FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 2026
The Loved One Presents a Screening of Episode One of The Oligarch and the Art Dealer,
Followed by a Talk and Audience Q&A with Ezra Chowaiki
The art dealer who went from selling Picassos to federal prison shares a candid look inside the art market as he teases a new memoir and documentary film
Los Angeles, CA – The Loved One presents a screening of episode one of The Oligarch and the Art Dealer, followed by a talk and audience Q&A with blue-chip art dealer, writer, filmmaker and ex-felon Ezra Chowaiki on Friday, October 30th, 7-10pm. Chowaiki will be in conversation with The Loved One founders J.C. Gabel and Aubrie Wienholt.
Chowaiki has appeared as an expert in all three episodes of The Oligarch and the Art Dealer, a documentary series about the Bouvier Affair that premiered at Sundance this year. The Loved One will screen the first episode, which explores the rising ambitions, frayed relationships, and bruised egos that fueled a decade-long all-out war between Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier and elusive Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev.
For nearly three decades, Chowaiki brokered works by Picasso, Monet, Rothko, Warhol and other master artists, becoming an influential art dealer in New York City. In 2018, he was convicted of wire fraud and served thirteen and a half months in federal prison. The very day he was released, a former client called him to inquire about an artwork, as if nothing had ever happened.
Since then, Chowaiki has made it his mission to take accountability for his actions and expose the incentives, opacity and culture that are still allowing what he recognizes as deceptive behavior to flourish throughout the high-end art market and whether reputation in such an industry operates by the same rules. As he describes it: “I was OK being in prison. What I wasn’t OK with was that I was the only art dealer in prison.”
In addition to appearing in The Oligarch and the Art Dealer, Chowaiki has published essays in Air Mail and Mother Jones and is working on a memoir and documentary. Today, he speaks publicly candidly about wealth, art dealing and elite markets from the unusual position of someone who operated inside that world, went to prison for his conduct, and then returned to it.
DETAILS
Friday, October 30th
7-10pm
RSVP HERE
The Loved One
1624 W. Temple St
Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles, 90026
ABOUT EZRA CHOWAIKI
Ezra Chowaiki has spent nearly three decades in the international art business, dealing in blue chip art by 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, de Kooning, Rothko, Warhol, Lichtenstein and many others. He simultaneously established what would become the prime gallery in Moscow for works by these artists.
All this came to an abrupt halt in 2017, when he was convicted of wire fraud and served thirteen and a half months at a federal prison. Since then, he has made it his mission to speak candidly about his own mistakes and bring transparency to the opaque practices that shape the art market. Through his writing and public appearances, he offers an insider’s perspective on how the art world really operates.
He has appeared as an expert in all three episodes of the docuseries The Oligarch and the Art Dealer, which premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, and he has published essays in Air Mail, Mother Jones, and elsewhere. He is working on his tell-all memoir as well as documentary and narrative film projects. He continues to sell art.