Odili Donald Odita at the 2025 MoMA Black Arts Council Benefit at on April 3, 2025 in New York City (photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)
Artist Odili Donald Odita is suing Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City, accusing it of wrongfully retaining over $1 million worth of artwork as it “failed to adequately protect and sell” his paintings in a claim that challenges models at the very heart of the gallery system.
Alleging five separate counts, including violation of the artist-merchant relationship under New York state law and breach of fiduciary duty, Odita is requesting an unspecified amount in damages as well as the return of his pieces. In a statement to Hyperallergic, a spokesperson for Jack Shainman said the gallery “disputes all claims made by Odita and will be providing a full response in public court filings.”
The lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court on October 3, centers around a relatively standard gallery arrangement. An August 2016 letter of agreement, included in court filings and reviewed by Hyperallergic, stated that the gallery would pay Odita monthly stipends of $14,000, offsetting these advance payments through sales of his work. When sales generated more revenue than advances paid out, Odita would be paid the surplus at year’s end. Should there be a deficit — that is, less artwork revenue than monthly stipends paid out — the gallery would “review the monthly payments to determine what adjustments must be made,” the agreement said.
After operating under these terms for eight years, in October 2024, a senior director at Jack Shainman notified the artist that his monthly stipends would be halted, citing a “large outstanding deficit,” the lawsuit states. Despite Odita’s protestations, the gallery insisted that it retained the right to continue selling his work, the filing says.
But while the gallery “continued to sell Mr. Odita’s artwork, it has not done so with the frequency it once did, nor has it expended additional resources to ensure prompt sale of Mr. Odita’s artwork,” the suit claims. Six months later, Odita informed Shainman, the gallery’s namesake owner, that he wished to terminate the consignment agreement and retrieve his paintings. The gallery allegedly responded that Odita would have to pay the outstanding balance in full — approximately $350,000 in March 2025, per the filing — before the works would be returned.
Odita said he asked to try to sell the artworks himself or through another gallery, and use the proceeds to pay off the balance. Jack Shainman Gallery declined, the suit claims, “directly impacting his ability to earn a living and his overall reputation as an artist.” The lawsuit also accuses the gallery of errors or “at worst, deliberate manipulation” in its accounting, specifically as it pertained to expenses deducted from Odita’s share of sales proceeds.
Reached via his attorneys at Barnes & Thornburg LLP, Odita declined to comment. David Kordasnky Gallery and Stevenson Gallery, which represent Odita in Los Angeles and Cape Town, respectively, have not yet responded to Hyperallergic‘s inquiries.
Born in 1966 in Enugu, Nigeria, and currently residing in Philadelphia, Odita is known for outsized geometric canvases and public artworks whose vibrant patterns and colors explore the political implications of abstraction. His works sell for “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” according to the court filing. Odita’s newest large-scale installation, a site-specific commission for the lobby of the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, opened this past spring.
Jack Shainman runs three locations in New York, including its Chelsea flagship, an Upstate exhibition space known as The School, and a newly opened gallery in Tribeca’s historic Clock Tower that Shainman reportedly purchased for $18.2 million. The gallery has mounted eight solo exhibitions of Odita’s work, most recently in 2023.
Odita’s name is no longer listed on a roster on the gallery’s website, and a page dedicated to the artist appears to be defunct.
