A Pablo Picasso work unearthed in the recent discovery of 271 of the late artist’s work in Paris, France. Image courtesy The Telegraph.
In September, a couple boarded a train to Paris with a suitcase full of works by Pablo Picasso, including, as the New York Times reports, “several watercolors, dozens of lithographs, more than 200 sketches and 9 Cubist collages, in the hopes of having it authenticated by Claude Ruiz-Picasso, the artist’s son and the administrator of the Picasso estate.” The trip was at the request of the artist’s son after reading a letter Mr. Le Guennec had sent him requesting authentication.
The works’ owners are Pierre Le Guennec, 71, and his wife Danielle, 68. Mr. Le Guennec had worked as an electrician at three of the famed Spanish-born artists’s properties in the French Riviera in the early 1970s. The couple had kept the works in their garage for the past thirty plus years, but after Mr. Le Guennec’s recent surgery, they thought it best to evaluate the works for their children’s inheritance.
Instead of giving the authentication the Le Guennecs anticipated, Mr. Ruiz-Picasso contacted the Fight Against Traffic in Cultural Goods and his family’s lawyer, Mr. Jean-Jacques Neuer. Among heirs Mr. Neuer represents are Mr. Ruiz-Picasso, Picasso’s stepdaughter Catherine Hutin-Blay, and four others. A law suit was filed on September 23 claiming the works as stolen goods. Two weeks later, on October 5, the Le Guennecs were stunned to find the artworks seized from their home by police.
Pierre Le Guennec, retired electrician to Picasso, from whose house the works were seized by French police. Image courtesy The Guardian.
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