Brent Sikkema

Brent Fay Sikkema (August 13, 1948 – January 15, 2024) was an American art dealer. He was the co-founder of Sikkema Jenkins & Co, a Manhattan art gallery that represents artists including Kara Walker, Louis Fratino, Arturo Herrera, the estate of Tony Feher, Vik Muniz, and Jeffrey Gibson.

Early life
Sikkema was born on August 13, 1948, in Morrison, Illinois, the younger of two children of Dwaine Louis Sikkema and Emily "Billie" (Howe) Sikkema. He attended the San Francisco Art Institute.

Career
Sikkema began working with art in 1971 as the director of exhibitions at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York and opened his first gallery in 1976, in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was a partner in the art gallery Sikkema Jenkins & Co, which is located in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. The place was founded in 1991 by him under the name Wooster Gardens.

Death
Sikkema died on January 15, 2024, at the age of 75, after he was stabbed to death in his Rio de Janeiro townhouse. Two days later, 30-year-old Alejandro Triana Tevez was arrested as a suspect. Sikkema sustained eighteen stab wounds, most of them to the face and chest, and $3,000 was stolen from his home. On February 9, Alejandro Tevez told the police that Daniel Sikkema, the victim's ex-husband, promised him 200,000 dollars to kill Brent. According to the investigation, Daniel's motivation was the dispute over millions of dollars from Brent's estate, who was a partner in an important art gallery in New York. The police investigation said that Sikkema changed his will in May 2022, and his ex-husband, Daniel Garcia Carrera, the alleged mastermind behind the American's murder, was no longer the beneficiary of the inheritance.

On March 21, Daniel Sikkema,the victim's ex-husband, was arrested for passport fraud in New York, in the United States.

On July 1, the FBI, the United States Federal Police, has joined the investigation into the death of gallery owner Brent Sikkema in Rio de Janeiro and conducted the crime scene investigation in Jardim Botânico, alongside American prosecutors, Brazilian police officers from the Capital Homicide Division (DH) and members of the Federal Public Ministry (MPF).