Limor Gasko says she even sold Epstein a painting she had thrown in the trash after he expressed interest when she showed him a slide. "The first thing he said was: 'I can't tell, is she pretty or ugly?' I was just like, 'You f***ing piece of s***.'"
The art collection of disgraced pedophile Jeffrey Epstein is hitting the auction block now that his estate has finally settled with both his victims and the US Virgin Islands.
Last month, a 23" x 35" oil painting of a naked woman in the shower sold at auction for $8,500 after being acquired by Neely Auction. The auction house specializes in estate liquidation, and a spokesperson tells Inside Edition Digital that they acquired the painting and other Epstein belongings from one of his Palm Beach storage units.
The artist who painted the piece, Limor Gasko, learned about the sale after the painting's new buyer contacted her last week.
She tells Inside Edition Digital that she, like so many others, first met Epstein while attending the New York Academy of Art.
"They brought him to, ostensibly, you know, buy art. But he was basically just looking for nudes and preying on students and I mean, I knew he was a scumbag the first time he opened his mouth," says Gasko. "But he bought a lot of work from me, and then he commissioned me to do that painting."
Gasko says she went on to work with Epstein for about a year back in 1994, over a decade before his abuse of young women would be made public following his arrest in Palm Beach.
Epstein bought a "whole bunch" of Gasko's work on the spot that night, she says, noting that they were all female nudes.
Gasko says she even sold Epstein a painting she had thrown in the trash after he expressed interest when she showed him a slide.
"The first thing he said was: 'I can't tell, is she pretty or ugly?' I was just like, 'You f***ing piece of s***,'" says Gasko. "And then he called me into his office and asked me if I could paint from photographs."
Gasko says Epstein then handed her the photograph of a nude woman, whose identity she did not know, and she produced the work.
Things took a turn however when Epstein commissioned Gasko to create a series of murals in his townhouse.
That project was eventually scrapped but Epstein refused to pay says Gasko, who alleges that he even threatened to sue her at one point.
Gasko says that she did not back down, and confronted Epstein in his office about getting paid for the time and work she had completed for the project.
"The last time I saw him I was standing over his desk with my finger in his face and he was miserable," says Gasko. "I ended up getting my check that he didn't want to pay me. I bested him, and that is my favorite thing about that experience."
Being in Epstein's orbit also meant interacting with Ghislaine Maxwell. Gasko found the British-born socialite-turned-convicted-sex-trafficker to be off-putting and bizarre from the start.
One day, Gasko says Maxwell called her claiming she just had lunch with Princess Diana.
"She called me up and she was like, 'Are you horizontal?' And I said, 'No, I'm vertical,'" says Gasko."
Ghislaine then replied: "No boyfriend then. Oh, so you're just diddling yourself."
In the end, Gasko was never recruited to do anything more than artwork for Epstein.
Gasko says that she wishes all the money from the sale of Epstein's art would go to his victims.
The total value of Epstein's art collection is just $337,164 in a quarterly accounting report submitted in December 2022 by the estate in the Virgin Islands as part of the pedophile's probate case. The estate has spent more than that to store Epstein's art over the past five years.
Gasko notes however that the price could be quite accurate given that Epstein largely bought student work.
As for her commissioned work that just sold, Gasko says it is not one she is fond of 30 years later.
"It's kind of yucky," says Gasko. "My friend calls it bespoke porn."
