New York Gallery Payment Dispute Puts Kai Matsumiya in Civil Court
A lawsuit filed in the Civil Court of the City of New York has brought a familiar but often hidden art-world tension into public view: who gets paid, when, and for how much. Artist Jonathan Bruce Williams says New York gallery Kai Matsumiya still owes him more than $16,000 for two works sold from his 2025 exhibition.
According to the complaint, the two artworks sold for a combined $22,600 to an art collection associated with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Williams says he had agreed in advance to split the proceeds evenly with the gallery, leaving Kai Matsumiya with 50 percent of the sale price. His show closed on November 1, 2025.
The lawsuit says Williams made repeated requests for payment after the works were placed with the school’s collection, but the gallery “failed and refused to remit the amounts owed.” It also alleges that Matsumiya received a formal demand for payment in May, without resolving the dispute.
Williams is now seeking $16,441.41, a figure that includes fabrication and shipping costs in addition to the unpaid share of the sales. A lawyer for Williams declined to comment.
Reached by Kai Matsumiya, the gallery’s founding dealer, said Williams had been paid and that the matter was resolved. The lawsuit appears to remain pending.
The case adds a legal wrinkle to the profile of Kai Matsumiya, a Tribeca gallery founded in 2014 that has shown artists including Steffani Jemison, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, and Hadi Fallapisheh. The space has drawn critical attention in recent years, including a 2020 profile that called it a place “where anything can happen,” and it won the Armory Show’s Gramercy International Prize that same year.
For artists and galleries alike, the dispute underscores how quickly a routine sale can become a contract fight when payment terms are not fully settled in writing.
