PARIS — Pablo Picasso almost never stopped creating, leaving thousands of drawings, paintings and sculptures that lure crowds to museums and mansions worldwide. Now, a retired electrician says that 271 of the master’s creations have been sitting for decades in his garage.
Picasso’s heirs are claiming theft, the art world is savoring what appears to be an authentic find and the workman, who installed burglar alarms for Picasso, is defending what he calls a gift from the most renowned artist of the 20th century.
Picasso’s son and other heirs say they were approached by electrician Pierre Le Guennec in September to authenticate the undocumented art from Picasso’s signature Cubist period.
They filed a lawsuit, all but alleging theft by a man not known to be among the artist’s friends. Police raided the electrician’s French Riviera home last month, questioned him and his wife, and confiscated the disputed artworks.
Le Guennec, 71, and his wife say Picasso’s second wife gave them a trunk full of art that they kept virtually untouched until they decided to put their affairs in order for their children. The Picasso estate describes that account as ridiculous.
“When Picasso made just a little drawing on a metro ticket, he would keep it,” said Jean-Jacques Neuer, a lawyer for Picasso’s estate. “To think he could have given 271 works of art to somebody who isn’t even known among his friends is, of course, absurd.”
The lithographs, portraits, sketches and a watercolor were created between 1900 and 1932, an intensely creative period for Picasso after he moved to Paris.
Among them are a richly colored hand study; a sketch of his first wife, Olga Khokhlova, resting an elbow in a seated pose; and a collage of a pipe and bottle.
The collage and eight others in the stash are worth 40 million euro on their own, Picasso’s estate says. All of the art is now held by a French agency.
Le Guennec claims to have worked at three Picasso properties in France, including a farmhouse in Mougins, the town where Picasso died in 1973.
Guennec’s wife, Danielle, told The Associated Press by phone from Mouans-Sartoux, just north of Antibes, that the couple decided to come forward with the works this year because they were getting on in years and “didn’t want to leave any headaches to our children” with their own estate. Her husband had a cancer operation in March, she said.
The couple didn’t intend to sell the art, she said.
“This was a gift,” she said. “We aren’t thieves.”
