A gallery owner was sentenced to five years in prison for defrauding clients out of $1.6 million worth of fine art photographs, including prints by famed landscape photographer Ansel Adams.
Wendy Halsted Beard, who owned the Wendy Halsted Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan, previously pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud related to a scheme involving more than 10 clients.
Last week, Beard was sentenced to five years and three months in jail for what the FBI described as a criminal scheme to swindle older photography collectors, according to a report by The New York Times.
In October 2022, the FBI arrested Beard and released a 24-page criminal complaint spelling out the case against the gallery owner.
Between March 2019 and October 2022, Beard had agreed to sell over 100 fine art photographs on behalf of collectors, for which she earned a commission, according to the FBI.
However, prosecutors alleged that she sold pictures without the owner’s knowledge, pocketed the cash, or failed to return unsold works.
“Over 100 rare fine art photographs with a combined estimated value of approximately $1.6 million have been identified as being consigned to Beard and not returned or sold to victims without being delivered. Beard’s victims are typically elderly individuals,” the FBO alleged.
Works from some of the most acclaimed photographers of the 20th century — including Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, and Ansel Adams — were among those entrusted to Beard.
Swapped Out a Signed Ansel Adams Photograph for a Gift Shop Copy
According to an affidavit, an 82-year-old victim gave Beard $900,000 worth of fine art photography in 2018 for her to sell on consignment. Included in the collection was a mural-sized photograph of The Tetons and the Snake River by Adams.
Beard agreed to sell the photograph for $685,000 with a 5% commission. Investigators say she sold it for $440,000 but the victim was never notified she had sold it and never received the money.
A second victim, an 89-year-old collector suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, consigned photos, including prints by Adams as well as photographers Ion Zupco, Arnold Newman and Jerry Uelsma.
The collection included a signed print of Tenaya Creek shot by Adams in Yosemite National Park in California in 1948 and valued at $4,000 to $5,500.
Investigators say that when the said client’s relatives asked for the Adams photos to be returned to them, Beard gave them cheap copies from a gift shop instead of the original, signed photographs.
According to the complaint, Beard went to extraordinary lengths to conceal her deception. She falsely claimed to have been in a coma for several months and to have undergone a double-lung transplant to explain delayed responses to clients. Additionally, she fabricated fictional employees to communicate with them.
At the time of Beard’s arrest in October 2022, the allegations reportedly stunned the famed photographer’s grandson, Matthew Adams, who runs the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite, California.
“Holy mackerel,” Adams told The Detroit News during a phone interview. “Wow, that’s not good.”
Beard’s gallery was created by her father, Thomas Halsted in 1969 and was a respected gallery focused on photography. He died in 2018, and his obituary notes how he forged friendships with great photographers, including Adams.
Image credits: Photo by Ansel Adams/Public Domain.