Hotheaded celebrity restaurateur Nello Balan allegedly threatened “to kill” an artist who is demanding the return of 11 pieces of art hanging in his Hamptons eatery.
Balan “can be smiling at you one moment and treating you like a piece of dirt the next,” said the artist, Jerome Lucani, who filed a criminal complaint with the Southampton Village Police yesterday. “I just feel like a sucker.”
Their dispute centers on a series of large “paintings” depicting such celebrities as Princess Diana, Audrey Hepburn and Anna Nicole Smith that hang on the walls of Nello Summertimes in Southampton.
The French artist’s works are actually collages of hundreds of photos of a celebrity arranged in a way that creates a mammoth image of that celebrity.
Lucani said that after showing Balan his art last winter, the restaurateur said, ” ‘Your work is amazing,’ and he started asking how much it would cost” to do a series for Summertimes.
“I told him I would charge him anywhere from $350,000 to $500,000,” said Lucani.
Balan agreed to pay Lucani’s cost of producing the artwork and then take a 40 percent cut on their sales, the artist said.
But there were problems from the beginning.
“He started being very distant,” Lucani said. “I heard . . . that he’s told people that he’s done the pieces himself.”
Lucani says Balan eventually presented him with two demands: that he pay him $500,000 to even be allowed to receive a percentage of any sales of the works – and that Balan get a 50 percent cut on sales of any new work.
“He’s keeping my paintings hostage,” Lucani said.
When Lucani went to Summertimes on Aug. 25 to sort out the situation, he said, Balan “began screaming at me with his hand on my chest, ‘I’ll kill you, I’ll f- – -ing kill you, you don’t know what I can do to you!’ ”
Balan – who last year pleaded guilty to attempted assault after beating his girlfriend on two occasions – chuckled yesterday when asked about Lucani’s claim.
“No, I never did such a thing,” he said, and then accused Lucani of threatening to burn down his restaurant.
Balan said that the works “belong to me entirely,” that he created their concept and that Lucani was a mere “technician.” He said he thus is entitled to half of Lucani’s sales of similar works.
As for those on his eatery’s walls, Balan said, “These are not for sale.”