The Tamesis
From 1987 to 1994, Epstein was a member of the board of trustees of the New York Academy of Art, a private university in lower Manhattan that focused on graduate education, combining “intensive technical training in the fine arts with active critical discourse,” according to the academy’s website. In 1995, he met Maria Farmer, a 25-year-old aspiring artist and student at the academy. A year later, she reported to the New York City Police Department and the FBI that she and her 16-year-old sister, Annie, had been sexually assaulted by Epstein and his close friend and associate Ghislaine Maxwell. (Maria Farmer and other victims accused Maxwell of aiding and participating in Epstein’s abuse and assaults of young women. In 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in Epstein’s crimes.)
2019, new york times The report said Maria Farmer met Epstein at a gallery show related to her graduation, after which Epstein “called her and offered her a job acquiring art on his behalf and later managing the entrance to a townhouse he was renovating.” Farmer said she told then-college president and current board chair Eileen Guggenheim about Epstein’s offensive behavior, and Farmer said Guggenheim introduced her to Epstein. (this era The article noted, “Ms. Guggenheim said in the interview that the details she knew at the time were not of a level that warranted intervention.”) Painter Eric Fischl, a mentor to the artist, has said he remembers Farmer calling him about physical contact with Epstein: “I just kept telling Maria, ‘You’ve got to get out of there. You’ve got to get out of there,'” Fischl told the outlet era.
Stuart Pivar, co-founder of the New York Academy of Art and renowned collector, gave an interview published in 2019 mother jones In it, he said Epstein had been his “best friend for decades” before learning of the charges. Pivar noted an exchange with Farmer as a turning point in his relationship with Epstein, saying, “She started telling me some horrible things, unspeakably horrible, related to Jeffrey Epstein. And then a minute later, he showed up. I started putting two and two together. I realized there was something going on that I didn’t know about. In that moment, I knew he had a different life that I didn’t know about.”
Around this time, the Office of the Dean of the New York Academy of Art formed a committee to “formalize protocols for how art collectors could and should interact with student artists at the Academy,” according to the school. in a statement art newsThe institution said, “The New York Academy of Art is deeply shocked and saddened by what happened to one of our graduates, Maria Farmer, at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, and we are deeply sorry for Maria’s experience. Jeffrey Epstein was introduced to the New York Academy of Art through former board member Stuart Pivar, who acrimoniously left the Academy’s board and has had no ties to the Academy since 1994.”
The New York Academy of Art said it could not access financial records before 1999 on site, but from 1999 to 2014, Epstein made a single donation of $30,000 and purchased tickets for fundraising events.
