Allegations trace back to Susan Dunne and Douglas Baxter, gallery presidents with decades of tenure and the responsibility of moving art worth millions around the world. “It was a Devil Wears Prada situation,” one employee told me. But how so? (2/x)

Employees witnessed Baxter throw a phone out the gallery window along with several papers and files. Former sales assistants claimed that, in 2014, Baxter hurled a catalogue at one staff member’s head. The woman left the gallery soon after the alleged abuse (3/x)

Baxter frequently made anti-Semitic comments to staff. "My family are Spanish-Portuguese Jews who settled in Jamaica. He would question my background, asking if all the Jews there were rich." Emailing an antiques dealer, he referred to the Hamptons as the "Hampsteins" (4/x)

Another assistant recalls mispronouncing the artist Elizabeth Murray's name. Baxter shot back: “Moo, moo. Is your mother a cow?” The berating was common, but employees also called his business tactics into question (5/x)

“Let’s bump up prices by 50 on each,” Baxter emailed his assistants in 2017, referring to artworks by Richard Pousette-Dart, whose work has sold for as much as $2.6 million at auction. “I think the client is Chinese.” Staff said he fixed prices this way (6/x)

And when Chuck Close was accused of sexual misconduct by several women, Baxter went on the offensive. He soon called up his friend, Terrie Sultan, then-director of the Parrish Art Museum. In a recorded conversation, he said... (7/x)

“Maybe this young woman should go live in Puerto Rico and be a hurricane victim, or starve in Haiti or Ethiopia, or be a bomb victim in Aleppo,” Baxter said. “Clearly she is some privileged girl. She went to fucking Yale, and I’m going to feel sorry for her?” (8/x)

“She certainly has not helped herself and her career, that’s for sure," Sultan responded. (She later told me she was trying to exit an uncomfortable conversation.) Both wondered if the Chuck Close story was a hit job. It wasn't. (9/x)

In fact, Pace was aware of sexual misconduct allegations against Chuck Close as early as 2015, but shielded the artist instead of helping the women, according to those familiar with the situation and email records (10/x)

Why are we talking about this? Pace Gallery wants to position itself as the future of the art world (per the article title) but historic abuses have been swept under the rug. Current diversity attempts have also floundered, according to staff (11/x)

How they handled BLM: As some galleries created new opportunities for Black employees or established committees to handle diversity issues, Glimcher hired his own 28-year-old child to facilitate the gallery’s diversity initiatives (12/x)

Lilleth Glimcher is a theatremaker without experience leading a corporate inquiry into DEAI, but now she's on the gallery's payroll doing exactly that (13/x)

“I fully acknowledge that nepotism is the backbone of the art world," Lilleth told employees this summer. “I have a unique dynamic with my family ... and can hold them accountable" Weeks later, it was reported that her father met with Ivanka Trump in the White House (14/x)

Employees are upset. Pace Gallery says it's taking the claims seriously, but declined to say if Baxter or Dunne will be disciplined. They declined interviews with leadership and declined to respond to specific allegations (15/x)

Questions about the diversity initiative were handed to an employee who graduated college last year and started his job in August ... (16/x)

Oh! And forgot this salient detail from the top: One art handler recalled his manager asking him in 2018 to create an automated sprinkler system that would spray homeless people sleeping outside the gallery on 25th Street (17/x)

In conclusion: DMs and email are open if you work at a mega-gallery and have been subject to these kinds of abuse or have seen dealers discriminate against collectors (18/18)

@ZacharyHSmall Baxter’s tactics he sometimes set prices based on the nationality of a collector. “Let’s bump up prices by 50 on each,” he emailed his assistants artworks by Richard Pousette-Dart, whose work has sold for as much as $2.6 million at auction. “I think the client is Chinese.”