New York gallery says $1 million worth of art was destroyed by water leak at CubeSmart warehouse

A New York art dealer with galleries in Manhattan and the Hamptons says a year-long water leak in one of his storage rooms has left about $1 million worth of irreplaceable works completely ruined by black mold.

In a brief lawsuit received from The Independent, Eric Firestone claims CubeSmart managed to hide the situation from him until one of its employees showed up and discovered the devastated pieces.

The lawsuit does not provide further details, but describes the lost pieces as “valuable works of art…that are irreplaceable due to their uniqueness.”

CubeSmart executives did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday and Thursday The Independent.

Firestone is from Arizona and moved east in 2010. He specializes in “important but little recognized artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.” according to his official biography.

“Everyone can choose a top candidate,” he said told The East Hampton StarHe said he was more interested in artists “who haven’t been fully explored.”

One of them, the late abstract expressionist Joe Overstreet, had a solo exhibition at Firestone's gallery space in 2018, where his canvases were described as “lush, groundbreaking creations” from New York Times Critic Roberta Smith.

In 2017, Firestone rented storage space for a collection of high-end art at a CubeSmart in Tucson, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in New York State Supreme Court. Six years passed without incident. But in July 2023, a leak occurred at the facility and, without Firestone's knowledge, the items in his unit became ruined, the lawsuit says.

Firestone's lawsuit says he was not informed of the problem until February 2024, when a gallery employee went to the Tucson storage facility and was immediately presented with a claim form by a CubeSmart employee at the front desk, the statement says Suit.

“We give everyone these application forms,” the employee told the gallery employee, the lawsuit says.

When the gallery employee entered the room, the lawsuit said he found the artworks covered in mold, rendering them “irreparable.”

“When the gallery employee inquired further, the CubeSmart employee responded that the facility had been leaking since February 2023 and the company made the decision not to tell any of the warehouse tenants about the leak,” the lawsuit states. “That is, instead of taking immediate steps to notify the gallery of the potential damage to the work, defendants waited more than a year to do so and did so only when the gallery employee visited the facility.”

At the time, Firestone's lawsuit said he estimated the value of the destroyed artwork at about $500,000. After Firestone initially took “decisive steps to contain and prevent further damage,” which included “inspecting and inventorying the affected artworks and coordinating with various art restorers to assess the extent of the damage resulting from continued exposure to moisture and wetness,” “We worked diligently to identify works of art that required conservation, those that required priority attention and were of high value, and excluded works of art that appeared to have suffered no damage,” the lawsuit states .

Since then, he has discovered that his losses are “at least twice as high” as originally estimated, the lawsuit continues.

Firestone is seeking a minimum of $1 million for breach of contract, a minimum of $1 million for breach of the bond agreement and a minimum of $1 million for breach of the implied warranty of good faith and fair dealing, plus attorneys' fees be determined in a jury trial.