Activists have launched a petition to remove the New York Academy of Art’s board chairman after she allegedly made a student sell her rape-inspired painting to Jeffrey Epstein for half the price, a year before the young woman would go on to become a victim of the pedophile, DailyMail.com can disclose.
Maria Farmer claimed she was brought into the dead financier’s orbit in 1995 when Eileen Guggenheim introduced her to him at her thesis show. At the time, Guggenheim was the school’s dean of students.
Farmer, now in her 50s, claimed Guggenheim urged her to sell Epstein her painting of a shirtless man gazing at a young woman – which was a homage to Edgar Degas’ famous painting known as The Rape – for $6,000. Farmer claims she had already sold the work to a German buyer for $12,000.
In the following months, Farmer claimed Guggenheim brought her to Epstein’s New Mexico ranch. She was later hired by Epstein as an art consultant before she claims she was sexually assaulted by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 1996.
Kirby Sommers, who is spearheading the petition against Guggenheim, told DailyMail.com: ‘If the system has failed the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell – then we have to try to get justice from other people in his circle who were part of the machine that fed Epstein. Eileen Guggenheim is one of those people.’
