Charges and countercharges are flying in the art-photography world, with the son of pioneering lensman Ralph Eugene Meatyard suing a powerhouse Manhattan gallery for $7.5 million amid accusations of disappearing prints and missing payments.
Christopher Meatyard filed the lawsuit in Manhattan federal court last week against Howard Greenberg, who runs a gallery on East 57th Street and is considered one of the nation’s top photography dealers.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard, who died in 1972, is a seminal figure in the art-photography world, for the
eerie and enigmatic blackand-white photographs he began taking in the 1950s.
In 1988, his son Christopher signed a contract with Greenberg to be the exclusive dealer for Meatyard’s prints.
The lawsuit says that over the next several years, Christopher, who lives in Lexington, Ky., sent Greenberg 2,376 prints that had been made by his father before he died – known in the art world as “vintage prints” – along with numerous prints authorized by the family.
During those years, the photographer’s reputation and the value of his work rose, and his prints fetch as much as $14,000 each.
But a few years ago, Christopher started to question Greenberg’s accounting. In 2001, he broke off relations with the dealer and demanded the return of all the unsold prints.
The legal papers say that when Christopher took an inventory after Greenberg returned the prints, 897 vintage ones were missing.
“The defendants have failed to properly and accurately report to Christopher for sales of additional prints, have issued reports that contain material discrepancies from actual sales, failed to pay for sales reported, and on occasion failed to make any report of sales,” the suit charges.
Under an agreement for a 50-50 split on sales, Christopher received $826,178 from Greenberg over the years, according to the suit, which demands $7.5 million to compensate for the missing prints.
Greenberg said he never possessed the pictures Christopher claims he didn’t return. “It’s not true at all. The Meatyards have misconstrued a lot of normal business. They refuse to listen to reason. It’s ludicrous,”
he said.
“Invariably, we’re working for years and years and I told them there may be a few mistakes, 10 or 20 printings that need to be resolved, but that’s the extent of it.”