Prison for electrician Picasso by concealment of 271 works – The Universe

A French court of appeal confirmed this Friday the suspended sentence to two years in prison against the outside electrician Pablo Picasso and his wife, for having concealed for 40 years in their garage 271 artworks of the artist.

The defendant, Pierre Le Guennec, and his wife, Danielle, have failed to convince the justice that the widow of Picasso, Jacqueline, had donated the works, and the court of appeal of Aix-en-Provence (southeast france), confirmed the judgment of first instance 2015.

The court of appeal confirms “all dispositions on civil and criminal” of the verdict of the court of first instance of Grasse in 2015, which implies the restitution of all the works in the possession of the convicts Claude Ruiz Picasso, representative of the six heirs in the judgment.

The 180 works and a carnet of 91 drawings -without a signature and not inventoried when the painter died in 1973 – had re-emerged in 2010 when Le Guennec contacted Claude Picasso for autentificara.

The heirs had filed immediately after a criminal complaint for theft.

In the appeal trial, Pierre Le Guennec, changed his version of events, claiming that a few months after Picasso’s death, his widow asked that would contain between 15 to 17 bags of trash which contained works of the artist.

A while after, he added the defendant, the last wife of the painter asked him to give back the bags, except one, who gave her in appreciation.

To Le Guennec, the widow of Picasso wanted to “perhaps” that these works are not featured in the inventory of the succession.

“The lady Jacqueline Picasso had problems with Claude Picasso, son of the painter, said Le Guennec, 77 years, with the trembling voice before the court of Aix-en-Provence.

In the first instance, the electrician had said that the 271 works that were stacked for 40 years were a gift made by Picasso in 1971 or 1972.

The prosecutor did not take into account the new version of the couple, and it required the confirmation of the sentence of first instance.

- recognized Truth -

“We are pleased that the truth that we argue from the principle has been recognized”, it is welcomed this Friday, Jean-Jacques Neuer, lawyer for Claude Ruiz-Picasso and the only representative of the civil parties present in this court of appeal.

The lawyer Neuer had reported to the court a “mind-boggling lies”, and claimed that this case raises “the most dark and powerful in the art market” and supported the thesis of a “bleaching of works stolen”.

This batch includes some small exceptional works: drawings, stylized women and horses, nine ‘collages’ cubist very rare from the time of his collaboration with Georges Braque, a study of the “blue period” or more intimate issues such as studies of his lover Fernande, drawings of his first wife Olga and a small horse cut made by their children. (I)