One investor tells his story of how Richardson Hartley Law helped him recover £100,000 after he thought he had bought art from Yield Gallery.

Our client from southwest London thought he had bought two original paintings by Canadian street artist Richard Hambleton from the gallery in spring 2024.

But six months later he was told that one of the pieces of art by Hambleton, called Rodeo, had been sold by an art gallery in New York.

Further investigations revealed that he also did not own the painting, Shadow Head Portrait.

The IT consultant had been told by his bank that there was nothing they could do which is when he reached out for legal representation.

We took on the case and successfully recovered all of his money.

The chain of events for our client began when he spotted a Yield Gallery advert on Facebook and after saving up for several years decided to look into investment art.

He was advised by the Yield Gallery that Hambleton was undervalued in the market and so represented a good investment.

Unkeen to start with such a large investment he instead purchased a painting by upcoming artist Fern Young for £7,000 and he installed it in his flat.

The successful transaction gave him confidence and he visited the company’s Blackheath gallery to view art by Hambleton.

“I saw there were lots of paintings, and the basement was full of Hambletons, and I thought ‘this is quite the operation here’,” he added.

In March 2024 he agreed to buy Shadow Head Portrait for £55,000 which the gallery agreed to store on his behalf.

Then in May, 2024, he agreed to but another Rodeo for £45,000 which would also be held in storage.

But when Yield Gallery went into liquidation, alarm bells started ringing. And when he saw an image of Rodeo online in the Isabel Sullivan Gallery in New York in October 2025, he decided to contact her.

“I spoke to Isabel, and she confirmed she was in possession of that painting and had sold it in December 2024 for $28,000,” he said. “I’d been told Rodeo was in a storage facility in Birmingham.

“I then had a phone call with Jon Sullivan, who said he knew about both of my pieces, and they were both in storage. He was offering to keep them in storage and help with the sale down the line.”

The  official liquidator subsequently told him they could not locate any storage facilities operated by Yield Gallery.

We work on a no win, no fee basis so you only pay us if we successfully recover your money.