Posted on 11/30/2010 1:08:08 PM PST by Ron C.
PARIS Pablo Picasso gave them as a gift.
So said Danielle Le Guennec, 68, explaining how she and her husband came to possess a box full of 271 previously unknown sketches, paintings and collages by one of the 20th centurys most celebrated artists.
It was very straightforward, she said in a telephone interview on Monday, after the French newspaper Libération reported the find. Her husband, Pierre Le Guennec, 71, had worked as an electrician in three of Picassos homes on the French Riviera in the early 1970s.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And lets remember that his heirs have 700,000 "documented" works between them.
Rotten, greedy kin....
All that matters is who has the most money to pay a lawyer.
what do you think, is the electrician telling the truth?
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The story sounds reasonable to me.
He worked in three of the homes, if he had been stealing, surely he wouldn’t have worked at 3 different homes and nothing was ever mentioned of missing works.
I buy his story.
(I didn’t read the full story, not registered for that site)
They have held these works for 30-40 years. I am curious as to why they did not try to sell them off earlier.It is not as is they were displaying the works in their home or gallery. They were sitting in a box in their garage.I wonder if the Statute of Limitations has anything to do with it that now they are coming forward.
I wouldn’t doubt it. Pablo Picasso was known for gifting
small works of art to people he liked.
No Statute of Limitations on stolen property. Proving title is a different matter.
Seems as though the Picasso family is greedy.
These objects dilute the demand for and value of their stuff, and they don't like it one bit.
He payed for things and services with his works.
“He payed for things and services with his works.”
I’ve heard stories that rather than tip a waiter with cash, Picasso would often just do a little doodle on a cocktail napkin for the lucky server. Always signed them - that made it marketable “art.”
a box full of 271 previously unknown sketches, paintings and collagesThanks Ron C.
The greedy Picasso Foundation just wants what is NOT theirs.
I'm hope, in this case, is that public sentiment will turn toward supporting this old electrician, and against the greedy bastards within the Picasso Foundation.
I’d heard he’d pay for meals with a drawing on a napkin.
My thoughts exactly... and that work was most likely done over a long period of time. Picasso had to have stayed for a while in each of those homes, and always returned to the electrician when he moved into a newer home.
Picasso most likely gave the electrician several bit's and pieces of artwork, (hardly 'paintings') at each visit, and there were likely many more than one visit at each home.
And, most likely at the time, the electrician wasn't particularly excited about any of the rather mediocre scribbles handed to him in 'partial payment' - he just took them home to show his wife what the fruit of his labor was - basically, non-payment.
What amazes more than anything (since Picasso was not very famous at the time,) is that either the wife or the electrician decided to keep them, without much hope of them ever being worth anything - but more as a reminder of the painter, because he kept calling for more work to be done - a 'good customer' (albeit, a rather poor-paying one.)
Many years ago I got a chance to visit an art professor @ the University of Mass that whole house was minamalisitc, but sketches of folks like Picasso where all over the walls. Not my area of expertise, but this seems plasible. This was 20 something years ago and I was told the net worth of the art in the entire house was 1/4 of a million in 80’s dollars. I shutter to think what this collection is worth today. The Prof was 69 yrs old then, my guess he is no longer with us.
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