Artists Accuse Dealer Reco Sturgis of Issuing Death Threats and Withholding Payments and Artworks

A number of artists have accused art dealer Reco Sturgis—the founder of Hugo Galerie in New York, which closed in 2023—of withholding artworks, failing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in owed funds, and making violent threats via email and text message.

In one message reviewed by ARTnews, Sturgis seemingly threatened to kill a friend of an artist who had publicly warned others about him: “She is in danger now. This bitch will die. On my mother’s grave,” he wrote.

Sturgis, who is originally from Atlanta and whose current whereabouts are unknown, has been named in at least one legal proceeding by an artist seeking unpaid sales proceeds. In 2023, he was also sued by his landlord, Peter Weisman, for nonpayment of rent on Hugo Galerie’s SoHo location. Court documents filed in the Civil Court of New York show that a settlement of more than $463,000 was reached, but Weisman told ARTnews that no payments have been made.

Other companies, including CFG Merchant Solutions, Byzfunder, Mantis Funding LLC, DHL Express, and Sutton Maddison Inc., have sued Sturgis for outstanding debts between 2023 and 2025. The cumulative damage claims in these lawsuits, together with the rent he owes Weisman and overdue payments to artists, exceed $1 million.

Neither Sturgis nor his attorney, Daniel Kokhba, responded to ARTnews’ requests for comment. In 2023, Sturgis gave a rare interview to Shoutout Atlanta, in which he said, “The relationships I build, whether with artists or clients, or employees, are built on respect, admiration, and trust.”

(The artists who have made financial claims against Sturgis in this article have provided corroborating invoices, text messages, and email correspondence that have been reviewed by ARTnews.)

British sculptor Beth Carter, who began working with Hugo Galerie in 2016, said problems began around 2019. “[When he closed to the galleries in 2023] he didn’t tell most of the artists—he just moved everyone’s work into storage,” Carter wrote in an email to ARTnews.

She claims Sturgis owes her $200,000 and sold several large bronzes after she repeatedly asked for their return over the course of a year, including a life-size Minotaur that cost her £10,000 to cast. “He has not paid me for any of these pieces,” she said, adding that Sturgis sold several of her works below what she believes was market value.

While Carter did not sign a consigner agreement with the gallery, she said Sturgis “regularly confirmed inventory and sales records.” She eventually retrieved her remaining unsold works—shipped at her own expense back to the UK—and chose not to sue after receiving legal advice on the cost.

“I counted Reco as a friend of mine (as did my husband) for many years,” she wrote. “We stayed with him at his apartment in New York and he stayed with us in the UK.”

Carter said that the prolonged uncertainty has caused her and other artists who worked with Sturgis “emotional, mental, and financial harm.” ARTnews reviewed emails in which two collectors contacted her about works they claim to have paid Hugo Galerie for but never received.

Another British sculptor, Joseph Paxton, who started working with Hugo Galerie in 2017, told ARTnews that Sturgis has refused to return three bronze sculptures and two drawings worth at least $70,000 combined. He also claims he is owed almost $10,000 in payments. “I only discovered Reco had closed the galleries when another artist from New York who had recently started exhibiting with Reco messaged me to say he’d walked past the SoHo gallery and seen it was all closed up,” he wrote in an email.

French artist Patrick Pietropoli told ARTnews he is “one of the artists owed the most” by Sturgis.
In a statement, he said that Sturgis launched Hugo Galerie in 2016 by soliciting $5,000 from several participating artists—many of whom had previously worked with him at Axelle Fine Arts, where he had been a director until founder Bertrand Delacroix died in 2015.

Carter was one of the artists to contribute $5,000 to the gallery’s startup costs, but said Sturgis paid her back. Another artist who did not want to be named told ARTnews they were also asked to pay the same amount, but chose not to. Pietropoli said Sturgis’ debt seemed to spiral out of control when he opened a second gallery on Madison Avenue in 2021.

Another artist, who requested anonymity, said they were owed €120,000 and had also previously been represented by Axelle. “Our relationship began falling apart in 2023, when Reco stopped paying and stopped communicating,” they wrote. They echoed that Hugo “unraveled quickly” after opening the Madison Avenue location.

While they weren’t threatened directly by Sturgis, the artist said the dealer had been “emotionally manipulating.” One of the artist’s friends was threatened by Sturgis after she posted a message online warning people about his conduct. In an emailed reply shared with ARTnews, Sturgis wrote to the artist: “[Your friend] knows absolutely nothing about me or my business… and now she is going to regret putting her nose where it does not belong. I will not tolerate this anymore. She in danger. This old bitch will die. On my mother’s grave.”

Sturgis emailed the artist just this week to say that he is planning to open a new gallery in New York.
“I have been working on opening another gallery. But it is not as easy as I thought it would be. I am determined so it will happen sooner or later.  Most likely in SoHo again,” he wrote. He offered to continue selling their work, proposing a higher percentage of sales “to cover some of the debt owed.”

Several artists told ARTnews that after Hugo Galerie closed, Sturgis attempted to continue selling their work, offering 60 percent of sales to gradually pay back what he owed.

Canadian painter Joseph Adolphe, who said he is owed over $30,000, publicly warned others via Instagram in October 2023. “Numerous other artists are also left in the cold, many with their art unretrievable,” he wrote. Sturgis later messaged him: “Please take this post down… If you damage my reputation with the art world, it will make it impossible for me to pay you.”

In an email to ARTnews, Adolphe wrote, “Of course there will never be any financial closure, but a judgement against him would be nice. He is in hiding, if we can locate him, we can serve him and have our day in court.”

Painter Brian Keith Stephens, who began working with Hugo Galerie in 2016, filed a complaint in the Civil Court of New York in 2023 in which he alleges Sturgis owes him $40,351.50. However, Stephens said he was unable to serve Sturgis because he could not locate him. Stephen also told ARTnews he sold many of his works below market value. “His messages were delusional and aggressive,” he wrote in an email, of Sturgis’s state after the closure of Hugo Galerie. “He blamed the artists for his failure instead of taking responsibility.” Stephens, who never signed a consignment contract, said his lawyer determined that their correspondence on works, prices, and terms was sufficient to constitute a legal agreement.

In a group email reviewed by ARTnews that Sturgis sent to many artists he worked with, he directed homophobic slurs at Adolphe and Stephens. In one message reviewed by ARTnews, he posted an image of Adolphe’s daughter and named her school, which prompted Adolphe to contact campus security. “The whole thing is a sad documentation of the machinations of a truly disturbed mind,” Adolphe said.

French artist, Benoit Trimborn, told ARTnews that he began working with Hugo in 2016 and that Sturgis owes him $22,000 after he sold three of his works on Artsy. He said that he tried to get Sturgis to sign a consigner agreement, but he never answered.

“He makes promises without keeping them,” Trimborn wrote in an email. “I know that he mistreated many artists beyond the non-payment of debts, but I am not one of them, I think I was relatively spared compared to other artists.”

French painter Marc Chalmé, who said he is owed $48,000, told ARTnews that he was able to retrieve his work but received threatening texts and videos from Sturgis. In one screenshot shared with ARTnews, Sturgis sent an image of a masked man holding a knife with the caption, “Keep posting shit about me.” Chalmé had previously posted on Facebook about Hugo, writing “Bad experience with this gallery, no payment for a sold-out show.”

In another message to Chalmé reviewed by ARTnews, Sturgis wrote: “If I hear that you are continuing to defame me … there will be consequences. I promise you.”

At one point, Sturgis’s lawyer Daniel Kokhba sent a cease-and-desist letter—reviewed by ARTnews—to several artists on his behalf, claiming that their statements constituted “tortious interference” and “libel.

At the time of this writing, the social media pages for Hugo Galerie and its online offshoot, Sturgis Art Gallery, remain active—though they have not posted since April and March, respectively.