Bathhouses and a new ‘boyfriend’: Inside the last days of NYC art dealer murdered in Brazil after secret life revealed
Art dealer Brent Sikkema loved opera and other high-culture pursuits — and represented such famous artists as Kara Walker (above) — but also had a secret life.
In the days before he was brutally stabbed to death at his home in Rio de Janeiro last month, Manhattan art dealer Brent Sikkema had fallen madly in love with a younger man, The Post has learned.
The revelation was included in a Rio Civil Police filing obtained by The Post.
“In the passenger seat of the car, Brent spoke on a video chat with a man who spoke halting English,” reads the report, which summarizes the witness statement of Luiz Otavio Martins, Sikkema’s longtime driver in Rio. “The driver could see the young man on the video call. He was dark skinned and very handsome, and Brent told him ‘I love you’ in English.”
During what would be his last conversation with Martins, Brent told his driver that he was going on a date, the report reads, adding that Brent regularly frequented Rio bath houses to pick up young male prostitutes.
“He preferred them young,” said the Rio police report. “The driver told Brent not to bring prostitutes to his apartment because it was too dangerous. Brent told the driver that he had met a guy before Christmas and was madly in love.”
The art dealer shrugged off the driver’s warnings and joked that he needed a guard dog more than he needed a lover, the report said
The identity of the man Brent spoke to on the video call is not known.
Sikkema represented noted artist Walker for years. Billy Farrell/BFA/Shutterstock
Brent, a principal in the Sikkema Jenkins Gallery in Chelsea, represented high-profile artists Vik Muniz and Kara Walker, among others. He was a frequent visitor to Rio de Janeiro where he had traveled to in December 2023 to spend Christmas without his estranged husband and teenage son, according to the police report.
On Jan. 15, five days after the conversation overheard by his driver, Sikkema was found dead in the bedroom of his tony rowhouse with multiple stab wounds to his throat and chest.
Police arrested Alejandro Triana Prevez — a 30-year-old Cuban national who knew Sikkema and his estranged husband, Cuban-born Daniel Sikkema — days after the murder.
Daniel, 53, who said in a Spanish-language memoir that he worked as a prostitute in Havana and Madrid before meeting Brent more than 15 years ago, had hired the suspect to work as a security guard in one of the three homes that the couple owned in Cuba, according to Rio police.
The Cuban suspect in Sikkema’s murder knew both Brent Sikkema and his Cuban-born estranged husband, Daniel.
The Sikkemas were involved in a nearly two-year divorce action in New York State Supreme Court before Brent’s death. The divorce, which was initiated by Daniel, had not been finalized at the time of Brent’s death, according to public documents.
Rio police told reporters last month that Daniel had demanded more than $6 million in payments to allow Brent to see their 14-year-old son, who was born in California by surrogate, according to social media posts. But court records show that custody had been resolved in May, 2023. Court records also show that a restraining order was filed in May 2022, two months after the divorce was filed, but it’s not clear which party filed it.
Daniel Sikkema refused comment when reached on his cell phone Tuesday. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Sikkema was due to return to New York City on Jan. 16 — the day after he was found dead — and had made plans with Martins to settle his account for a month’s worth of work in Rio the day before his flight, the police report said.
