A celebrated portrait artist is now in a legal fight over a luxury Manhattan home he was supposed to have left months ago.
As reported by The Post Millennial, citing a lawsuit obtained by the Daily Mail, Kehinde Wiley, who painted former President Barack Obamas official portrait, has been accused of remaining in an $18,000-a-month Greenwich Village apartment after his lease ended. The landlord is seeking $36,000 and says Wiley is living there without permission and refuses to leave.
In a November 6 complaint, the landlord claims Wiley failed to vacate and continues to reside in and use and occupy the apartment without permission. Under the lease, he was required to leave on the expiration date and return the home clean and in good condition.
Wiley, 49, first signed a lease on September 28, 2023, for a tenancy running from October 1 of that year through September 20, 2024, according to the suit. The Los Angeles native later renewed the arrangement through September 30, 2026, the date the complaint says his right to occupy the property ended.
A listing for the three-story, 3,800-square-foot West 11th Street residence describes a space that simply has it all in every sense of the word. The grand home, in the lower portion of a five-story townhouse, is listed with four bedrooms, four bathrooms, two powder rooms, two private outdoor spaces, and an elevator.
The street is among Lower Manhattans most desirable, with neighbors including Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick. Reporters who went to the red-brick building on two occasions saw fresh flowers in the second-floor windows, but Wiley did not answer the door.
A household employee leaving the home said Wiley was upstate and did not know when he would be returning. The employee also said Wiley was planning to move, but offered no timeline for vacating the property.
The landlord claims Wiley has been unjustly enriched by staying rent-free and without permission after the lease expired. The complaint says another $18,000 will accrue for every additional month he remains.
The housing fight comes as Wiley faces sexual assault allegations from five people, four men and one woman, which he has denied. No criminal charges have been filed, and he has said the encounters were consensual and that he does not know some of the accusers.
Wileys profile rose in 2018, when his portrait of Obama was unveiled and later hung in the Smithsonians National Portrait Gallery in Washington. He was the first African American artist to paint an official U.S. presidential portrait, and his paintings have sold for as much as $850,000 at auction.
Wiley could not be reached for comment, and his attorneys and studio staff did not respond to inquiries. Whether he will leave the apartment, and how quickly a court will decide the landlords claim, remains to be seen.
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