Claude Picasso, the penultimate living son of the cubist genius Pablo Picasso, He passed away last Thursday at the age of 76. Two months before her death, the baton had already passed to her sister Paloma Picasso, 74, at the helm of the Picasso Administration (PA). Created in 1995, this company, based in Paris, was in charge of managing the huge inheritance left by the Malaga artist when he died in 1974. Claude led the reins of this foundation for almost three decades and was a key man in converting the legacy artistic work of his father into a frantic ticket printer.
When Pablo Picasso Died April 8, 1973, left a legacy as abundant as complex was his family situation. The cubist and surrealist artist was not only a womanizing man, but also a “tyrannical, superstitious and selfish” lover, according to him denounced in his book ‘Vivre avec Picasso’ the French painter Françoise Gilotmother of two of his four children: Claude and Dove. When he passed away, Picasso left a family puzzle full of resentments. And that was reflected in the judicial serial that lasted several years about the distribution of his inheritance. Paloma inherited her father’s artistic side and one of her best known facets is her popular jewelry designs for Tiffany. She is a regular at Sudio 54 in New York, close to Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent and also the muse of Andy Warhol, she was quite a ‘socialite’ in the 70s.
The difficult management of inheritance
Few artists left such an important heritage as Picasso. He was not only a genius, but also one of the most prolific painters and sculptors of his day. When he perished, he left an inheritance of 1,885 canvases, 1,228 sculptures, 7,089 drawings, 30,000 engravings and 3,222 ceramic figures, in addition to several mansions on the Côte d’Azur and other French regions. The press at that time valued it at 1,154 million francs (about 100 million euros). The main beneficiary was the French State, thanks to a 1968 law by the minister and writer André Malraux which stipulated that families of artists had to pay their inheritance tax with works of art. But a good part of it was also taken by Picasso’s wives and children.
After fighting with the legislation of the time to be recognized as a legitimate descendant as an extramarital child, Claude Picasso participated in the realization of the inventory of the monumental work of his father. “We would have to rent the Empire State Building to keep all his works & rdquor;, assured this photojournalist at the time, who spent a good part of his youth in New York. A French court recognized him in 1989 as the administrator of the work and assets of his parent. Since 1995, he has carried out this task through the PA, the only body that can give certificates of authenticity of the works of the surrealist painter and who owns his copyright until 2043.
Inexhaustible sources of income
Without the talent or presence in the art world of his sister Paloma, Claude played a key role in managing his father’s estate, as well as the emergence of the Picasso brand as a money-making machine. At the beginning of the 2000s, this heritage was already valued “at about 10,000 million euros& rdquor ;, assured Olivier Widmaier Picasso, son of Maya (who died at the end of 2022) and grandson of the painter. The last paintings of the artist from Malaga auctioned at Christie’s were worth amounts greater than 100 million dollars.
The PA is not only dedicated to the commercialization and dissemination of its works, but also to grant certificates of authenticity and defend the author’s rights. Every time a Picasso painting appears in a book or the artist’s name is used for commercial purposes, he receives a fee.
Picasso, the brand
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He also fights against the thousands of companies that use his works without his consent. In addition, receive a part of the income of the Picasso Museum in Paris, despite being a public center. Your sources of income are inexhaustible. The dizzying figures in which this foundation moves fueled criticism in the art world, although many collectors also highlighted the good work of Claude Picasso when it came to certifying the authenticity of the works.
One of the most controversial decisions of the PA was the collaboration agreement with Citroën to baptize a range of its cars with the name of the artist for 20 years. Only in 2007, this collaboration helped the family foundation to enter about 3 million euros. When it was announced, the then director of the Picasso Museum in Paris, Jean Clair, criticized the conversion of “a unique work into a commercial asset.” And he predicted that “in the third millennium we will call cars Picasso in the same way as the poubelle (garbage) are named after the prefect Poubelle & rdquor ;. It was not necessary to wait that long to see that Picasso is no longer just an artist, but also a brand.