The New York Gallery That Brought You Adrien Brody Is Suing a Collector for More than $800,000 in Unpaid Invoices

New York’s Eden Fine Art filed a legal complaint in New Jersey district court last month, saying that collector Jacob Shochat hasn’t paid for some $822,390 worth of artworks he bought from the gallery. The gallery is accusing the collector, who has a background in medical technologies, of breach of contract.

Eden says it began taking orders from Shochat in 2018 for $900,000 worth of “artworks and sculptures.” Based on past experience in which he had paid for his purchases, the gallery handed over pieces, sometimes even personally delivering them to his home in Mahwah, New Jersey. Eden says it’s a small, family-owned gallery that can’t withstand these kinds of losses and is suing for the balance as well as interest, attorney’s fees, and expenses.

Shochat could not immediately be reached. Eden’s attorney declined to comment for this article. 

Founded in 1997 by Cathia Klimovsky, Eden boasts “over 100,000 square feet of spectacular gallery spaces” in locations ranging from New York to Dubai, Aspen to Las Vegas, Miami to the Maldives. It shows about three dozen artists, each of whom is identified on its website with a marketing tagline, including Marco Battaglini (“historical influences in a modern world”), Alec Monopoly (“art realm’s revolutionary”), and Cecile Plaisance (“dare to see differently”).

But if you’ve heard of Eden, it might be because of its show last year of paintings by Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody, which ARTnews’s Alex Greenberger deemed “hideous,” despite Brody garnering a New York Times profile, praise from Cultured, and an Interview Q&A. (To be fair, the Times did quote critic Claire Bishop saying of his paintings, “To say they look like A.I.-generated images resulting from search terms ‘90s LES graffiti’ ‘Americana’ and ‘Disney nostalgia’ would be too generous.”)

Eden found itself on the other end of a legal complaint last year, when London-based plaintiff Tekla Balfour-Browne sued for breach of contract and unjust enrichment. Balfour-Browne says Eden was planning to start a private, members-only club based on the digital artworks of defendant Gal Yosef, which would develop an online world, the “Galeryverse.” Balfour-Browne and other plaintiffs bought more than $13 million worth of Meta Eagle Club NFTs based on Yosef’s work and were promised benefits in return, says the suit.

But the promised events and other benefits never materialized, say Balfour-Browne’s attorneys, who call Meta Eagle Club a “rug pull.” Balfour-Browne personally bought more than $17,000 in NFTs. New York lawyer Max L. Burwich represents Balfour-Browne and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. New York firm Morrison Cohen represents Eden in that matter and did not return a request for comment.