From 1987 to 1994, Epstein was a board member of the New York Academy of Artwork, a personal college in Decrease Manhattan centered on graduate-level schooling combining, as per the Academy’s web site, “intensive technical coaching within the wonderful arts with energetic vital discourse.” In 1995, he met Maria Farmer, a 25-year-old aspiring artist and pupil on the Academy who, a yr later, reported to the New York Metropolis Police Division and the FBI that she and her 16-year-old sister, Annie, had been sexually assaulted by Epstein and his shut pal and affiliate Ghislaine Maxwell. (Maxwell has been accused by Maria Farmer and different victims of facilitating and collaborating in Epstein’s abuse and assault of younger girls. In 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to twenty years in jail for her position in Epstein’s crimes.)
In 2019, the New York Instances reported that Maria Farmer met Epstein at a gallery present tied to her commencement, after which Epstein “known as her to supply her a job buying artwork on his behalf, and later managing the doorway to a townhouse he was renovating.” Farmer stated that, on the time, she advised Eileen Guggenheim, then dean and present board chair of the Academy whom Farmer says launched her to Epstein, about his assaultive habits. (The Instances article states that “Ms. Guggenheim stated in an interview that the main points she was conscious of on the time didn’t rise to a degree that may require intervention.”) Painter Eric Fischl, a mentor of kinds for the artist, has stated he remembers Farmer calling him a few bodily encounter with Epstein: “I simply stored telling Maria, ‘You’ve obtained to get out of there. You’ve obtained to get out of there,’ ” Fischl advised the Instances.
Stuart Pivar, cofounder of the New York Academy of Artwork and a famous collector, gave an interview printed in 2019 by Mom Jones through which he stated Epstein had been his “finest pal for many years” till he realized of the allegations. Noting an trade with Farmer that served as a turning level in his relationship with Epstein, Pivar stated, “She began to inform me about some horrible factor, too horrible to utter, having to do with Jeffrey Epstein. After which a minute later, he exhibits up. And I started to place two and two collectively. And I spotted that one thing was occurring, which I didn’t learn about. And at that time, I knew that he had a unique life that I used to be not conscious of.”
Round this time, the Workplace of the President on the New York Academy of Artwork established a committee to “formalize a protocol for a way artwork collectors can and will work together with the Academy’s pupil artists,” in accordance with the varsity. In a press release to ARTnews, the establishment stated, “The New York Academy of Artwork is deeply shocked and saddened by what one in every of our graduates, Maria Farmer, went by means of by the hands of Jeffrey Epstein, and we’re really sorry for what occurred to Maria. Jeffrey Epstein was launched to the Academy by way of former board member Stuart Pivar, who left the Academy’s board acrimoniously and has had no relationship with the Academy since 1994.”
The New York Academy of Artwork stated it doesn’t have on-site entry to monetary data earlier than 1999, however from 1999 to 2014 Epstein made a single contribution of $30,000 and bought tickets to fundraising occasions.
