Judge Bars Kavi Gupta Gallery From Selling $2M Art Collection

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 a dispute with a company that gave the struggling gallery more than $2 million last year.

Justice Melissa Crane of the New York Supreme Court signed a temporary restraining order on September 29, filed October 1. The order blocks Gupta and the gallery from marketing, selling, transferring, encumbering, or otherwise interfering with Longcraft LLC's interest in the works while Crane considers whether to issue a preliminary injunction.

The deal at the heart of the case is an unusual one. In May 2025, Longcraft paid Kavi Gupta Gallery $2.05 million for roughly 150 artworks. Longcraft never took possession of the collection. Instead, it immediately consigned the works back to Gupta, allowing the gallery to keep 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 business the financial runway it needed to relaunch.

Now Longcraft says the 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 formal response to the allegations. But 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 filing. Soleiman said Longcraft is owned by New York-based financier David Billet of Downtown Capital. He 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. Both declined to comment beyond the allegations in the court filings.

Rules of the consignment

Under the consignment agreement, Gupta could market and sell the roughly 150 works, but under strict conditions. 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 commission.

The gallery also had to keep records showing where the art was, report sales and their prices, and allow Longcraft to inspect the collection. Gupta personally guaranteed the gallery's obligations.

For a while, 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: "we are really getting back into the game big time now."

Longcraft says the good news never translated 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.

Swap allegations and missing works

The allegations grow stranger from there. Longcraft says Gupta admitted 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 that gallery, it was allegedly told the work had never been there. The petition says the work's whereabouts remain unknown.

Another potential sale, according to Longcraft, wasn't really a sale at all. 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 described in the petition, a Longcraft representative arrived to collect a work and was given a different, less valuable piece. In another, Longcraft claims records were altered to replace one of its works with a smaller, less valuable work by the same artist, while retaining the original work's inventory number. Longcraft says it never agreed to either substitution.

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

A pattern of disputes

The case follows several difficult 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, and artists on its roster have featured in past editions of the Whitney Biennial, Documenta, and the Venice Biennale. More recently, the gallery has shrunk considerably and faced allegations of financial trouble and unpaid bills.

Artist Jeffrey Gibson sued the gallery in 2023, alleging 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. McCormick alleged, among other things, 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 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.

What comes next

Longcraft went to court on September 28 seeking emergency intervention as it prepares to pursue the underlying dispute in arbitration. The company asked Justice 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 but has not 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 has not been made public. Longcraft redacted the lists attached to its agreements with Gupta, arguing that identifying the works could further damage their standing in the art market.