made for cash, and buyers were instructed to pay Longcraft directly before taking possession. Any amount above Longcraft’s agreed minimum would go to Gupta as his commission.

The gallery was also required to keep records showing where the art was, report sales and their prices, and allow Longcraft to inspect the collection. As part of the agreement, Gupta personally guaranteed the gallery’s obligations.

For a while, at least according to the petition, Gupta sounded optimistic about the gallery’s prospects. He told Longcraft about upcoming exhibitions, international art fairs and interest from collectors. In April 2026, he wrote that “we are really getting back into the game big time now.”

Longcraft says the good news didn’t translate into hard cash. Despite Gupta’s reports of sales activity, the company claims it received no proceeds and struggled to get a clear picture of what had actually been sold.

From there, the allegations get stranger.

Longcraft says Gupta admitted to selling one work but never turned over the proceeds. In another instance, Gupta allegedly told Longcraft that one of its works had been consigned to a San Francisco gallery. When Longcraft contacted the gallery, however, it was allegedly told that the work had never been there. The petition says the work’s whereabouts remain unknown.

Another potential sale wasn’t really a sale at all, according to Longcraft. The company says Gupta told it that a deal involving one of its works could generate considerable proceeds. Longcraft later learned, it alleges, that Gupta had instead discussed giving the artwork to the prospective buyer in exchange for an “unrelated favor” to Gupta and the gallery.

Longcraft also accuses the gallery of trying to “swap out” artworks it owned for less valuable pieces by the same artists.

In one instance, according to the petition, a Longcraft representative arrived to collect a work and was given a different, less valuable piece. In another, the company claims records were altered to replace one of its works with a smaller and less valuable work by the same artist, while retaining the original work’s inventory number. Longcraft says it never agreed to either substitution.

On top of that, there are also questions about the physical condition of the collection. Longcraft says that in August it asked to conduct a “field audit” of the works and was refused. Although Gupta had previously represented that the collection was in good condition, the gallery later indicated that several works needed conservation or repair, according to the petition. Longcraft also claims to have learned that some of the art had been stored in a location suffering from water intrusion and mold.

By then, the consignment agreement had expired. Under its terms, the gallery was supposed to pack up the remaining works and return them to a location designated by Longcraft.

Longcraft says that didn’t happen.

Instead, the company alleges that it discovered at least four of its works had been sold through Artsy without its knowledge or the proceeds being turned over. Longcraft claims that roughly two dozen more remained listed for sale on the platform even after it had demanded the return of the collection.

Longcraft went to court on September 28 seeking emergency intervention as it prepares to pursue the underlying dispute in arbitration. The company asked Justice Melissa Crane to bar Gupta from selling or transferring any more of the art and ultimately to order the remaining collection removed from Gupta’s control and placed in a neutral fine-art storage facility.

Crane granted the first part of that request.

In a temporary restraining order signed September 29 and filed October 1, Crane barred Gupta and the gallery from marketing, selling, transferring, encumbering, or otherwise interfering with Longcraft’s interest in the works while she considers whether to issue a preliminary injunction.

However, the judge hasn’t yet ordered the collection removed from Gupta’s possession. Gupta’s response to Longcraft’s application is due October 22, with Longcraft’s reply due November 12. Oral arguments are scheduled for November 27 in Manhattan.

Exactly which artworks are involved in the dispute has not been made public. Longcraft redacted the lists attached to its agreements with Gupta, saying that identifying the works could further damage their standing in the art market.