For 27 years, Ezra Chowaiki has been a player in the international art business, dealing in blue chip art by the impressionist, modern and post war masters. Ezra opened a private gallery on Park Avenue in Manhattan where he sold rare and original works by Monet, Degas, Picasso, Kandinsky, Pollock, Rothko, Warhol, Lichtenstein and many others. He simultaneously opened what would become the prime gallery in Moscow for works by these artists.
All this came to a screeching halt when in 2017 Ezra was turned in to the authorities by his business partner and convicted for wire fraud, for which he served 13½ months in federal prison. It was then that Ezra decided to write a tell-all memoir and become the voice of truth in the art business. The art industry is notoriously opaque and secretive, but Ezra believes everyone should know what it’s really like. To that end, his mission is to be as informative as possible about what this surreal world is all about.
Ezra has had articles published in several outlets. He’s finishing his memoir and working on a documentary. He has been interviewed several times about the art business and the way it actually works. Oh, and he’s also still selling art.