The man who stole 271 Picassos?
February 10 2015
I feel rather sorry for Pierre Le Guennec, the French electrician who has gone on trial accused of 'stealing' 271 works by Picasso. M. Le Guennec used to work for Picasso and his wife, doing various odd jobs. He says Mme Picasso gave him the parcel of works, mostly drawings, one day in the early 1970s as a gift.
In 2010 he took some of the works to the Picasso Administration headquarters in Paris. There, they were declared authentic, but the Picasso family said they must have been stolen. The works were promptly confiscated by the police, and M. Le Guennec has now gone on trial.
But there is no proof that he stole anything. No theft was ever recorded. And if he had stolen them, why would he voluntarily go to the Picasso estate and say 'look what I have'?
Instead, the allegations against M. Le Guennec consist entirely of speculation from the Picasso estate that Picasso would never have given away works like this. From The Telegraph:
Jean-Jacques Neuer, lawyer for Claude Picasso [Picasso's son, who administers the estate], said the couple were deliberately vague. “They don’t remember whether they received the ‘gift’ in 1970, 71 or 72. If you are given 271 Picassos, you remember it,” he said.
“You have to imagine that Picasso kept hold of them for 70 years and suddenly decided to give the lot away.” That did not make sense, he added.
“Picasso signed his works at the last moment, to give them away or sell them.”
“The issue is not whether Picasso was generous or not. Picasso wasn’t someone who was careless about his works; he didn’t give away any old how.”
Phooey. Picasso did many odd and random things. He was hardly Mr Predictable. And of course, the Picasso estate, which would regain title to the works - now valued at tens of millions of Euros - should M. Le Guennec be found guilty, doesn't have a motive for saying they're stolen. Oh no.
More here.
Update - a reader who used to live in Madrid writes:
Early in 1984, a middle-aged Spaniard told me the story of Picasso's barber; this man, Eugenio Arias, had approached the Picasso heirs, cap in hand, after the maestro's death, and claimed that he had been like a spiritual brother/son to the artist, and that they were close friends who chatted daily, and therefore he was entitled to part of the estate.
Maya said that this was nonsense; apparently Picasso was always absorbed in his thoughts and his work and was not in any way loquacious. Nevertheless, for the sake of peace and quiet they rewarded the barber with a pile of secondary art.
If a shave-meister was able to blag a pile of bits and pieces sufficient to fill a small town museum, IMHO it seems perfectly feasible for Madame Picasso to have rewarded Pierre Le Guennec with a few souvenirs.
Fascinating. More on the barber's hoarde here.
