Frank Zeidler's personal account
My name is Frank Zeidler, I am an artist living and working in Vancouver and have been associated with Sergio Patrich for close to ten years.
I first entered the Simon Patrich Gallery in the summer of 1996 or 1997. I was knocking on the doors of galleries all over Vancouver looking for a venue. Sergio Patrich, the owner of the gallery, took the time to look over my presentation and, after some discussion, agreed to represent me and my work. In 1998 I had my first solo show, a collection of collages. The show was well attended and admired, but I failed to sell a single piece. This did not seem to dismay Sergio though, he continued to praise my work and suggested ways in which I might improve upon what I had accomplished. I felt I was getting moral support from him. On the other hand, I rarely, if ever, saw my work hanging on the walls of his gallery, and but for a handful of ceramics that I had decorated with the help of another potter, never sold a single piece out of his gallery over the next eight years. I had however, used the intervening time advantageously to increase and diversify my artistic production and I finally came out with a collection of oil paintings which, after a lot of pushing on my part, Sergio agreed to exhibit in the spring of 2005. This time, the exhibition proved a success, and a number of paintings sold with a gross total sales price of approximately $20,000.
Sergio said he would be paying me my 50% very soon; he only needed to catch up on his paperwork and arrange the details of those people who had elected to pay on an installment plan. I had no problem with that, we were leaving on vacation, and my state of euphoria had not abated. We returned from our vacation mid-summer. Once back in the city I wandered down to the Gallery on Granville Street, only to find it shut down with a notice in the window that the premises had moved and was starting up again as The Art Center at 2060 Pine Street. I thought that was kind of unusual but was not really concerned. I went down to the Pine St. address and eventually caught up with Sergio. We greeted each other warmly and he gave me an enthusiastic tour of his new space. The place occupied two floors with lots of interesting nooks and crannies and options on adjoining spaces that could be adapted to a variety of uses. Sergio was excited about its possibilities and had already put carpenters, painters and electricians to work renovating his new gallery around all the paintings and artworks that had been brought over from the Granville St. address. After a while spent sharing his dreams about his awesome new plans for the Vancouver art scene and a new solo show for myself, I broached the subject of the money he still owed me from the show back in the spring.
At this, his mood turned more somber. "I can't pay you right now Frank," he said, "I had to use your money to pay for the people who are renovating the gallery." I was a little taken aback when he said this. "You did what?" I allowed. Sergio then went into a long talk about how the rent on Granville had doubled, how, after all the overhead, he never managed to make any money on my show and that now he had this great opportunity with this space on Pine St., but he couldn't get any credit from the banks and had started all this work and now he had to pay all these people and what could he do, he had no choice and he was going to pay me as soon as he got the money.
It was a strange kind of scenario but there didn't seem to be many options for me other than to accept his explanation and put off my payment to a later date. I dropped into the gallery from time to time to check up on the renovation and try to establish a date when I might reasonably be expected to be paid. The gallery, after some delays, did finally open. Sergio was taking out ads in the local publications and mounting shows again without, however, some of his bread and butter artists. This made me a little uncomfortable and I was beginning to wonder how he was pulling all this off as far as money went. Nonetheless, I had told myself that I would give him a year to pay up and I stuck to that.
The year passed. This has gone far enough now I thought and so one morning in the late spring of 2006 I went to talk with him in his office. I told him I had waited for a year to receive payment and that I had not received even a dollar from him in all that time. Again he claimed not to have any money. I let him know that I had run out of patience and could no longer waste my time fruitlessly trying to convince him to pay me his debt. I was going to turn over this problem to an outside agency and I was going to wash my hands of any further personal contact with him. His response was to wave his arms about. "What do expect me to do?" he said, "You can send a collection agency around but they can't get anything from me, I don't have any money!" "I'm, sorry Sergio," I replied, "but that's all I can do." He said that I “should get used to this, it’s the nature of the business.” That really shocked me. Thanks for the tip, I thought to myself.
Not that I really knew what I could do either. I gave it a bit of thought and came up with a plan, I would take him to small claims court, and retrieve my paintings from his gallery. Believing him to be in a somewhat delicate situation financially, I didn't want to show up at the gallery some day and see padlocks across the door and my paintings inside so I felt I had to get them out. I enlisted the help of two friends of mine and a panel truck and showed up at the gallery on a Saturday afternoon, combed every inch of the gallery for my work and reclaimed all but three pieces of mine which were nowhere to be found. I felt better knowing my work was out of there.
The next stop was small claims court on Robson St. I soon became well versed in the niceties of filling out government forms, paying fees, and waiting in line. While doing my research into the names of the business and it’s directors I would be listing as defendants I learned that Sergio had closed down Havilah Holdings Inc., the holding company responsible for the Simon Patrich Gallery, and set up a new company, Tifferet Holdings Inc. listing his son Jordan as the director. How sleazy, I thought, setting up his own son to take the fall in case anything should go wrong. I also dug up a list of claims registered with the courts that name Sergio Patrich and various members of his family as defendants in numerous cases against him that numbered more than forty. I was beginning to get a fuller picture of the man.
I finally served Leah Patrich, the mother of Sergio and the other co-director of the gallery with a notice of my claim. She was furious. She said she felt betrayed, that after they’d sheltered and nourished me over the years this is the thanks they get. I hastened to remind her that I had not been paid for over a year and this was completely unacceptable. At a later date I went in and saw Sergio himself to confront him about the missing pieces. He told me that I was extremely low priority and he wasn’t about to waste time looking around for my work. I reiterated my frustrations with him, telling him he had no right to take my money, the money he was holding in trust for me, and give it to other people. I told him in no uncertain terms that I considered his actions criminal. At that point his mood turned foul, he led me to the door and told me that unless it was to serve court papers, never to set foot inside his gallery again.
My three missing pieces were now hostages. I did get my day in court. Sergio showed up at the appointed hour and took his turn on the stand. While he and I argued morality the judge was having a look at the bank statements he had brought along. She finally interrupted us to tell me that I no longer had a case. As she explained it, the company that I was suing, Havilah Holdings Inc., no longer existed, and in any case had no assets to speak of. There was no way I could sue them. I was told to seek further legal advice.
I was shattered. After all the efforts I’d made to get Sergio to court I was the one walking out of there in defeat. I felt awful, and decided not to pursue the case any further. It had proven very draining emotionally. I felt torn up inside and really wanted to put it behind me. I got back to work and started looking around for a new gallery, though full of suspicion of galleries and their owners.
Then I got an e-mail from Hans Engel who’d heard that I’d had some troubles with Sergio. He explained his situation with the gallery to me and I advised him to get his work out of the gallery as soon as possible. Then, all hell broke loose.
Hans has informed you about his adventures. I put off writing my account until today as I had some time to devote to studio work, work which needed to come first. I hope this account may be of some use to you and your article/ on going story about Sergio and his way of running art galleries and their artists into the ground. I know now, as you are aware, of many other artists who have suffered at the hands of Sergio Patrich and his family. His actions need to be exposed and the public needs to be warned. I myself have still not been paid nor have my missing pieces shown up.
Frank Zeidler
I first entered the Simon Patrich Gallery in the summer of 1996 or 1997. I was knocking on the doors of galleries all over Vancouver looking for a venue. Sergio Patrich, the owner of the gallery, took the time to look over my presentation and, after some discussion, agreed to represent me and my work. In 1998 I had my first solo show, a collection of collages. The show was well attended and admired, but I failed to sell a single piece. This did not seem to dismay Sergio though, he continued to praise my work and suggested ways in which I might improve upon what I had accomplished. I felt I was getting moral support from him. On the other hand, I rarely, if ever, saw my work hanging on the walls of his gallery, and but for a handful of ceramics that I had decorated with the help of another potter, never sold a single piece out of his gallery over the next eight years. I had however, used the intervening time advantageously to increase and diversify my artistic production and I finally came out with a collection of oil paintings which, after a lot of pushing on my part, Sergio agreed to exhibit in the spring of 2005. This time, the exhibition proved a success, and a number of paintings sold with a gross total sales price of approximately $20,000.
Sergio said he would be paying me my 50% very soon; he only needed to catch up on his paperwork and arrange the details of those people who had elected to pay on an installment plan. I had no problem with that, we were leaving on vacation, and my state of euphoria had not abated. We returned from our vacation mid-summer. Once back in the city I wandered down to the Gallery on Granville Street, only to find it shut down with a notice in the window that the premises had moved and was starting up again as The Art Center at 2060 Pine Street. I thought that was kind of unusual but was not really concerned. I went down to the Pine St. address and eventually caught up with Sergio. We greeted each other warmly and he gave me an enthusiastic tour of his new space. The place occupied two floors with lots of interesting nooks and crannies and options on adjoining spaces that could be adapted to a variety of uses. Sergio was excited about its possibilities and had already put carpenters, painters and electricians to work renovating his new gallery around all the paintings and artworks that had been brought over from the Granville St. address. After a while spent sharing his dreams about his awesome new plans for the Vancouver art scene and a new solo show for myself, I broached the subject of the money he still owed me from the show back in the spring.
At this, his mood turned more somber. "I can't pay you right now Frank," he said, "I had to use your money to pay for the people who are renovating the gallery." I was a little taken aback when he said this. "You did what?" I allowed. Sergio then went into a long talk about how the rent on Granville had doubled, how, after all the overhead, he never managed to make any money on my show and that now he had this great opportunity with this space on Pine St., but he couldn't get any credit from the banks and had started all this work and now he had to pay all these people and what could he do, he had no choice and he was going to pay me as soon as he got the money.
It was a strange kind of scenario but there didn't seem to be many options for me other than to accept his explanation and put off my payment to a later date. I dropped into the gallery from time to time to check up on the renovation and try to establish a date when I might reasonably be expected to be paid. The gallery, after some delays, did finally open. Sergio was taking out ads in the local publications and mounting shows again without, however, some of his bread and butter artists. This made me a little uncomfortable and I was beginning to wonder how he was pulling all this off as far as money went. Nonetheless, I had told myself that I would give him a year to pay up and I stuck to that.
The year passed. This has gone far enough now I thought and so one morning in the late spring of 2006 I went to talk with him in his office. I told him I had waited for a year to receive payment and that I had not received even a dollar from him in all that time. Again he claimed not to have any money. I let him know that I had run out of patience and could no longer waste my time fruitlessly trying to convince him to pay me his debt. I was going to turn over this problem to an outside agency and I was going to wash my hands of any further personal contact with him. His response was to wave his arms about. "What do expect me to do?" he said, "You can send a collection agency around but they can't get anything from me, I don't have any money!" "I'm, sorry Sergio," I replied, "but that's all I can do." He said that I “should get used to this, it’s the nature of the business.” That really shocked me. Thanks for the tip, I thought to myself.
Not that I really knew what I could do either. I gave it a bit of thought and came up with a plan, I would take him to small claims court, and retrieve my paintings from his gallery. Believing him to be in a somewhat delicate situation financially, I didn't want to show up at the gallery some day and see padlocks across the door and my paintings inside so I felt I had to get them out. I enlisted the help of two friends of mine and a panel truck and showed up at the gallery on a Saturday afternoon, combed every inch of the gallery for my work and reclaimed all but three pieces of mine which were nowhere to be found. I felt better knowing my work was out of there.
The next stop was small claims court on Robson St. I soon became well versed in the niceties of filling out government forms, paying fees, and waiting in line. While doing my research into the names of the business and it’s directors I would be listing as defendants I learned that Sergio had closed down Havilah Holdings Inc., the holding company responsible for the Simon Patrich Gallery, and set up a new company, Tifferet Holdings Inc. listing his son Jordan as the director. How sleazy, I thought, setting up his own son to take the fall in case anything should go wrong. I also dug up a list of claims registered with the courts that name Sergio Patrich and various members of his family as defendants in numerous cases against him that numbered more than forty. I was beginning to get a fuller picture of the man.
I finally served Leah Patrich, the mother of Sergio and the other co-director of the gallery with a notice of my claim. She was furious. She said she felt betrayed, that after they’d sheltered and nourished me over the years this is the thanks they get. I hastened to remind her that I had not been paid for over a year and this was completely unacceptable. At a later date I went in and saw Sergio himself to confront him about the missing pieces. He told me that I was extremely low priority and he wasn’t about to waste time looking around for my work. I reiterated my frustrations with him, telling him he had no right to take my money, the money he was holding in trust for me, and give it to other people. I told him in no uncertain terms that I considered his actions criminal. At that point his mood turned foul, he led me to the door and told me that unless it was to serve court papers, never to set foot inside his gallery again.
My three missing pieces were now hostages. I did get my day in court. Sergio showed up at the appointed hour and took his turn on the stand. While he and I argued morality the judge was having a look at the bank statements he had brought along. She finally interrupted us to tell me that I no longer had a case. As she explained it, the company that I was suing, Havilah Holdings Inc., no longer existed, and in any case had no assets to speak of. There was no way I could sue them. I was told to seek further legal advice.
I was shattered. After all the efforts I’d made to get Sergio to court I was the one walking out of there in defeat. I felt awful, and decided not to pursue the case any further. It had proven very draining emotionally. I felt torn up inside and really wanted to put it behind me. I got back to work and started looking around for a new gallery, though full of suspicion of galleries and their owners.
Then I got an e-mail from Hans Engel who’d heard that I’d had some troubles with Sergio. He explained his situation with the gallery to me and I advised him to get his work out of the gallery as soon as possible. Then, all hell broke loose.
Hans has informed you about his adventures. I put off writing my account until today as I had some time to devote to studio work, work which needed to come first. I hope this account may be of some use to you and your article/ on going story about Sergio and his way of running art galleries and their artists into the ground. I know now, as you are aware, of many other artists who have suffered at the hands of Sergio Patrich and his family. His actions need to be exposed and the public needs to be warned. I myself have still not been paid nor have my missing pieces shown up.
Frank Zeidler
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