LIFE was breezier for art dealer Kipton Cronkite when he was pretending to be related to legendary CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite. The society guy has fallen on tough times recently, sources told Page Six.
“He was let go from his job at Bank of America” where he was the director of investment relations at the Alternative Investment Advisors Group, said one source. “And he was forced to move out of his doorman elevator building in the East 50s to a Lower East Side walk-up.”
In February, Page Six revealed that Cronkite, who’s best known for throwing parties, was not, as he claimed, “a distant relative” of the newsman.
“A lot has happened since people found out he wasn’t related to Walter Cronkite,” said our tipster. “Now that Kipton doesn’t have a steady job, he has put his whole life into KiptonART and is trying to make it a profitable enterprise,” though in previous years, the foundation served as a vanity project.
The source also said Cronkite, 33, recently befriended a 19-year-old man who “comes from family money” and is “letting Kipton live with him on the Lower East Side rent-free.”
Some artists who have signed with Cronkite’s foundation were also rubbed the wrong way by him. “He puts artists in binding contracts that don’t allow them to work with other galleries, but he doesn’t sell any of their artwork,” our insider griped. “The socials that come to his parties don’t buy art, they just come to be photographed.”
A spokesman for Cronkite told Page Six, “KiptonART is a for-profit entity. We offer aspiring artists, musicians and filmmakers an entree to display and potentially sell their work to an influential market.
“As for Kipton’s exit from Bank of America, he is merely a victim of the epidemic of layoffs in the banking community. We will not remark on Kipton’s personal life.”