Picasso paintings to be sold for charity
Picassos granddaughter, Marina Picasso, will be selling seven of the famous painters works, valued at more than $250 million and donating all the money to…
A Christie’s employee stands beside a work entitled ‘Tete de Femme’ by Pablo Picasso on January 20, 2010 in London, England. (Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Picassos granddaughter, Marina Picasso, will be selling seven of the famous painters works, valued at more than $250 million and donating all the money to charity.
Marina is heir to 10,000 works by the legendary and immensely talented Spanish artist. A select few are about to hit the international art market and none of the sales will involve a dealer or auction house.
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Portrait of Pablo Picasso (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
It is quite unconventional for one to avoid the auction block when trying to sell art pieces but it does reap a greater monetary reward.
Its better for me to sell my works and preserve the money to redistribute to humanitarian causes, she told The New York Times. I have paintings, of course, that I can use to support these projects.
Marina backs many international charities with her inheritance including a pediatric hospital in Vietnam, as well as organizations in France and Switzerland that assist the elderly and troubled teens.
Rumors have suggested the paintings include “Portrait de femme” (estimated to be worth about $60 million), “Femme à la Mandoline” (estimated to be worth about $60 million), and “Maternité” (estimated to be worth about $54 million).
According to Marina, the first work that will be sold is a 1935 piece called “La Famille,” which depicts a family set against an arid landscape.
Its symbolic because I was born in a great family, but it was a family that was not a family, she said.
Marinas decision to skip the auction house may be due to a failed charity action in 2013, which did not live up to her expectations, according to The Guardian. By going private, selling each painting “one by one, based on need,” she’ll have more control and a more exclusive network of collectors to deal with.
“I find it interesting that people might be surprised that someone who has pictures might sell them herself,” art consultant Patrick Legant told The Guardian. “Im sure a lot of pictures are sold, not through a dealer or an auction house, but because they know people who might be interested, and Im sure she knows a lot of people who have the means to buy a Picasso.”
The granddaughter of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, Marina Picasso, poses in her house ‘Pavillon de Flore’, on June 19, 2013, in Cannes, southeastern France. (AFP PHOTO / JEAN CHRISTOPHE MAGNENET /Getty Images)
The Times hinted there is a reason another than the charities that Marina is selling the paintings. The sale is something of a “purging” of her legacy.
Marina and her grandfather did not have a healthy relationship, one lacking in love, as described in her 2001 memoir.
“No one in my family managed to escape his stranglehold,” she wrote. “He needed blood to sign each of his paintings: my father’s blood, my brother’s, my mother’s, my grandmother’s, and mine; the blood of all those who loved him people who thought that they loved a human being, whereas instead they loved Picasso.”
When her grandfather died in 1973 and Marina inherited an unknown but staggering sum, she saw it more as a means to enable her passion to help others rather than spend the inheritance on frivolous or material purposes.
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It was really difficult to carry this celebrated name and to have a difficult financial life, she told The Times. I think because of it I developed my sense of humanity and my desire to help others.
