How would you like to own 270 original Picasso’s. Well former electrician Pierre Le Guennec , now aged 75, claims that he does!
During the artists latter years Le Guennec plied his trade at the couple’s house where he built up a close relationship with Picasso and his wife.
“Monsieur and Madame trusted me, they always called me ‘little cousin’” he claimed at a court hearing in Grasse, in southeastern France, where the artist’s children, Claude and Maya Picasso, and Catherine Hutin-Blay, daughter of Picasso’s widow, Jacqueline Roque, have filed a criminal complaint against Le Guennec and his wife Danielle, 71, for possession of stolen goods.
The case first came to light in 2010 when Le Guennec got in touch with the Picasso Administration to certify the authenticity of some drawings. In his possession he had 180 individual artworks and a notebook containing 91 sketches, said to be the largest Picasso discovery since the artist’s death in 1973.
He claimed that the artist’s widow gave him the extraordinary treasure trove, which has been valued at over €60 million, and so, five years after the astonishing find, the trial began on Tuesday inside a court in Grasse, in southeastern France.
Although Le Guennec announced that if he wins the case he will place the drawings on public display instead of selling them, if found guilty the defendants will face a five-year prison sentence and a fine of €375,000.
The 271 artworks were made between 1900 and 1932, a key period in the artist’s career, and they include nine Cubist collages, six small oils, 28 lithographs and drawings of his muses Olga and Fernande.
“There are extremely important works that were missing from the narrative of art history and that highlight very important moments,” said Claude Picasso, who is in charge of his father’s legacy, at the beginning of the trial.
Although the stash of paintings and drawings remained stored away inside a garage for over 40 years, Le Guennec, who is seriously ill, explained that he wanted to identify all of his possessions with a view to his own children’s legacy.
That is why he voluntarily got in touch with the Picasso Administration in all good faith.
Filed under: http://www.theleader.info/article/46436/
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