Friday, July 17, 2009
Arrested Art Dealer Morse Ran Gallery in Salander’s Former Bedroom
Call it bad real estate karma: Leigh Morse, Larry Salander’s number two, who was arrested this week in connection with activities during her 12-year tenure at Salander O’Reilly Galleries, operated her own art dealing outfit –Leigh Morse Fine Art– at 22 East 80th Street, in the very same building where Salander lived and worked in the early 1980s, according to a dealer with a long memory.
Her gallery, a small 5th floor space, had once served as Larry Salander’s bedroom when he resided there with his first wife Barbara.
Salander ran his gallery on the lower floors, until relocating to 79th Street in the early 1990s.
One of the four trustees that comprise the “Victim” Lachaise Foundation also worked for Salander for 11 years until 2007 when his gallery closed.
I was represented by coe kerr gallery when
Leigh Morse worked there. We became very good friends and I always respected her
as someone with great integrity, someone who
had class and really cared about what she was doing.
This is truely a shock and does not jell with
the Leigh Morse I knew and trusted.
Thanks Mona Lisa…that is an interesting connection and certainly complicates matters now.
Tom,
you are absolutely right, she is that person you know and trusted. She is a victim of her boss, a confessed liar, and convicted thief, and an overly aggressive DA, Vance, looking to made a media score with Robert Di Nero. If Robert hadn’t been involved, we wouldn’t be seeing any of this. She was a victim to the same fraud her boss perpetrated against his clients. As Robert said himself, he trusted Salander completely. She did too, unfortunately. Listen to the wording of this post, “dealing outfit”. One article said he was her accomplice. There is so much more to this than these slanted sound bites. Trust your own instincts and first hand experience, and wish her good luck.