The Madison Avenue art-gallery owner who jumped to her death from atop her Upper East Side shop had been facing mounting debt and personal problems, sources said yesterday.
Marijana Bego — a stylish 54-year-old dealer who was impeccably dressed when she killed herself Saturday morning — left behind a note that talked about the financial pressures and personal torment she’d been grappling with in the weeks leading up to her death, a law-enforcement source said.
A pal said that recently, Bego “would say art is not selling as well as before.”
“I knew that she was a little frustrated by the economy in the last year or two,” said the friend, artist Amy Cohen Banker, whose exhibit of paintings opened last week at the tragic owner’s Bego-Ezair Gallery on Madison Avenue near 73rd Street.
“But I never ever saw this coming,’’ Cohen Banker said. “She had plans to keep the galleries going.
“It’s hard for me to believe she committed suicide,” added Cohen Banker, who saw Bego Wednesday at her opening. “I feel really shocked that she did that.”
Bego’s death has been ruled a suicide by the city’s medical examiner, who said the high-end art exhibitor died from blunt impact to her neck, torso and extremities.
Cops said a well-dressed Bego plunged from the roof of the five-story building that houses her gallery shortly after 6 a.m.
After cops found her in the middle of Madison Avenue near a bus stop, Bego, who was originally from Switzerland, was rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
On July 14, Bego celebrated her 300th art-show opening at the gallery.
Her business partner was Khedouri Ezair, a real-estate executive. Bego’s friends said Ezair had been less of a presence at the gallery in recent months.
A family friend said Bego and Ezair, 46, were once involved in a romantic relationship, but another pal said their love affair fizzled about two years ago, although they still maintained a business partnership.
Ezair could not be reached for comment.
The sudden death of Bego, who also operated galleries in Southampton and Greenport, LI, shocked her art-world friends and associates.
Still, they added that she did seem a little off lately.
“She sounded a little down,” said Jolanta Gora-Vita, a Web-site designer who saw Bego at the opening last week.
“It wasn’t the same Marijana I knew from the summer. She was depressed. She wasn’t herself.”
Cohen Banker, who had worked with Bego for more than a decade, described her friend as a mentor and inspiration who pushed her to work outside her comfort zone.
Additional reporting by Rebecca Harshbarger