British Property Tycoon Emerges as Investor in Alleged Art Scam

The British entrepreneur who built up property company Dawnay Day before it collapsed amid the global financial crisis may be encountering trouble with a more recent investment — a share in a painting purchased from a high-flying art dealer now facing fraud charges.

Peter Klimt has asserted a 50% interest in a 1994 Rudolf Stingel painting based on a 2017 deal with Inigo Philbrick, according to a New York court filing last month by another claimant. In one of the biggest art-world scandals in recent memory, Philbrick in 2019 fled his London and Miami galleries for the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu before he was arrested in June on U.S. charges that he sold the same works to multiple buyers in a Ponzi-like scheme.