Newport Art Museum Names New Director - His Son Is a Notorious Art Criminal
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Newport Art Museum Names New Director - His Son Is a Notorious Art Criminal
He replaces Ruth Taylor, former director of the Newport Historical Society, who served as interim director after Danielle Ogden, who was appointed in 2023 left the post. The museum has now had four directors in less than three years. Ogden oversaw a major slashing of the museum’s staff, as GoLocal first unveiled in August of 2024.
Philbrick is a native Rhode Islander whose career the museum says ”has spanned galleries and museums from London to Philadelphia." According to NAM, Philbrick "has spent the last three decades as the leader of distinguished arts institutions such as The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, and Philadelphia Contemporary, which he founded.”
His family can be traced back to Thomas Hazard, one of the ten men who founded Rhode Island College in 1764, which would later be renamed Brown University forty years later.
But as accomplished as he is, his son is downright notorious.
U.S. District Judge Sydney H. Stein imposed the sentence in 2023. Inigo Philbrick was also ordered to forfeit more than $86 million.
Williams said in a statement at the time of sentencing: “Inigo Philbrick grew his purportedly successful art business by collateralizing and reselling fractional shares in high-dollar contemporary art. Unfortunately, his success was built on brazen lies, including concealed ownership interests, fake documents, and even an invented art collector. When the house of cards fell apart, Philbrick fled for a remote island in the Pacific, leaving many of his victims without recourse. For his extensive fraud, Philbrick is now sentenced to a substantial prison term.”
From approximately 2016 through 2019, to finance his art business, Inigo Philbrick engaged in a scheme to defraud multiple individuals and entities in the art market located in the New York metropolitan area and abroad. Inigo Philbrick made material misrepresentations and omissions to art collectors, investors, and lenders to access valuable art and obtain sales proceeds, funding, and loans (the “Fraud Scheme”).
Inigo Philbrick knowingly misrepresented the ownership of certain artworks, for example, by selling a total of more than 100 percent ownership in an artwork to multiple individuals and entities without their knowledge; and by selling artworks and/or using artworks as collateral on loans without the knowledge of co-owners, and without disclosing the ownership interests of third parties to buyers and lenders. Inigo Philbrick furnished fraudulent contracts and records to investors to artificially inflate the artworks’ value and conceal his scheme, including a contract that listed a stolen identity as the seller.
Over the years, Inigo Philbrick obtained over $86 million in loans and sale proceeds in connection with the Fraud Scheme. Artworks about which Inigo Philbrick made these fraudulent misrepresentations in furtherance of the Fraud Scheme include, among others, a 1982 painting by the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat titled “Humidity,” a 2010 untitled painting by the artist Christopher Wool, and an untitled 2012 painting by the artist Rudolf Stingel depicting the artist Pablo Picasso, according to the Department of Justice.
According to the government, by in or about the fall of 2019, Inigo Philbrick’s Fraud Scheme began to come to light as various investors and lenders learned about the fraudulent records Inigo Philbrick had provided and the material misrepresentations and omissions he had made. By in or about mid-October, a lender officially notified Inigo Philbrick that he was in default of approximately a $14 million loan, and by November 2019, various investors had filed civil lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions regarding Inigo Philbrick’s Fraud Scheme in connection with various artworks.
At around the same time, Inigo Philbrick’s art galleries in Miami and London closed, and Inigo Philbrick stopped responding to legal process. Inigo Philbrick fled the United States shortly before public reporting began about the lawsuits. A fugitive, Inigo Philbrick resided in Vanuatu from approximately October 2019 until he was arrested there on June 11, 2020, in connection with this case.
"Mini Madoff"
The Guardian wrote about Inigo Phibrick:
His victims include Kenny Schachter, an American artist, academic and writer, who lost more than $1.5m to Philbrick. “He misappropriated my funds, my art, like he did with many people,” he says. What makes it all the more painful is that they were once friends, close enough to have holidayed together, and he remembers Philbrick as a “very talented art dealer” who was “sharp, fun and funny”.
He likens him to America’s most notorious Ponzi conman, Bernie Madoff, who died in prison, having robbed thousands of victims worldwide of billions of dollars, describing Philbrick as a “mini Madoff”, who was brought down “mainly” by “a toxic mix of arrogance and alcohol.”
Requests to the museum to talk to the new director were rebuffed.
“Harry is an extraordinary talent who will lead the Newport Art Museum into a future that honors the past yet remains innovative and relevant,” said Chair of the Board Ellie Voorhes in a press release. “This museum has been a vibrant cultural hub in Newport for more than a century. Harry appreciates our legacy, understands our strategic plan, and has a strong vision for continued growth.”
A Noted Family
Harry Philbrick's father was Charles H. Philbrick 2d, poet, author and professor of English at Brown University, who died in 1971 at the age of 48.
According to the New York Times, "Philbrick's New England Suite, a long poem describing characteristics, people, trees, birds, flowers and landscapes of the area, won first prize in a Wallace. Stevens national poetry contest. 'New England Suite' was issued in book form in 1962. Mr. Philbrick was the author of a novel, Westaway, in a Cape Cod setting, published in 1968. His books of verse included Wonderstrand Revisited and Voyages Down and Other Poems.”
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to reflect that Ruth Taylor served as interim director for the past 6 months.
This story was first published 7/25/25 6:01 PM