Art Dealer Files for Bankruptcy, Delaying Suits Against Him

Lawrence B. Salander, the embattled Manhattan fine art trader whose gallery was ordered locked by a State Supreme Court justness last month, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday.

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Mr. Salander and his Salander-O’Reilly Galleries — which operated from a town house on East 71st Street, around the corner from the — had been facing a outpouring of lawsuits alleging that clients or concern spouses had been defrauded. Some people or their estates also said they consigned plant to Salander-O’Reilly that the gallery sold without their permission.

Lawyers involved in the lawsuits said the bankruptcy filing would detain the other lawsuits while the bankruptcy tribunal trades with which creditors are owed what, and how much each is to be paid.

Mr. Salander, who filed for bankruptcy in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., listed his wife, Julie, as a joint debtor. The filing was reported on yesterday. Lawyers familiar with the Salanders’ concern traffic state it was separate from a request to coerce the gallery into involuntary bankruptcy that was filed last hebdomad by three other creditors in federal tribunal in Manhattan.

John W. Moscow, a lawyer representing the Salanders in the Chapter 11 legal proceeding , said, “They’re doing everything they can to do certain that the people with valid claims acquire fully paid.” .

Documents filed with the Chapter 11 request state the Salanders themselves had no more than than 49 creditors. The Salanders said they owed money to at least two Banks and to William O’Reilly, World Health Organization started Salander-O’Reilly Galleries with Mr. Salander in the 1970s. They parted ways in the 1990s.

The Salanders said they also owed money to everyone from a former landlord to the lawn tennis star , who said he gave Salander-O’Reilly $162,500 to purchase and resell fine art at a profit. In a lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, he said the gallery had not paid him the $325,000 it had promised. A lawyer representing Salander-O’Reilly inch that lawsuit said last calendar month that the gallery had paid Mr. McEnroe $200,000.

With the Chapter 11 filing, the Salanders filed a listing of the creditors with the 20 biggest unbarred claims. All the claims were marked “disputed.” Among them was $2.9 million to Earl Davis, the boy of the creative person Gilbert Stuart Davis, whom the gallery represented. Earl Davys filed lawsuit against Salander-O’Reilly inch federal tribunal in Manhattan in June.

Another creditor the Salanders listed in their bankruptcy filing was Sotheby’s. Its fiscal arm lent Mr. Salander more than $800,000 over the summer, using as collateral more than 20 plant of fine art that he said he owned. Sotheby’s filed lawsuit against Mr. Salander last month, claiming that its traffic with Mr. Salander should not be subject to the opinion by State Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Lowe three blocking the sale of pictures and sculpture inside the Salander-O’Reilly town house.