WHERE THERE’S NO WILL, THERE’S NO WAY

Picasso in his Studio La Californie in Cannes

It takes a perverse sense of humor to leave this mortal coil with:

·         over 45,000 art works

·         two châteaux

·         three studio / residences

·         $4.5 million in cash

·         $1.3 million in gold

·         an undisclosed value in stocks and bonds

·         6 antagonistic heirs

AND…no will!  But when Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973, at the age of 91, that’s exactly the joke he left behind.  His family may have found itself suddenly very rich, but it was not at all amused.

Under French law, one-half of Picasso’s estate would go to his second wife, Jacqueline Roque (above), and one-half to his only legitimate child, Paolo, from his first marriage to the ballerina Olga Khokhlova.  However, for reasons unclear to me, Picasso’s three illegitimate children, Claude and Paloma Picasso (from his liason with Françoise Gilot, the only woman to leave him, causing him to banish their children from his sight) and Maya Widmaier-Picasso (from his affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter), plus a nephew were also entitled to make a claim against the legal heirs.

 

Jacqueline and a Black Cat

And did they ever!  The Picasso estate was appraised at $250M when it was distributed in 1980, but some aficionados say it was likely worth much, much more—somewhere in the billions.  Dividing the assets among six bickering heirs required six years, a whopping $30M, and more than 50 lawyers, appraisers, cataloguers, and the agreement of the then-president of France, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, to accept a substantial number of Picassos in lieu of estate taxes.   Yet, with varying degrees of civility, compromise, contractual agreements, and wads of cash, Picasso‘s heirs sorted out the mess he left behind.  Of course, they kept some favorite pieces for themselves and sold others, but they also generously gave numerous works to, and established, museums where art lovers (like me) can enjoy them.  A case in point, the in-lieu gift accepted by d’Estaing made the Musée Picasso in Paris possible.

Couvent des Prêcheurs

Enter now Catherine Hutin-Blay, the 70-year-old stepdaughter of Picasso and Jacqueline, who plans to open a new Picasso museum in Aix-en-Provence in 2021.  Hutin-Blay owns more than 2,000 works by the artist, all of which she inherited from her mother, making hers one of the world’s largest Picasso collections.  The works date from 1952 -1973, the last two decades of Picasso’s life, during which he and Jacqueline lived together at Château de Vauvenargues near Aix.   The collection is exceptional in that it's from the artist’s late period, when his artistic themes shifted among the feelings of joy, anger, and sadness he experienced in his 70s and 80s.  It includes over 1,000 paintings and hundreds of drawings, as well as ceramics, sculptures, and photographs of the couple’s life.  The museum will be located in a former convent and an adjoining church ambulatory (above).  It will be called the Musée Jacqueline et Pablo Picasso. 

Jacqueline

Yesterday at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam we got an amuse bouche preview of the main course Aix will be serving in 2021.  The show is called Picasso:  The Late Works from the Jacqueline Picasso Collection and features over 130 paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and works on paper inherited by Hutin-Blay, on loan to the Barberini until mid-June.  (No photos were allowed, so these are from postcards I bought.)  These works are especially interesting because they remained with Picasso throughout his life and most have never before been exhibited or published, including in Germany.  The appetizer was delicious but it left us hungry for more.

 

Jacqueline in a Turkish Costume

While reading about Hutin-Blay, I came across an intriguing article that I’d like to offer as dessert.   

Picasso has the distinction of being the painter thieves love most.  More than 1,000 of his paintings are currently registered as stolen, missing, or disputed on Art Loss Register.  Two portraits of Jacqueline owned by Hutin-Blay (below) were allegedly stolen from her by the business partner of Yves Bouvier, a dodgy Swiss dealer who also owns several duty free ports.  These are the nowhere places where there are no taxes and no customs duties where the very rich store their art out of the prying public eye.  Bouvier's partner was under contract from Hutin-Blay to transport the two portraits to the free port warehouse for restoration and storage.  Instead, he sold them without Hutin-Blay’s knowledge to Dmitry Rybolovlev, the ultra-wealthy Russian owner of the AS Monaco football club and a big-time art collector.  Needless to say, Hutin-Blay, who did not receive a penny of the $30M Rybolovlev paid for the portraits, was upset. 

Rybolovlev claimed he bought the artworks in good faith and had no idea they were stolen.  But because he had a long-simmering beef with Bouvier, who Rybolovlev claimed had overcharged him as much as $1B in multiple art acquisitions, Rybolovlev returned the portraits to Hutin-Blay, no questions asked.  But don’t think for a minute that Rybolovlev acted in a chivalrous or altruistic manner.  He did it to embarrass Bouvier and enhance his own legal position.  Their feud goes on.

The Matador

There is a tasty morsel buried in this story, which you will have noticed if you’ve been following l'Affaire Russe.  Dmitry Rybolovlev is a Russian oligarch who made his money in potash and fertilizer after the fall of the Soviet Union.  He is a Putin pal and some would say a money launderer.  From The Guardian 19.10.2017:   

In 2008 Rybolovlev bought Trump’s seaside Florida mansion – Maison de L’Amite – for $95m.  Trump made a $50m profit, having bought the property just four years earlier.  The sale at the peak of the global financial crisis raised eyebrows.

Tasty!

Keep it real!

Marilyn