Art Fraudsters: Is trial the new sex tape?
The story of Inigo Philbrick is coming to BBC and HBO
As a new week begins, and the Venice Biennale spam fades from our Instagram feeds, our attention turns to one art world character who will not be seeing a gondola this year.
In May 2022, Inigo Philbrick was sentenced to seven years in jail for defrauding art collectors out of $86 million, in what the FBI called the largest known art-based fraud in US history. However, with mass media coverage and pre-established footings in the famously unregulated art market, will this jail term hinder Philbrick professionally, or catapult him to new heights of notoriety?
Following his arrest on the island of Vanuatu, Inigo Philbrick pled guilty to selling more than 100% of shares in blue-chip artworks to multiple investors. He also used these artworks as collateral to secure loans without the knowledge of co-owners and in the process forged documents and even invented a fake investor. Philbrick was released early in March 2024 and bound to home detention. After serving just two years of his seven year sentence, he now lives on the New England coast with his partner, former Made in Chelsea star Victoria Baker-Harber, and their three year old daughter. Philbrick is slowly reorienting himself into society, able to leave the house only upon agreement with the Federal Bureau of Prisons and sporting the ankle tag to match.
Philbrick has wasted no time in partaking in high profile magazine deals with The Times and Vanity Fair. The weird, highly-stylised photography that accompanies these articles are jarringly detached from Philbrick’s criminal reality. They speak to the growing rhetoric that, in the alluring world of high-stakes art, scandals seem to have become the new currency of fame.
In November 2023, the BBC announced that they would produce The Real Story of Inigo Philbrick, a three-part docu-series that will lift the lid on the contemporary art market and tell the story of Philbrick’s meteoric rise and fall. The access-all-areas series will include never-before-seen videos and text messages, detailing Philbrick’s crimes and the high-profile connections that took him from the lap of luxury, to behind bars.
Philbrick’s story is set to become even more glamourised as HBO are due to partner with Doctor Who-producer Bad Wolf to develop a series about the fraud.
Bad Wolf have snapped up the rights to All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud and Fine Art, a tell-all memoir written by Orlando Whitfield, close friend and former business partner of Philbrick. Whitfield hopes the series will rival the viral Netflix series Succession, in the way it depicts the extravagant lives of the elite.
The book is available on buy on pre-order ahead of its release date on May 2nd.
With a BBC documentary, a book and a HBO series all covering his escapades, Philbrick’s story joins a lineage of art-world scammers whose exploits have been immortalised for popular consumption.
Take, for instance, the case of Ann Freedman, the former director of the prestigious Knoedler Gallery, who found herself embroiled in one of the biggest art fraud scandals in recent memory. The documentary Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art details how art forgers duped Friedman and other experts into believing their paintings were in fact lost masterpieces by famous artists such as Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and more.
Whether Freedman was implicit in the forgery ring or not, the documentary certainly highlighted Knoedler Gallery’s lax approach to provenance research that allowed such a scandal to unfold. As a result, Freedman sold $80 million worth of fake artworks over a ten year period. She was never convicted and went on to open her own gallery on the Upper East Side.
Then there's Anna Delvey, the Russian-born con artist who posed as a wealthy New York socialite, swindling hotels, restaurants, and friends out of thousands of dollars. Delvey also sought $29 million in bank loans to fund a private members club, centered around a contemporary art collection, under the false pretence that she was a wealthy German heiress. Delvey's story captured the public's imagination, leading to the Netflix series, Inventing Anna which explores the depths of her deception and the allure of her persona.
Delvey has been blatant about her success following the Inventing Anna series, in which she is portrayed by award winning actress Julia Garner. With her new found fame and 1.1 million instagram followers in tow, Delvey began to create artworks of her own whilst still in jail and under subsequent house arrest. One of her works incidentally inspired the title of this weeks post: Is trial the new sex tape?.
Trial is the New Sex Tape is a limited edition print by Anna Delvey, valued at $250 a pop. The work affirms, at least in Delvey’s eyes, that the sex-tape-PR-stunts of the 2000s are out, and trial is the new way to launch a career in the public eye.
From forgery to fraud, each narrative underscores a sobering truth: In a world where visibility often trumps morality, scandals like these can enhance the public profile of those prosecuted.
With each headline and documentary feature, the line between infamy and fame blurs, and for Inigo Philbrick, the newest fraudster on the block, post-incarceration life appears to be anything but subdued.
What do you think is next for Inigo Philbrick?