Disgraced Art Dealer Inigo Philbrick Is Getting the HBO Treatment

Abby Montanez
·2 min read
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Move over, Anna Sorokin. Art-world fraudster Inigo Philbrick is the next scammer to land a scripted series.

HBO and Bad Wolf—the Sony-owned production company behind shows like Doctor Who—are turning Philbrick’s real-life story into a Succession-level drama, according to Deadline. Bad Wolf has reportedly acquired the rights to the memoir All That Glitters, penned by Philbrick’s former best friend, Orlando Whitfield. Set to publish on May 2, Whitfield’s book chronicles the largest art fraud committed in U.S. history.

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Bad Wolf is in the early stages of developing the project, the publication says. The independent, Cardiff-based company, which was co-founded in 2015 by Succession’s executive producer Jane Tranter, was previously behind HBO’s other high-finance drama Industry. “Orlando’s unique voice and access makes one of the most exciting manuscripts we’ve read in a very long time,” Tranter told Deadline.

Considered by some to be an ambitious, rising star in the gallery world, Philbrick got his start as an intern at London’s prestigious White Cube gallery and worked his way up to their head of secondary-market sales, The New York Times reported. The contemporary broker then ventured out on his own, setting up galleries in Mayfair and Miami where he operated as a reseller. However, problems arose when he began selling the same artwork to numerous people and growing his business by inflating the value of various paintings, including works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Christopher Wool.

When the accusations started to spread, the disgraced art dealer fled the country and went into hiding in the South Pacific. The FBI later arrested him in June 2020 on the island of Vanuatu. Philbrick’s legal saga came to a head in November 2021 when he pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud charges. In May 2022, Philbrick’s highly publicized crimes landed him a seven-year prison sentence in Pennsylvania for defrauding clients out of an eye-watering $86 million in a Ponzi-like art-dealing scheme. However, he was released to home confinement in January 2023, Vanity Fair reported.

While there’s no timeline for when we can expect Philbrick’s HBO series to air, another program about the convicted swindler is also in the works. BBC Arts has teamed up with Blue Ant Media to develop a three-part documentary that will follow the rise and fall of Philbrick and his fiancée, Victoria Baker-Harber.

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