In a clash of two art market titans, the high-powered dealer Larry Gagosian and the Qatar royal family — now one of the world’s biggest collectors — have entered a legal dispute over who owns Picasso’s important plaster bust of his muse (and mistress) Marie-Thérèse, which is featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s current sculpture show.
In a legal action filed Tuesday morning and obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Gagosian claims that he bought the 1931 sculpture last May for about $106 million from Picasso’s daughter, Maya Widmaier-Picasso — with the advice of her daughter, Diana — and then sold the sculpture to an undisclosed New York collector who expects to receive it after MoMA’s show closes on Feb. 7.
The bust is a major work from a highly creative and emotional time in the artist’s life, depicting the evolution of a new erotic style he was developing that celebrated Marie-Thérèse’s beauty.
But the Qatari famil’s agent, Pelham Holdings, which is run by Guy Bennett, maintains that it secured an agreement with Ms. Widmaier-Picasso in November 2014 to buy the work at 38 million euros, or about $42 million.
The conflict highlights the stubbornly elusive nature of an increasingly competitive art market, in which deals are made behind closed doors and both the ownership and the worth of any given artwork can be difficult to determine. It also underscores the recession-proof value of Picasso’s works to dealers and collectors. Picasso’s total fine art sales in 2015 were just over $652 million beating out Andy Warhol for the year, according to Artnet, the New York based art researcher.
On Tuesday, the Gagosian Gallery filed an action against Pelham Europe in Manhattan federal court asking a judge to “quiet” any challenges or claims to its title of the artwork.
“We bought and sold the sculpture in good faith without knowledge of the alleged claim,” the Gagosian Gallery said in a statement. “We are entirely confident that our purchase and sale are valid and that Pelham has no rights to the work.”
Mr. Gagosian has a longstanding relationship with members of the Picasso family, having collaborated with Diana Widmaier-Picasso, Picasso’s granddaughter, on a show of the artist’s sculptures at Mr. Gagosian’s uptown New York gallery in 2003.
In 2011, Mr. Gagosian mounted an exhibition at his Chelsea gallery of the artist’s work inspired by the relationship between Picasso and Marie-Thérèse, who were Maya Widmaier-Picasso’s parents (though the pair never married). The show, “Picasso and Marie-Thérèse; L’amour Fou,” prompted several bidders to offer “more than $100 million for the work,” court papers say.
Ms. Widmaier-Picasso originally agreed to sell the sculpture in November 2014 through the now-defunct firm Connery, Pissarro, Seydoux to Pelham, which purchased it on behalf of Sheik Jassim bin Abdulaziz al-Thani. He is married to Sheika al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, chairwoman of the Qatar Museums Authority, who has become one of the most powerful players in the art world. The al-Thani family has ruled the oil-rich state since its founding in 1850.
In court papers, Mr. Gagosian — represented by Dontzin Nagy & Fleissig — questions how Pelham managed to secure Ms. Widmaier-Picasso’s “supposed consent to such an unreasonably low price,” of $42 million and whether the Pelham agreement was ever valid, since it requires “full payment.”
After consulting with her daughter Diana, who reminded her mother of the offers in excess of $100 million, court papers say, Ms. Widmaier-Picasso contested the sale as “null and void,” returning the 6 million euros of the purchase price that Pelham had paid that far.
In May 2015, Ms. Widmaier-Picasso — with Diana’s advice — agreed to sell the work to Mr. Gagosian for $105.8 million, with the understanding that he would resell it.
That same month, Pelham sued Ms. Widmaier-Picasso and Connery Seydoux in Switzerland to execute the sale. It then unsuccessfully petitioned a French court to seize the work from Ms. Widmaier-Picasso.
Mr. Gagosian asserts that on October 2, 2015, title passed to him after his third payment. To date he has paid $79.7 million to Ms. Widmaier-Picasso, or 75 percent of the purchase price.
Mr. Gagosian says in court papers that he “did not learn anything” about Pelham’s claim to the work until late in October 2015, when Pelham found out that the sculpture was at MoMA and wrote a letter to Mr. Gagosian asserting that it had a “priority claim” to the work. Pelham subsequently told Mr. Gagosian’s counsel it would have the sculpture removed from MoMA, court papers say.
Glenn Lowry, MoMA’s director, said he had no comment on the case.
On Nov. 29, Pelham — represented by Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler — filed an application to compel the Gagosian Gallery and Ms. Widmaier-Picasso to provide information regarding the sale.
“While counsel for Gagosian do not dispute that a sale occurred, they continue to obfuscate the relevant facts and hinder Pelham’s ability to prosecute the pending foreign proceedings,” the court papers say.
In a brief supporting its discovery demands, Pelham said that Mr. Gagosian knowingly defied the sculpture’s previous purchase. “Diana Widmaier-Picasso and Gagosian contrived a purported sale after-the-fact in an attempt to thwart Pelham’s rights,” the brief says, “because they sought a higher purchase price stemming from a sale to Gagosian that would likely allow the Sculpture to be replicated and commercialized as opposed to being preserved as a unique work of art, as contemplated by Maya Widmaier-Picasso in the sale to Pelham.”
By the time he died in 1973, Picasso had created around 50,000 artworks and had left behind four children and eight grandchildren, along with wives and muses, who have frequently battled over his estate and legacy.
Recently, another Picasso granddaughter, Marina Picasso, raised art market concerns by preparing to sell off many of the artist’s works to finance and broaden her philanthropy.
Mr. Gagosian has faced litigation before. In 2012, the collector, Jan Cowles, 93, sued the dealer, accusing him of selling a 1964 Roy Lichtenstein painting, “Girl in Mirror,” from her collection without her consent.
In 2014, the court dismissed claims by the billionaire collector Ronald O. Perelman that Mr. Gagosian had taken advantage of him by “undervaluing works when purchasing them, overvaluing them when selling them and pocketing the substantial differential.”
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment