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Huge Picasso cache ’not stolen,’ lawyer says

01 December 2010 01:18 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A retired French electrician who revealed that he has 271 previously unknown works by the artist Pablo Picasso did not steal them, his lawyer told CNN Tuesday, APA reports quoting CNN.
"He kept them with love," Evelyne Rees said.
Pierre Le Guennec, 71, worked for Picasso for three years, until the artist died in 1973, and continued to work for his widow Jacqueline until she died 13 years later, Rees said.
The electrician asked Jacqueline for pieces of Picasso’s work and she gave them to Le Guennec over a period of time, his lawyer said.
Le Guennec contacted the Picasso estate by mail in January to request certification of authenticity for the works -- a collection of cubist collages, drawings, lithographs, notebooks and a watercolor.
Along with the letter, Le Guennec included 26 photographs of previously unpublished Picasso pieces.
But he found himself slapped with a lawsuit filed by the artist’s son, Claude Picasso, and five other heirs who say the works are stolen.
The lawsuit was first reported Monday by the French newspaper Liberation.
His approach to the Picasso family shows he is innocent, his lawyer said.
"If you are a thief, you would not put yourself in the mouth of the wolf," she said.
Rees said that Le Guennec contacted the Picasso Administration to get an idea of what the pieces were worth. She said the pieces had "sentimental" value to Le Guennec and he did not make their presence public because he was not looking for money.
He brought all 271 pieces from his home in the south of France to the offices of the Picasso Administration in Paris.
Christine Pinault, Claude Picasso’s assistant and an employee of the Picasso Administration, said the artwork was reviewed by the family and others in the administration, who determined that the works are all authentic.
The family’s lawsuit, filed September 23, charges that Le Guennec hid stolen goods.
France’s Central Office for the Fight Against Traffic in Cultural Goods seized the pieces from Le Guennec’s home on the French Riviera on October 5 and is holding them in a vault at its Nanterre office, northwest of Paris.
Pinault said that one of the reasons the Picasso family is taking Le Guennec to court is because he hasn’t adequately explained how he came across the works.
Jean Jacques Neuer, a lawyer for the Picasso family, also expressed skepticism to French television.
"We are dealing with a huge number of works, and it doesn’t make sense that Picasso would give 271 works," he said. "There are no documents which prove that this man was Picasso’s close friend. It is simply unbelievable."
He was speaking before Le Guennec’s lawyer talked to CNN.
The works are from a period spanning 1900 to 1932, according to Liberation.