Jack Shainman Gallery has responded at length to a lawsuit brought by artist Odili Donald Odita, who previously sued the New York gallery, alleging that it wouldn’t return his artworks to him.
In October, Odita, an artist whose work has appeared in exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale, claimed that those artworks were worth $1.12 million. But in a filing from late November, Jack Shainman Gallery said that the gallery has far less inventory than the artist claimed and alleged that Odita still owed the gallery money for production costs.
The gallery had previously staged eight exhibitions for Odita, a longtime fixture on its roster until recently. The artist, who was born in Nigeria and is now based in Philadelphia, recently painted the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In his lawsuit, Odita said the gallery had paid him a monthly amount starting in 2016. He said he was paid $14,000 monthly at the time and that the gallery stopped paying him in 2024.
Jack Shainman Gallery said in its filing that it initially undertook this payment structure because “Odita claimed that he was living beyond his means.” But the gallery also claimed that it had continued raising the value of Odita’s stipend before 2024—and that it was “forced” to sever ties with the artist because he still had to pay $586,000 in loans provided by the gallery.
That amount, Jack Shainman Gallery said, was an “unsustainable level in light of what had become sluggish sales of Odita’s artworks.” According to the filing, Odita sought to raise his prices by 160 percent, even though the gallery recommended no more than 20 percent.
“The market was great up to a certain point,” Elisabeth Sann, a senior director at Jack Shainman Gallery, told ARTnews. “The market supported the increases in monthly payments. We really try to be supportive as possible of our artists.” She added that this was a “unique situation” within the gallery, and that “none of his other galleries were providing that.”
“We pay our artists in completed sales,” Sann said, referring to the stipend as “advance against future sales.”
The gallery claimed it had the right to “retain” five works by Odita. Those works, allegedly valued at $650,000, were consigned in 2024 by Jack Shainman Gallery to David Kordansky, which also represents the artist. (Sann said this was normal for when a Shainman-represented artist also signs with another entity; David Kordansky began representing Odita in 2022.) On November 9, 2025, the gallery allegedly released those works to Odita by “oral agreement,” but that he still must repay his loans. Those loans, the gallery said, are worth just over $292, 000.
Odita’s lawsuit claimed that Jack Shainman Gallery’s accounting was “extremely suspect.” Jack Shainman Gallery said in its November filing that Odita had a habit of “disputing financial statements again and again no matter that they had been reviewed.”
A lawyer for Odita declined to comment on Jack Shainman Gallery’s counterclaims.
Sann said that Odita’s lawsuit had come as a surprise to the gallery, which was “very close to coming to an agreement” with the artist prior to his filing. “It just feels a little like we’re being punished for being generous,” she said.
